Introduction: Versailles and the Broadening of ‘Peace Through Law’

Abstract

On 9 May 1919, a little more than forty-eight hours after the Allies had handed over the text of the Versailles Treaty to the representatives of Germany, a small ceremonial dinner was held at the Hôtel Bedford, in the fashionable 8th arrondissement of Paris. As one American attendee later wrote to his wife, it was a high-brow affair. The guest list included a grandnephew of Napoleon I, Prince Roland-Napoléon Bonaparte, and Albert I, Prince of Monaco. However, like their host, the British barrister and academic Sir Thomas Barclay, most of the twenty or so diners were highly regarded authorities on international law. They were also members of the Institut de Droit International (IDI), which, a few hours earlier, had concluded an extraordinary two-day session at the Ceremonial Hall of the Paris Law Faculty. All were gathered to honour the man whose ideas were profoundly changing the way people thought about international relations and international law: the President of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson.1 The IDI had not convened since its Oxford session in August 1913—its subsequent session, meant to take place in Munich in September of the following year, had been cancelled after the summer of 1914 had ended in mobilization and war.2 Founded in 1873 as a reaction to the Franco–Prussian war of 1870–1871, the IDI had vowed to ‘promote the progress of international law’ . By declaring that they would ‘[strive] to formulate the general principles of the subject, in such a way as to correspond to the legal conscience of the civilized world’ , its members had openly challenged the monopoly of governments over international law.3 The idea that international disputes might be better resolved by legal experts rather than governements or diplomats had also been gaining ground among a somewhat