The Hindu Business Line : If he seeks peace without a treaty, he is calculating

AS IF a mystery treaty has been signed, there's apparent peace between the Finance Minister and the central banker, with the Finance Ministry said to have no difference with the Reserve Bank of India on FII inflows. However, on relations with the watchful Big Brother, the CAG, on the Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, the North Block may be reticent, especially after the drubbing that FII tax treatment received in the recent reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Just the time for some treaty talk, even as the CAG is refusing to come to terms with flawed tax treaties.

A treaty is "a formally concluded and ratified agreement between states," defines Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It is `the action of treating and especially of negotiating,' explains Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. It is a pact, "an agreement or contract between two or more parties," as Encarta puts it, tracing the word to "14th century, via Old French traité, `assembly, agreement, treaty,' from Latin tractatus, from tractare (see treat)."

The eighth meaning of treat is "to negotiate, especially in order to reach a settlement," and this word goes back to the 13th century, "Via Old French traitier, `to bargain with, negotiate,' from Latin tractare, `to handle,' literally `to drag about,' from trahere, `to pull' (source of English contract)," says http://encarta.msn.com, leading one to `contract'.

Which, in turn, is from Latin contractus, the past participle of contrahere `to draw together,' and there's more in `tractor': "Late 18th century. Formed from Latin tract-, past participle stem of trahere `to draw' (see tract)." An archaic meaning of `tract' is `a long period of time', and the word comes from Latin tractus, literally `a drawing out'. That's some clue if you always wondered why diplomatic efforts to draw up treaties take so long.

A major problem is to understand one another's lingo. "First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country," is a Bushism on the Kyoto accord to show how tough comprehension can be made to be.

Online Etymology Dictionary records that treaty in the sense of `contract between nations' was first used in 1430. Treat meant `negotiate, bargain, deal with' in 1297, explains the Dictionary. You'll also learn that the word meant `deal with in speech or writing' around 1325, and that the noun is first recorded in 1375 as `action of discussing terms'.

By 1500, the word meant `to entertain with food and drink by way of compliment or kindness (or bribery)', and in 1770, it was `anything that gives pleasure'. Treat, as doctors use the word, is from 1781, to mean `to attempt to heal or cure'. And if treatment takes a long time, you may do well to remember tract!

"A treaty is a binding agreement under international law concluded by subjects of international law, namely states and international organisations," defines Wikipedia, and lists the many names that treaty has: international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, exchange of letters and so on. Treaties can be loosely compared to contracts because willing parties assume obligations inter se, and a party that fails to live up to its obligation can be held legally liable for that breach, elaborates http://en.wikipedia.org. "The central principle of treaty law is expressed in the maxim pacta sunt servanda, meaning `pacts must be respected'."

Agreements are to be kept, and treaties should be observed, affirms Oxford Dictionary of Law and states that the above Latin phrase is "the bedrock of the customary international law of treaties and, according to some authorities, the very foundation of international law." For, "without such an acceptance, treaties would become worthless." That's perhaps something inapplicable to political alliances.

A treaty may be `law-making' when the signatories make or amend their internal laws to give effect to the treaty, notes Duhaime's Online Legal Dictionary (www.duhaime.org), citing as example the Berne Convention on copyright. A treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites circa 1283 BC is first in the chronological list of international treaties, agreements, and peaces on http://en.wikipedia.org.

In King John, the Bard speaks of "friendly treaty of our threaten'd town," signifying that treaties are often not matters of choice. On the pages of history is the Treaty of Brétigny signed on May 8, 1360, between King Edward III of England and King John II (the Good) of France that marked the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337 - 1453), as Wikipedia informs; but it did not lead to a lasting peace, only got nine years' respite.

There have been `secret' treaties such as the `Reinsurance Treaty' of 1887 between Bismarck and Russia that was exposed about a decade later by a German newspaper. You'd come across `a grey roll of paper' — `the original of that secret treaty between England and Italy' in The Adventure of the Naval Treaty by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Treaty, in the context of reinsurance, means "an agreement between a reinsurer and a ceding insurer setting forth details of the reinsurance arrangement," as the Glossary of Risk Management & Insurance terms on www.haskayne.ucalgary.ca explains.

There are unusual treaties too; for example, the `Outer Space Treaty' taboos the putting in orbit of nuclear weapons or WMD, or even installing these on other planets and satellites. There's also the Moon Treaty to prevent commercial exploitation of the moon but the US is yet to sign it!

NPT stands for Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty to restrict nukes. Though India is not a signatory to this, a new law-in-the-making attracting the world's attention is the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Bill, 2005 to prohibit individuals from dealing with WMDs in any form, including manufacturing, transporting, exporting and brokering.

There was the SALT, you know, for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the US and the Soviet Union on nuclear arsenal, but more recently came SORT, short for Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, a bilateral accord between Russia and the US limiting warheads to 2200 each. The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was multilateral and led to the creation of the European Union.

To see the treaty of treaties, check on www.un.org the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969, codifying the pre-existing international customary law on treaties. It considers "the fundamental role of treaties in the history of international relations," and recognises "the ever-increasing importance of treaties as a source of international law and as a means of developing peaceful co-operation among nations, whatever their constitutional and social systems."

Much like the spirit that Shakespeare captures in Coriolanus: "We are convented upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts inclinable to honour and advance the theme of our assembly." For an alternative view, try the chapter on `army manoeuvres' in Sun-Tzu's The Art of War where there's a caution: "If he seeks peace without a treaty, he is calculating."

On the current DTAA debate, it may be fair to calculate that FIIs may seek peace within the ambit of tax treaties, even after the loopholes that the CAG has pointed out are plugged.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
UPA's foreign policy report card — More `As' than `Bs'

SEBI cracks the whip

Call off the ADC

If he seeks peace without a treaty, he is calculating

Energising Collectors

When will a yuan revaluation happen?

Gainers and losers, post-MFA

Confounding corporate governance

One year of UPA Government

EPF issues