ABSTRACT
The international law that since the end of the First World War erected peace into an absolute value caused political agents themselves to misunderstand the constraints imposed by coexistence in a state of nature. Aron treats international law and the directive principles of the League of Nations and of the United Nations in several chapters of Peace and War. Aron's first target, is the theory according to which the treaties established to put an end to war are the expression of an international public law that detaches itself from the practices of politics. In his eyes, treaties only translate relations of power: They only consecrate the victory of one state and the defeat of another. The function of treaties being strictly limited, Aron underscores that international public law as it was formerly conceived never had for its purpose the elimination of war.
