Eugen Schlief (1851-1912), juriste dont l’ouvrage majeur écrit en 1892, Der Friede in Europa, reste largement méconnu, fut l’un des premiers à livrer une réflexion essentiellement juridique sur la question de la gestion des conflits internationaux et à imaginer une organisation internationale d’arbitrage entre États souverains après avoir aperçu dans l’anarchie entre États la cause profonde des guerres. Cette contribution analyse le contenu de ses propositions et montre comment des personnalités de premier plan du pacifisme et du droit international ont élargi les propositions schliefiennes en se les réappropriant.As it is not easy to apprehend, the work of the German lawyer Eugen Schlief (1851-1912) is still largely unknown. The ambiguity of his positioning may also account for the relative disregard for a theory which nevertheless irrigated the pacifist way of thinking, in particular, Alfred Hermann Fried’s – and was partly the cause of a thematic evolution in International Law. By formulating his concept of the « System of States » – as an organization with little constraint for its Member States – and carefully checking all developments towards a federalist future, Schlief intended to lay down proposals on the grounds of their feasibility, rather than as a Utopia. On a more theoretical level – consistent with his argument that peace could be reduced to its legal dimension – he contributed to a significant increase of the perimeter in International Law’s competence and its implementation for pacifying purposes
