Join us for an evening of discussion with the authors
OONA A. HATHAWAY
Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
SCOTT J. SHAPIRO
Professor of Law and Philosophy, Yale Law School
With a special welcome by
AMBASSADOR FRANÇOIS DELATTRE
Permanent Representative of France to the UN
Cultural Services of the French Embassy
972 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10075
6 p.m. | Registration
6:30 p.m. | Program and Book Signing
7:30 p.m. | Reception
THE INTERNATIONALISTS is a bold and provocative history of the men who fought to outlaw war and how an often overlooked treaty signed in 1928 was among the most transformative events in modern history.
On a hot summer afternoon in 1928, the leaders of the world assembled in Paris to outlaw war. Within the year, the treaty signed that day, known as the Peace Pact, had been ratified by nearly every state in the world. War, for the first time in history, had become illegal the world over. But the promise of that summer day was fleeting. Within a decade of its signing, each state that had gathered in Paris to renounce war was at war. And in the century that followed, the Peace Pact was dismissed as an act of folly and an unmistakable failure. This book argues that that understanding is inaccurate, and that the Peace Pact ushered in a sustained march toward peace that lasts to this day.
The Internationalists tells the story of the Peace Pact by placing it in the long history of international law from the seventeenth century through the present, tracing this rich history through a fascinating and diverse array of lawyers, politicians and intellectuals—Hugo Grotius, Nishi Amane, Salmon Levinson, James Shotwell, Sumner Welles, Carl Schmitt, Hersch Lauterpacht, and Sayyid Qutb. It tells of a centuries-long struggle of ideas over the role of war in a just world order. It details the brutal world of conflict the Peace Pact helped extinguish, and the subsequent era where tariffs and sanctions take the place of tanks and gunships.
In their book, authors Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro examine with renewed appreciation an international system that has outlawed wars of aggression and brought unprecedented stability to the world map. Accessible and gripping, The Internationalists will change the way we view the history of the twentieth century.
We invite you to join us tonight for an evening with the authors as they discuss their book, as well as highlighting how we must work together to protect the global order the internationalists fought to make possible.
In addition, François Delattre, the Ambassador of France to the United Nations, will appear to offer his warm welcome.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE INTERNATIONALISTS
"In this timely, elegant and powerful book, Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro help us understand the momentous significance of the individuals who imagined an end to war. As the world stands on the cusp of a return to an earlier age, THE INTERNATIONALISTS is a clarion call to maintain law and order across our planet." Philippe Sands QC, Professor of Law, University College London, author of East West Street
"Sweeping and yet personable at the same time, The Internationalists explores the profound implications of the outlawry of war. Professors Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro enrich their analysis with vignettes of the many individuals (some unknown to most students of History) who played such important roles in this story. None have put it all together in the way that Hathaway and Shapiro have done in this book." Paul Kennedy, Professor of History, Yale University, author of The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
"The Internationalists, by Yale law school professors Scott Shapiro and Oona Hathaway, is a provocative, fascinating, and significant book. It deserves to be on the bookshelf of all serious students of foreign affairs and promises to rattle conventional wisdom as well as foster a healthy debate." Jay Winik, author of April 1865 and 1944, Historian-in- Residence, Council on Foreign Relations
"A searching analysis of contending views of state violence and warfare….Rich in implication, particularly in a bellicose time, and of much interest to students of modern history and international relations." Kirkus Reviews
"Hathaway and Shapiro adopt a fundamentally revisionist perspective on the oft-dismissed Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, positing that the agreement 'marked the beginning of the end' of war between states. The pact inspired the human-rights revolution, the use of economic sanctions, and the creation of international organizations focusing on peace….the authors provocatively argue that, since 1945, conquest 'has nearly disappeared' as 'an accepted procedure for changing borders'.…Hathaway and Shapiro's conclusion can be debated—but not easily dismissed." Publishers Weekly
"An engrossing narrative that provides a new framework for interpreting international relations over the previous five centuries." Library Journal, Starred Review
Guest Speaker
OONA A. HATHAWAY
Oona A. Hathaway is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School and the Director of the Center for Global Legal Challenges.
Hathaway has published essays and opinion pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy. She served as the Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense in 2014-2015, for which she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She is a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser of the US Department of State and an active member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar.
She earned her BA from Harvard College and a JD from Yale Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Law Journal. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
SCOTT J. SHAPIRO
Scott J. Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School, where he is the Director of the Center for Law and Philosophy. He is also the Visiting Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, London.
Shapiro earned his BA and PhD degrees in philosophy from Columbia University and a JD from Yale Law School, where he was senior editor of The Yale Law Journal. He is the author of Legality and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Law. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
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