The International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense Against Anarchists was held between 24 November and 21 December 1898 following the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Luigi Lucheni on the promenade of Lake Geneva on 10 September 1898.
It was also agreed that governments should try to limit press coverage of anarchist activities and that the death penalty should be mandatory punishment for all assassinations of heads of state.
[3] The authorities used the opportunity to organize an international system of exchange among the national police agencies, using the portrait parlé method of criminal identification.
This was developed from the bertillonage system invented by Alphonse Bertillon and involved the classification of criminal suspects on the basis of numerically expressed measurements of parts of their head and body.
[4] Portugal and Spain were to subsequently agree to this, while France and Great Britain decided not sign the St. Petersburg Protocol, but did express a willingness to help other states on police matters relating to anarchism.