Die völkerrechtlichen Konsequenzen des Vertrages von St. Germain

Abstract

When considering the contribution of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to the development of international law,reference is usually made to the League of Nations and the ILO, whose founding documents formed an integral partof the peace treaties between the Allied and Associated Powers and the former Central Powers. While the creation ofthe League and the ILO indeed ushered in a new era of institutionalized international cooperation and, hence, may beseen as the most spectacular outcome of the Peace Conference from the point of view of international law, the implicationsof the peace settlements for the evolving international legal order do not stop here. Taking the Treaty of St.Germain (the “Austrian Treaty”) as a case in point, it will be shown, for instance, that provisions entailing an explicitattribution of guilt for the war (which was directly linked to the imposition of reparation payments by Austria) maywell be seen as a first step towards the eventual general outlawry of wars of aggression in international law. Likewise,stipulations as to the general prohibition of the use of certain categories of weapons, provisions on the prosecution ofindividuals accused of war crimes before military tribunals of the Allied and Associated Powers, as well as treatyarrangements designed to ensure the protection of national minorities, contributed significantly to the progressivedevelopment of important areas of contemporary international law.