Decent Peace in The Law of Peoples and Beyond

The democratic peace thesis claims that democracies do not wage war against one another. If the democratic peace thesis holds true, and if all societies were democratic, a stable peace would be a reality. Kant’s dream of eternal peace beyond the ‘peace of the graveyard’, the extinction of humanity, or a world state, would come true. With the claim of democracies and decent societies not waging war against one another, Rawls goes beyond the democratic peace thesis: there are other types of regimes, decent societies, which are part of the zone of peace and need to be respected due to the principle of reasonable pluralism. Rawls argues that decent societies also respect peoples of like character, that is to say liberal and decent regimes, and live in peace with them within the Society of Peoples. As a consequence, Rawls would have to assume that there is something like a ‘decent peace’ — as liberal peoples meet the criteria for decency as well: liberal and decent peoples do not wage war against one another. If all societies were either liberal or decent, perpetual peace might be reached.