The Treaty of Tordesillas is a
fairly early example of international treaties in the Western world. The Treaty
of Tordesillas was signed at Tordesillas, which is currently located in Spain,
in 1494 and was a treaty which was specifically designed to dispense the lands
which had been discovered recently by explorers from the European countries.

The Treaty of Tordesillas thus
divided lands primarily between Portugal and Spain. The Treaty of Tordesillas
was considered important to resolve the issue of which countries would have the
right to the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus, for example, which most countries
wanted some right to at the time.

The lands had previously been
divided according to papal bulls, which were edicts issued by the Pope saying
which country had rights to which lands. The Treaty of Tordesillas overrode
those papal bulls and instead established a particular line for demarcating the
lands and stated that Spain would have rights to all lands discovered to the
west of the line and Portugal would have rights to all lands discovered to the
east of the line.

The line established by the Treaty
of Tordesillas ran from the North Pole to the South Pole and was established at
the midway point between the islands discovered by Christopher Columbus and the
Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa.  The Treaty of Tordesillas was
not vigorously or rigidly enforced, as there was some Portuguese expansion into
lands which technically fell into the Spanish section of divided territory.
Most of the territory apportioned through the Treaty of Tordesillas had never
been seen by Europeans before.

A Status of Forces Agreement is
not any particular treaty, but is instead a type of treaty which might be
employed in order to help address the relationship between two different
countries in terms of the armed forces of those countries. A Status of Forces
Agreement sets out the terms between a host country and another nation whose
forces might be remaining within the host country for some purpose.

The Status of Forces Agreement
would, for example, set out the rights and responsibilities afforded to the
military troops of the foreign country within the host country, such that the
status of these troops is understood with regard to international politics. The
Status of Forces Agreement would not dictate the exact terms of the agreement
by which military forces are stationed within the host country, however. It
would instead only establish the nature of the status that those military
forces might have within the host country.

The United States has a great
many different instances of a Status of Forces Agreement, as it must have one
Status of Forces Agreement for every country in which it has stationed a
significant military presence. This means that the United States has a Status
of Forces Agreement for states including the United Kingdom, Russia, South
Korea, and France, as well as for other nations where the American military
presence might be considered more integral, such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The
different Status of Forces Agreements are specifically designed to dictate the
legal rules regarding the nature of these military forces in a foreign country.

A peace treaty is a very
general term for any kind of treaty which would lead to the establishment of
some form of peace between two nations or governmental entities and which would,
thus, most often end a period of violence and conflict. As a peace treaty
establishes peace, it is separate and different from other forms of
conflict-ending treaties and interactions, which might end violence, as with an
armistice, but which would not actually bring about the same kind of lasting
peace meant from a peace treaty.

A peace treaty will generally
dictate many important terms regarding the conflict and the nations involved so
as to best help them satisfactorily end the conflict and prevent any future
conflicts from arising. To that end, a peace treaty might establish some means
by which the involved nations could solve future conflicts non-violently

A
peace treaty is also likely to establish certain important factors, including
rules regarding the behavior of the involved nations, the payment of any debts
which might have existed prior to the conflict and which might have arisen
during the conflict, the nature of any territorial borders which the countries
involved in the conflict might have, and more.

A peace treaty is different
from a non-proliferation treaty, although a non-proliferation treaty can be
considered to be something of a peace treaty in the modern world. A
non-proliferation treaty is a treaty which is specifically designed to prevent
nuclear weapons from spreading throughout the world, and as such, is designed
to limit future nuclear conflict in a means similar to a peace treaty. However,
a non-proliferation treaty is not a peace treaty because it is not designed to
end all conflict inherently, and it was not implemented to end a conflict, so
much as to prevent future conflict.

The Antarctic Treaty is the
treaty which was implemented in order to determine the exact disposition of
Antarctica with regard to the international community. The Antarctic Treaty was
the initial document which established the basic tenets for the disposition of
Antarctica, with the Antarctic Treaty being expanded over time into the
Antarctic Treaty System, including amendments and changes to the Antarctic
Treaty which were designed to change the way in which Antarctica was dealt with
internationally for the better.

The Antarctic Treaty itself was
put into effect in 1961 and has remained in effect ever since. The initial
signers of the Antarctic Treaty included Argentina, Belgium, France, Japan, New
Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, as well
as four others.

The Antarctic Treaty sets out
that Antarctica cannot be used by any country for any kind of military purpose
and that it should be preserved and retained for the purposes of science and
scientific expeditions. The Antarctic Treaty also sets out that no nation has
territorial rights to Antarctica, meaning that no nation has the right to
dispense with hazardous waste in Antarctica, for example.

The Antarctic Treaty establishes
the International Court of Justice as the Court which will handle any
disagreements which might arise with regard to the disposition of Antarctica.
The Antarctic Treaty has been expanded by such treaties as the Convention for
the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, the Protocol on Environmental Protection
to the Antarctic Treaty, and the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic
Mineral Resource Activities.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty was signed into effect in 1970 and was designed to prevent nuclear
weapons from proliferating throughout the world, thereby limiting the danger
represented by nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty currently
has 189 different nations as member states, five of whom are held under the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as states which have nuclear weapons. Those
nations are France, China, the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United Nations.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty does not apply to all nations in the world, however, and some of those
non-member nations are believed to have nuclear weapons of their own, thus
posing something of a danger with regard to the overall purpose of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. These include India, Pakistan, North Korea, and
Israel.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty was initially put into effect in order to help stabilize the world and
prevent a situation in which a great many nations all held nuclear weapons, as
many individuals in national governments realized that the Cold War standoff
deterrent relationship which existed between the United States and the Soviet Union
might not be sustainable if there were more nations with nuclear weapons, which
might destabilize the already fragile relationship.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty is based around three basic notions: non-proliferation, meaning a lack
of spreading of nuclear weapons; disarmament, meaning a reduction of the number
of nuclear weapons in the world overall; and peaceful use of nuclear energy,
which is focused on ensuring that nuclear energy is still available for use as
long as it is being used in a safe and peaceable fashion.