Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Re-cap of AALS Panel on "The Concept of Peace in Law, Culture and Society"

Over at the War Time blog, Mary Dudziak (Emory Law) is posting "summaries and snippets" from an AALS roundtable in January on The Concept of Peace in Law, Culture and Society. The roundtable, which Dudziak moderated, included Petra Goedde (Temple University Department of History); John N. Moore (University of Virginia School of Law) (founder of the U.S. Institute of Peace); Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University); Mateo Taussig-Rubbo (University at Buffalo Law School); and Ruti G. Teitel (New York Law School).

Here's an excerpt from the first post, by historian Petra Goedde:
[D]espite the prevalence of a wartime sentiment in American society and culture, the rhetoric of peace was ubiquitous particularly in the 1950s and 60s. This rhetoric did not come only from those in opposition to the cold war arms build-up. It also pervaded much of the political discourse within the United States and the diplomatic exchanges between the principal cold war adversaries. Moreover, this rhetoric was not exclusively aspirational. Both sides maintained that war preparedness was an essential aspect of their peace policy. The concept of peace became an essential political tool in the conflict between East and West.
Read on here.