On the Law of Peace Peace Agreements and the Lex Pacificatoria

Author: Christine Bell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199226832
Published In: September 2008
Format: Hardback , 410 pages
Jurisdiction: International ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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The first major, comprehensive text analyzing peace agreements
Brings together disparate areas of law which impact on peace agreements, including self-determination law, law relating to amnesties, and law relating to peacekeeping
Includes comparative analysis of around 640 peace agreements from over 80 jurisdictions
Christine Bell is also author of the highly successful Peace Agreement and Human Rights

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of peace agreements from a legal perspective. It describes and evaluates the development of contemporary peace processes and the peace agreements that emerge. The book sets out what is in essence an anatomy of peace agreement practice and interrogates its relationship to law.

At its heart the book grapples with the role of law in ending violent conflict and the broader questions this raises for the relationship of law to social change. Law potentially plays two key roles with respect to peace agreements: first, to the extent that peace agreements themselves form legal documents, law plays a role in the 'enforcement' or implementation of the peace agreement; second, international law has a relationship to peace agreement negotiation and content, in its regulatory guise. International Law regulates self-determination, transitional justice, and the role of third parties. The book documants and analyses these two roles of law.

In doing so, the book reveals a complex dynamic relationship between the peace agreement as a legal document and the role of international law in which international law and concepts of domestic constitutionalism are being re-shaped. The practice of negotiating peace agreements is argued to be producing a new law of the peacemaker-or

lex pacificatoria

that connects developments in international law with new forms of domestic constitutional law in a set of hybrid relationships. This law of the peacemaker potentially forms part of a broader 'law of peace' that moves beyond the traditional concept of law of peace as merely 'the rest of international law' once the laws of war are subtracted.

The new

lex pacificatoria

stands as an account of the way in which international law shapes and is shaped by peace agreements. The book proposes an ambivalent response to 'this new law' which connects to contemporary debates about the force of international law and its appropriate relationship with domestic constitutonalism.

Readership: Academics, scholars, and advanced students in international law, politics, international relations, and peace studies. Also practioners in the law of international organisations, and peace studies.

Acknowledgements
Table of Cases
table of Treaties, Conventions, and Other international Instruments
Prologue
Introduction
1: An Overture
Part I: Understanding Peace Agreements
2: The Rise in Peace Agreements and International Law
3: Peace Agreement Patterns
4: The Peace Agreement in Historical Context
5: The Contemporary Peace Agreement
Part II: Peace Agreements as Legal Documents
6: The Difficulties of Legal Categorization
7: Peace Agreement Legal Form
8: Peace Agreement Obligations
9: Peace Agreement Third Party Enforcement
Part III: Peace Agreements and the Revision of International Law: The Force of the Lex
10: Constitutionalizing Conflict
11: The New Law of Hybrid Self-determination
12: The New Law of Transitional Justice
13: The New Law of Third Party Intervention
Part IV: Conclusion
14: Lex Pacificatoria: Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Appendices (with Catherine O'Rourke)
1: Peace Agreement Collection: Description of Content, Sources and Format
2: Intrastate Peace Agreements
3: Interstate Agreements addressing Intrastate Conflict
4: Interstate Peace Agreements

Christine Bell, Professor of Public International Law, Transitional Justice Institute, University of

"Christine Bell's book is the most creative and exciting legal scholarship on peace agreements and their role in addressing conflict throughout the world. Drawing on rich scholarship (and on personal experience), she attempts to make sense of the complexity, whilst at the same time arguing that the difficulty in pinning down the exact nature of these peace agreements is part of their strength. A tour de force. Christopher McCrudden, Professor of Human Rights Law, Lincoln College, Oxford; Fellow of the British Academy"

"Already a well established authority on peace agreements, Christine Bell, in this work claims her rightful place as leading scholar of peace processes. She moves beyond a technical reading of peace agreements and toward a complex, disorienting, and deeply personal narrative of peace processes. Meticulously researched and artfully argued, this book is destined to become a classic text to be read by scholars, students and practitioners in the fields of law and international politics for years to come. Julie Mertus, Co-Director, Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs Program, American University; author of Human Rights Matters"

"Bell's book is well written and thoroughly developed. Its insights are incisive and useful. The book is distinct from, but builds upon her earlier work Peace Agreements and Human Rights. It will be of use to student, researcher and practitioner alike." - Illan rua Wall, Irish Yearbook of International Law