INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS

INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS AS A METHOD OF DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Discourse to international peace agreements or treaties for resolving international disputes seems the best ideal for a peaceful world today. Much stress is laid on peace inviting agreements between the states as well as intra state forces. Nothing is like a just agreement between the conflicting parties. But the agreement to be just is the sole working ground for the mediators as well as the contending parties. For no two parties to a dispute, may they be states or intra state forces, are supposed to be equally equipped to have its rightful demands and terms embodied in a proposed agreement. In the context of Israel-Palestine conflict under the title of Declaration of Principles it was once proposed that ‘imperfect peace’ is often the ultimate and only alternative to a ‘perfect war’. Which means in order to stop a war an imperfect and unjust peace agreement can be preferred. This slogan has been proved futile and totally unworkable defeating the very purpose for which it was supposedly devised. For the world has witnessed at least two fierce examples of utmost failure of this slogan when after the peace agreement killings in Rwanda and killings in Angola have claimed millions of lives.

      The Universal Declaration of Human Rights envisages      that in order to stop people to have rebellion against tyranny and oppression as a last resort, the Human Rights should be guaranteed and protected through the practice of Rule of Law. International Law does not suppose peace agreements based on violation of human rights or suppressing of one party to reach an unjust or hasty agreement. This unholy haste in reaching a biased or prejudiced and partial agreement is the very seed of future conflicts of enhanced magnitude and worse consequences. The proposed agreements should very much be based on the lawful assumption of equality of rights and equality of claims to Human Rights protection irrespective of the disparity and asymmetry on the part of the parties to the dispute going for a proposed agreement. Agreement by force, threat and black mailing is no agreement. Taking advantage of the situation of one party being weaker the other being more powerful, and imposing an unjust and unbalanced solution on the weaker party to the dispute will only result in future more serious conflict as history of the international disputes proves that power disparity is not a permanent feature of the respective parties; the power balance may shift and endanger the peace again flouting the very agreement which sought to conceive it. For a proposed peace agreement to succeed or fail much depends upon the settlement being based on the recognized principles of international law giving due consideration to the sovereignty of states and human rights of the individual.