Arbitration Agreement of 1535 between the Habsburgs and the Venetians
Arbitration Agreement of 1535 between the Habsburgs and the Venetians

Summary/Abstract: In 1535 the Habsburgs and the Venetians attempted to settle peacefully their boundary disputes which were constantly going on in northern Italy and Istria. They arranged arbitration to achieve this goal, of which there are two substantial archival records, one preserved in the State Archive Venice and the other in the Austrian State Archive Vienna. This paper will primarily analyse how and in which circumstances the arbitration agreement was made and specific clauses which were utilized. In most of the arbitration agreement’s content the disputants did not design the arbitration of 1535 genuinely. They preferred to employ the pre-existing means (concepts, principles, institutes and terminology) of dispute resolution which were pertinent to Roman law and later cultivated on its ground by the Roman-canon law of the Middle Ages. The author specifically addresses these influences on the arbitration arrangements of the Habsburgs and the Venetians of Trident of 1535 because these were two disputants with substantially different (even incompatible) legal traditions and views how the legal system should be developed. The arbitration agreement of 1535 represents one of the earliest examples in the history of international law how the two heavily confronted territorial-political units of the time attempted to resolve their dispute by using a rational means rather that by resorting to warfare.

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