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
10 - The Peace Treaties of Westphalia as an instance of the reception of Roman law
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
Introduction
The role of Roman law in the development of international law has been appreciated in quite different ways. In some manuals, such as those by Nussbaum, Grewe and Truyol y Serra, this role has certainly been underestimated. Another position is defended by Ziegler: from his earlier publications until his recent general survey on the history of international law, he has shown a wide variety of influences of Roman law on the development of international law. Of course, this difference in appreciation of the role of Roman law is closely linked with what I would like to call the ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ approaches to the history of international law. A ‘minimalist’ concept defines international law as law between sovereign states. Sovereignty in the modern sense does not appear before the sixteenth century, so, therefore, the ‘real’ history of international law does not start until the early modern period. In the minimalist opinion, there has hardly ever been any interest in the question whether the concepts of international law have been influenced by Roman law.
On the other hand, the ‘maximalist’ approach applies a wider concept of ‘international’, so that the earliest forms of peace treaties mark the beginning of the history of international law. The great problem for the ‘maximalist’ approach concerns the Middle Ages, when the emperor of the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nation and the pope both claimed universal recognition, which seems to exclude the existence of international law.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Peace Treaties and International Law in European HistoryFrom the Late Middle Ages to World War One, pp. 222 - 238Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004