Story of International Relations

340 J.-A. PEMBERTON

APPeAsement: fAiling tHe test of reAlism?

In an article addressing the Munich settlement, Wright attempted to
establish the conditions under which the expression peaceful change
can reasonably and justly be applied to a situation. Noting that what
Chamberlain saw as a triumph of the conference method, in the sense
that Munich appeared to have forestalled Hitler’s threats of violence,
others saw as a ‘deplorable instance of the use of threats of war as an
instrument of national policy,’ Wright posed the following question:

In what degree must violence, threats of violence, or violations of interna-

tional law contribute to the result in a given transaction, in which actual

war does not occur, in order to render the transaction non-peaceful?^357

Wright responded to his question in describing the process of peaceful
change as follows:

Let us define peaceful change as change in law or rights through proce-

dures other than war which are in accord with the international obliga-

tions of the parties concerned, or which the law recognizes as competent

in emergencies to override normal rights and obligations in the interest of

either justice or the welfare of the community of nations as a whole.^358

Applying this definition to the Munich settlement, Wright observed
that war had been avoided and peace, in a strict sense, had not been dis-
turbed. However, Wright then went on argue that if one were to con-
ceive of peace in broader terms, then it may well have been breached at
Munich. Wright concluded by observing that

the fundamental legal criticism of the settlement rests on the fact that the

statesmen responsible for it placed the substance of the settlement ahead of

the procedure by which it was achieved...Constitutional government con-

sists in the determination of the citizens of the state that adherence to the

procedures set forth in the constitution shall be treated as more important

than any specific grievance, demand or reform.^359

(^357) Quincy Wright, ‘The Munich Settlement and International Law,’ American Journal of
International Law 33, no. 1 (1939): 12–32, 13.
(^358) Ibid.
(^359) Ibid., 31. Wright further stated that the statesmen at Munich ‘thus duplicated the
error of the statesmen at Versailles twenty years earlier. The Versailles settlement may not