Dreams Born and Shattered 347titioners may not have prevented a Second World War from erupting. But
they made many other— oft en little noticed— advances.Peace and Punishment
Th e Paris Peace Conference of 1919 was a star- studded aff air by any
standard— a worthy successor to the great peace conferences of the past,
such as Westphalia in 1648 or Vienna in 1815. It resembled the Congress of
Vienna in its ambitious aim to eff ect a nearly continent- wide redrawing of
po liti cal boundaries and to put in place a settlement that would be long-
lasting. Th e new gathering was greatly diff erent from its pre de ces sor,
though, in one key respect: that legal issues played a far greater role now
than they did a century earlier.
It was fi tting, then, that a considerable number of eminent international
lawyers were present. Some were veterans of one or both of the Hague Peace
Conferences. James Brown Scott, for example, was on the American delega-
tion. Cecil Hurst was present for Britain, as he was still the legal adviser to the
foreign offi ce. Bustamante represented Cuba. And Édouard Rolin- Jaequemyns
was secretary- general of the Belgian contingent. But there were signs, too, of a
generational change within the profession, as many of the leading prewar
fi gures were no longer on the scene. Several had died shortly before the war,
including Martens, Westlake, and Fiore. Others died during the confl ict or
immediately aft erward— including Renault, Oppenheim, Lammasch, Las-
son, Lawrence, and Liszt.
A number of the most prominent po liti cal fi gures at the conference had
experience of some kind in international law. Th e most notable of these, by
some margin, was a former professor of po liti cal science and public law (in-
cluding international law) named Woodrow Wilson, now applying his learn-
ing to practical aff airs as president of the United States. In addition, several of
the foreign ministers had signifi cant international-law backgrounds. Robert
Lansing, Wilson’s secretary of state, was one. As a law practitioner, he had
had much experience with international arbitrations. Another was the for-
eign minister of Greece, Nicolas Politis. A former student of Renault’s, he
became a law teacher in France but was then plucked from this obscure life
by Prime Minister Eleuthérios Venizelos of Greece in 1913 to serve in the