§ XXXII
Interpreting Peace Treaties Faithfully
A king must scrupulously keep peace treaties, interpreting ambiguous articles by the immediate practice that followed them, for that practice is the infallible guide to the original intent.
Have you scrupulously carried out the peace treaties? Have you never broken them under fine-sounding pretexts? As for ambiguous articles in the older peace treaties, instead of using them as grounds for war, you must interpret them by the practice that immediately followed them.1 That immediate practice is the infallible interpretation of the words. Immediately after the treaty, the parties understood one another perfectly: they knew better then what they had meant to say than anyone can know fifty years later.2 So possession is decisive on that point; and to try to disturb it is to try to evade what is most secure and most inviolable among humankind.3
Three Principles to Guard Against Treaty Evasion
When tempted to evade treaties by local laws, remember three things: the law of nations supersedes local customs, sovereigns bind their nations, and legal subtleties will unravel all pacts, making war incurable and peace a mere truce.
For treaties that people are tempted to break using arguments from local law, three things must be kept in mind. First: once succession is admitted for states, the customs and local legal rules of particular countries must be subordinated to the law of nations, which is infinitely superior to them, and to the inviolable faith of peace treaties, which are the sole foundation of security for humankind.4 Would it be just for a local custom to block a peace necessary for the safety of all Europe?5 Just as a city's civic order must yield to the essential needs of the whole state, of which it's only a member, so the legal rules of provinces must give way as soon as the law of nations and the security of their alliances are at stake. Second: the sovereign princes who make these solemn treaties make them in the name of their entire nations, and with the forms in use in their time, so as to give them the full supreme authority of law.6 Thus, in this respect, they set aside the particular laws of the provinces. Third: once you allow yourself—under any pretext, however specious, even under the color of local laws—to shake peace treaties, you'll always find legal subtleties to cancel every exchange, cession, grant, compensation, and other pact on which the world's safety and peace rest.7 War will become an incurable evil. Treaties will only remain valid until someone finds a convenient opportunity to start the war again. Peace will be nothing more than a truce—and even a truce of uncertain duration. Every border of every state will be left hanging in the air.8
Two Pillars of International Stability
The two fundamental rules for world stability are that treaties are inviolable and interpreted by immediate practice, and that long peaceful possession establishes legitimate ownership; without these there is no security, and the king must examine whether he has followed them.
To give the world some stability and the nations some security, you have to take as given, above everything else, two points that are like the two poles of the whole earth: first, that every peace treaty sworn between two princes is inviolable as far as they are concerned, and must always be taken simply in its most natural sense and interpreted by how it was immediately carried out; second, that every peaceful and uninterrupted possession, held for as long as the law requires even for the least favorable forms of prescription, must establish certain and legitimate ownership for the one who holds it, whatever defect that possession may have had at its origin.9 Without these two fundamental rules, there is no rest or security anywhere in the human race. Have you always followed them?
Read the original French
Avez- vous exécuté ponctuellement les traités de paix? Ne les avez- vous jamais violés sous de beaux prétextes ? A l'égard des articles des anciens traités de paix qui sont ambigus, au lieu d'en tirer des sujets de guerre, il faut les interpréter par la pratique quilles a suivis immédiatement. Cette pratique immédiate est l'interprétation infaillible des paroles. Les parties, immédiatement après le- traité r s'entendoient elles-mêmes parfaitement: elles savoient mieux alors ce qu'elles avoient voulu dire, qu'on ne le peut savoir cinquante ans après. Ainsi la pussession est décisive à cet égard- là ; et vouloir la troubler, c'est vouloir éluder ce qu'il y a de plus assuré et de plus inviolable dans le genre humain.
Pour les traités contre lesquels on est tenté de revenir par des raisons de jurisprudence particulière, il faut observer trois choses ; i° dès qu'on admet la succession pour les Etats, il faut soumettre les coutumes et jurisprudences des pays particuliers, au droit des gens, qui leur est infiniment supérieur, et à la foi inviolable des traités de paix, qui sont l'unique fondement de la sûreté de la nature humaine. Seroit-il juste qu'une coutume particulière empêchât une paix nécessaire au salut de toute l'Europe ? Comme la police d'une ville doit céder aux besoins essentiels de tout l'Etat, dont elle n'est qu'un membre; de même, les jurisprudences de provinces doivent disparoître, dès qu'il s'agit de ce droit des nations et de la sûreté de leurs alliances ; 2° les princes souverains qui font ces traités solennels, les font au nom de leurs nations entières, et avec les formes en usage de leur temps, pour leur donner toute la suprême autorité des lois. Ainsi, à cet égard, ils dérogent aux lois particulières des provinces ; 3° si une fois on se permet, sous aucun prétexte, si spécieux qu'il puisse être, même des lois particulières, d'ébranler les traités de paix, on trouvera toujours des subtilités de jurisprudence pour annuler tous les échanges, cessions, donations, compensations et autres pactes, sur lesquels la sûreté et la paix du monde sont fondées. La guerre deviendra un mal sans remède. Les traités ne seront plus des actes valides, que jusqu'à ce qu'on ait une occasion avantageuse de recommencer la guerre. La paix ne sera plus qu'une trêve, et même une trêve d'une durée incertaine. Toutes les bornes des Etats seront comme en l'air.
Pour donner quelque consistance au monde et quelque sûreté aux nations, il faut supposer, par préférence à tout le reste, deux points, qui sont comme les deux pôles de la terre entière : l'un que tout traité de paix, juré entre deux princes, est inviolable à leur égard, et doit toujours être pris simplement dans son sens le plus naturel, et interprété par l'exécution immédiate ; l'autre, que toute possession paisible et non interrompue, depuis les temps que la jurisprudence demande pour les prescriptions les moins favorables, doit acquérir une propriété certaine et légitime à celui qui a cette possession, quelque vice qu'elle ait pu avoir dans son origine. Sans ces deux règles fondamentales, point de repos, ni de sûreté dans tout le genre humain. Les avez-vous toujours suivies ?
Notes
- 1 ↩Source reading 'quilles a suivis' is corrupt (likely OCR). Translated as 'qui les a suivis' / the practice that immediately followed the articles, which matches the sense of s4–s5 on immediate post-treaty practice.
- 2 ↩Normalized garbled 'le- traité r' to 'le traité'; retained classical spellings (s'entendoient, savoient, avoient) as modern 'understood / knew / had'.
- 3 ↩Source 'pussession' corrected to 'possession'.
- 4 ↩"revenir" here means to reopen or renege on a treaty, not merely to return to it for discussion; "droit des gens" is the law of nations (ius gentium).
- 5 ↩"salut" here is political safety/welfare of Europe, not primarily theological salvation.
- 6 ↩"police" here means civic administration/order (ancien régime sense), not a modern police force.
- 7 ↩"sous aucun prétexte, si spécieux qu'il puisse être" is rendered as "under any pretext, however specious," preserving the absolute prohibition force of the French.
- 8 ↩"comme en l'air" is figurative: boundaries would no longer rest on solid title—unstable, unsettled, without firm ground.
- 9 ↩"prescriptions" here is the legal term (acquisition of title by long, peaceful possession / usucapion), not medical prescription. "les prescriptions les moins favorables" means the longest or most demanding limitation periods the law sets for establishing title.
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