It was a direct follow-up to the 1831 Treaty of the XVIII Articles, which the Netherlands had refused to sign, and the result of negotiations at the London Conference of 1838–1839 which sought to maintain the Concert of Europe.

[7] However the settlement was not accepted by the Dutch, who invaded the country in the autumn of 1831;[8] and it took a French army recapturing Antwerp in 1832 before Belgium and the Netherlands could even agree an armistice.

The five great powers of Europe (Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom) also pledged to guarantee Belgium's neutrality.

[21] The reasoning may have had at least as much to do with the British fear that lack of their help leading to a possible defeat of France could lead to German hegemony in Western Europe, with Christopher Clark pointing out that the British cabinet decided on 29 July 1914 that, being a signatory to the 1839 treaty, guaranteeing Belgium's frontiers did not oblige it to oppose a German invasion of Belgium with military force.

[22] According to Isabel V. Hull, Annika Mombauer wrote "Few historians would still maintain that the 'rape of Belgium' was the real motive for Britain's declaration of war on Germany".

Instead, the role of Belgian neutrality is variously interpreted as an excuse used to mobilise public opinion, to provide embarrassed radicals in the cabinet with the justification for abandoning the principal (sic) of pacifism and thus staying in office, or – in the more conspiratorial versions – as cover for naked imperial interests".

[25] After a series of failed negotiations, the Belgian and Dutch governments agreed to take the issue to the Permanent Court of Arbitration and respect its ruling in the case.

In a ruling of 24 May 2005, the court acknowledged both the Belgian rights under the cessation treaty of 1839 and the Dutch concerns for part of the Meinweg National Park nature reserve.