The Nine Power Treaty Conference, called in Brussels in November 1937 to find a solution to the crisis in China, brought together a large number of western democracies and marked one of the most significant attempts of the late inter-war years at upholding and preserving the existing international order against aggression. However, the conference was a failure, reflected partly in the three Scandinavian countries’ decision to abstain from voting for the final declaration critical of Japan’s invasion. This paper seeks to explore the causalities behind the Scandinavian abstention, describing the inter-regional dynamics between Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and placing it in a historical context in which the three nations were in the process of abandoning their support of the novel concept of collective security in favor of a more traditional policy of neutrality anchored in the perceived interests of the nation state.