Treaty Obligation From the Protestant Reformation to 1919
Publisher: Audi Alteram Partem
Published: 2012
Format: Electronic resource
Number of pages: 120
Table of contents: title: Summary: 20th-century international law highlights the treaty as a legal source and says treaty obligations are legally binding. But Cambridge University Professor of International Law Clive Parry (1917-1982) significantly taught that the moral or "natural law" requirement to keep treaty promises was in the 19th century commonly considered to be binding in honour alone. Parry also argued that before 1914 publicists and diplomatists tended to exclude treaties from the ambit of international law which, he said, was then perceived to be primarily customary. This study tests the validity of Parry’s thesis via an examination of treaty obligation from the 16th-century Protestant Reformation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that brought an end to WW1. Attention is paid to the meaning of “honour” and its significance for the European States' system that gave rise to the law of nations. As in the Middle Ages, lawyers intoned "pacta sunt servanda" (agreements are to be kept). But the post-medieval framework lacked a legal remedy for breach of treaty. For 400 years, the moral or "natural law" requirement to keep treaty promises was deemed to be binding in honour alone.; title: Chapter 2: international law’s assessment of the treaty as a legal source.; title: Chapter 3: before WW1 treaties not always accepted as an integral part of international law.  *Chapter 4: why treaties not seen as legally binding and treaties governed by "pacta sunt servanda" as a moral or "natural law" requirement.; title: Chapter 5: the State’s moral personality, personification and treaties as “contracts of kings.”; title: Chapter 6: honour's role in the international States's system.; title: Chapter 7: “old diplomacy” as a milieu focusing on honour.; title: Chapter 8: kings, prime ministers, philosophers and lawyers on treaties as binding in honour.; title: Chapter 9: honour of treaties in Britain.; title: Chapter 10: honour of treaties in USA.; title: Chapter 11: before 1914 all treaties a “gentlemen’s agreement.; title: Chapter 12: “new diplomacy” and rise of legal paradigm.; title: Chapter 13: law-centered order from 1919 Paris Peace Conference and 20th-century discourse re treaties as legally binding.