Genealogy of the concept of peace in international public law

This paper aims to develop a critical genealogy of the notion of peace, as a founding concept of modern international law. An attempt is made to explain how the liberal roots of this notion led to its consolidation as an armistice, as a containment of existing hostilities. First, the role of the Peace of Westphalia is analyzed, through the emergence of the principle of non-intervention, in the construction of the figure of the State that guarantees peace. Then, the successive contributions that represented the League of Nations and, above all, the United Nations through the regulation and finally prohibition of the use of force are presented. In particular, the functionality of the principles of non-use of force and peaceful resolution of disputes in the configuration of the idea of international peace will be analyzed. Finally, the potential of the recent concept of responsibility to protect for the gestation of genuine peace is postulated. Through this last legal figure, a differential-relational approach to international law is proposed as an alternative to rethink international coexistence in a plural way, to move from a peace as an armistice to a real peace as a host of otherness, as hospitality.