A history of the language of friendship in international treaties

The Political Import of Deconstruction—Derrida’s Limits?: A Forum on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part I

“…As a recent edited collection noted, though never entirely absent from the discipline, friendship has been treated loosely 'without a clear definition or systematic analysis, ' often used simply to describe 'non-confrontational or harmonious interstate relations' (Oelsner and Koschut 2014: 3). IR's relocation of friendship faces two limits: 9 first, that friendship is an identifiable, already extant relation in international politics; this makes friendship merely a cynical façade, reducing it to contractual 'friendly relations' between states (Devere et al 2011). Second, and implied within the first, friendship in IR is limited to states -states are the sole subjects of international friendship.…”

“…Although some contributions encourage response to a crucial question which animates Derrida's own overtly political texts, 'how should we respond to others?' (Devere and Smith 2010: 351;Berenskoetter 2007: 657;Derrida 1988: 638), most of the recent rethinking of friendship in IR has remained stuck within the conventional frame of the political: state, nation, territory and sovereignty (for example, see Devere et al 2011;Roschin 2011;Berenskoetter 2007;Van der Zweerde 2007). The subjects of friendship are deemed to be states, their leaders or their citizens.…”

Friendship as a Political Concept: A Groundwork for Analysis

“…Significantly, this has reopened the role that friendship can play between and within states and nations (Roshchin, 2006;Berenskoetter, 2007;King and Smith, 2007;Devere et al, 2011;Oelsner and Vion, 2011;Roshchin, 2011;Koschut and Oelsner, 2014). Second, by focusing on friendship rather than the qualities of 'the friend' recent scholarship has been attentive to a politics where notions of the over-arching good have been called into question.…”

Friendship and Politics

“…Notably, one of the connections between friendship and politics that has persisted over the centuries has been in the alliances between states and nations where the terminology of ‘friendship’ has been applied to the various treaties and contracts on peace, trade, military assistance and colonisation. The history of this is both long and diverse: for example, the Greeks and Romans used treaties of philia or amicitia ; oral friendship treaties exist between pre‐European Samoa and Tonga; the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 proclaimed ‘sincere Amity’ between signatories; the 1850s saw Anglo–Japanese friendship treaties; a Sino–Soviet Treaty of Friendship was signed in the 1950s; prior to the 1980s the United States pursued friendship treaties with Pacific island nations (such as the Republic of Kiribati in 1979); in 1984 the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was concluded between Argentina and Chile; and the ASEAN Treaty of South‐East Asian nations of 2005 was a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (compare Bederman, 2001; Devere et al ., 2007; Parish, 2006; Roshchin, 2006).…”

“…For example, Gyula Virag's (2004) study of the peace and friendship youth festivals organised by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s in Paris and Budapest reveals the way in which ideas of friendship being promoted were used to mask control mechanisms used on the young people. Devere et al . (2007) agree that terminology of friendship used in international treaties is largely instrumental.…”