The legal construction of peace, 1815-1870. Networks and arguments.

Peace activism is connected to the past (cf. pacification plans were conceived of in the Middle Ages or the Early Modern Period) and to the general image of international law as a discipline today. This proposal aims to investigate how lawyers' previous training and political culture had an effect on peace-activism, before international law was seen as a distinct profession, and before institutions and journals were set up. This is closely linked to the domestic constitutional evolution of the major European states between the Vienna Congress (1815) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). This project looks at the 1840s and 1850s, decades marked by the
1830 and 1848 revolutions in Europe, the campaign for the abolition of slavery, and the breakthrough of free trade. The Anglo-American world (United States, United Kingdom) and the continent (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium) are brought in relation and contrasted