Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Treaties
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART I Peace treaties and international law from Lodi to Versailles (1454–1920)
- PART II Thinking peace: voices from the past
- 5 Vestigia pacis. The Roman peace treaty: structure or event?
- 6 The influence of medieval Roman law on peace treaties
- 7 The kiss of peace
- 8 Martinus Garatus Laudensis on treaties
- 9 The importance of medieval canon law and the scholastic tradition for the emergence of the early modern international legal order
- 10 The Peace Treaties of Westphalia as an instance of the reception of Roman law
- PART III Thinking peace: towards a better future
- PART IV Making peace: aspects of treaty practice
- PART V Conclusion
- Appendix
- Index
7 - The kiss of peace
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Treaties
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- PART I Peace treaties and international law from Lodi to Versailles (1454–1920)
- PART II Thinking peace: voices from the past
- 5 Vestigia pacis. The Roman peace treaty: structure or event?
- 6 The influence of medieval Roman law on peace treaties
- 7 The kiss of peace
- 8 Martinus Garatus Laudensis on treaties
- 9 The importance of medieval canon law and the scholastic tradition for the emergence of the early modern international legal order
- 10 The Peace Treaties of Westphalia as an instance of the reception of Roman law
- PART III Thinking peace: towards a better future
- PART IV Making peace: aspects of treaty practice
- PART V Conclusion
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
We advance our understanding of differences by seeking what is universal; and the attempt to find generalising language in terms of which to compare things as to their resemblances as well as their differences leads us back again to a recognition of universals or part-universals.
Introduction
When today's media report the conclusion of a peace treaty, they invariably have their story accompanied by a ritualised scene: two or more dignitaries – usually middle-aged men – brandish their fountainpens (never ballpoints) and put what our legal experience tells us are their names to parallel arranged papers, after which younger men emerge from behind to assiduously blot the wet ink; then the older men get up and shake hands. The news factor cannot be high, as it is a standardised scene, at least in the Western world. The relevant information, the conditions that have been agreed upon for the peace to begin and to last, lies buried in a document with a multitude of paragraphs, of which the general public will only want to know those points which have been most controversial. Basically, the standardised scene conveys the very essence of what the elaborate document contains: that peace will begin, that the period of conflict has ended. The transition from one status to another is encapsulated in the scene, enacted for the public to look at and to be witness to.
Modern experience shows that the document and the staging of a scenic demonstration complement each other.
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- Peace Treaties and International Law in European HistoryFrom the Late Middle Ages to World War One, pp. 162 - 183Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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