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18 - Peacemaking in Old Regime Europe

from Part II - International Law in Old Regime Europe (1660–1775)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2025

By
Randall Lesaffer
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
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Summary

The Old Regime period saw the highpoint of the role of peace treaties in the political and legal ordering of Christian Europe. Whereas the peace instrument by and large continued to adhere to the legal logic of the settlement of disputes about right between pairs of belligerents, important peace treaties entered into the constitutional fabric of Europe through the workings of multilateral alliances and general peace conferences and through the networking of treaties in different fashions. The encompassing nature of warfare also led to a phase of the growth of the length and legal complexity of peace treaties, particularly during the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century in turn saw a trend towards the standardisation of peace treaty clauses, marking the emergence of an elaborate body of peacemaking lore, or even law.

Keywords

Old Regime Europelaw of nationsjus post bellumpeace treatiesPeace of Utrecht
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 588 - 619
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Alimento, Antonella, and Stapelbroek, Koen (eds.), The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century. Balance of Power, Balance of Trade (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2017).Google Scholar
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Duchhardt, Heinz, ‘Peace treaties from Westphalia to the Revolutionary Era’ in Lesaffer, Randall (ed.), Peace Treaties and International Law in European History. From the End of the Middle Ages to World War One (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004) 45–58.Google Scholar
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