| | Richard S. Horowitz | International Law and State Transformation in China, Siam, and the Ottoman Empire during the ... |
 | | These treaties were unequal in several senses: they were forced at gunpoint; they expressed the economic and political interests of Britain and other powers; and key provisions, including extraterritoriality and restrictions on tariffs on foreign trade, were not reciprocal. |
 | | While much more research is needed, it seems that a key to the endurance of the treaty system as a structure for semicolonial systems was that it provided a framework that various powers were able to live with, even if it did not fulfill all of their desires. |
 | | Treaty systems were an obvious manifestation of European power over indigenous Eurasian states, but international law also played an important role in a more subtle and enduring phenomenon: the emergence of the territorially defined sovereign state as the key participant in international society. |
| www.historycooperative.org /journals/jwh/15.4/horowitz.html (14657 words) |