CHAPTER: "Edouard Descamps: From ‘negative neutrality’ to ‘positive pacigerate’": in P. Sean MORRIS (ed.), The League of Nations and the Development of International Law. A New Intellectual History of the Advisory Committee of Jurists [Routledge Research in Legal History] (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 156-179, ISBN 9780367897536

(image source: Routledge)

Abstract:

Descamps (1847-1933), the president of the ‘Advisory Committee of Jurists for the Establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice’ (ACJ), is the author of a consistent monograph on Belgian neutrality in 1902. His condemnation of ‘negative’ classical neutrality (premised on impartiality and abstention) and his advocacy of a ‘positive’ ‘pacigérat’ remained a core conviction in his career as international lawyer. This chapter will shed light on Descamps’ career at the crossroads of academia, teaching, and international law (I), to devote substantive attention to his analysis of neutrality (II) and, finally (III), to his interpretation of the compatibility of ‘pacigérat’ with the League of Nations’ security system. Descamps’ role as President of the ACJ, and his position in the debate on the sources of international law to be applied by the PCIJ should be appreciated in the light of these successive stages of development.

(read more here: DOI  10.4324/9781003020882-8)