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The Peace of Westphalia, 1648–1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

Leo Gross
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Extract

The acceptance of the United Nations Charter by the overwhelming majority of the members of the family of nations brings to mind the first great European or world charter, the Peace of Westphalia. To it is traditionally attributed the importance and dignity of being the first of several attempts to establish something resembling world unity on the basis of states exercising untrammeled sovereignty over certain territories and subordinated to no earthly authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 1948 , pp. 20 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1948

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References

1 Ward, Sir A. W., The Peace of Westphalia, The Cambridge Modern History, Vol. IV, 1934, p. 416: “ . . . the provision made for individual freedom in the exercise of any of the recognized religions was insufficient; and from the dominions of the House of Austria as a whole, Protestant worship was deliberately excluded.” But see Yves de la Brière, La Société des Nations?, 1918, p. 57.Google Scholar

2 Ward, work cited, p. 412. See also Mirabelli, Andrea Rapisardi, “Le Congrés de Westphalie,” 8 Bibliotheca Visseriana (1929), p. 75 Google Scholar.

3 Ward, work cited, p. 414; Mirabelli, work cited, pp. 13, 76.

4 Mirabelli, work cited, p. 13: Mais une circonstance ultérieure—importante au point de vue international—c’était que le principe de l’égalité des confessions (basé jusq’alors sur la toérance des Princes, ou sur des lois révocables) prenait alors la forme d’engagement international, fixé conventionnellement par les traitis et pour cela assurS par leur force et leur durée.

5 2 British and Foreign State Papers, 1814–1815, p. 132. The Final Act of Vienna and its Annexes include several interesting provisions designed to ensure freedom of religion. A particularly illuminating example is to be found in Article II of the Annex to the Treaty between the King of the Netherlands and Austria of May 31, 1815, which reads: Il ne sera rien innové aux Articles de eette Constitution qui assurent a tons lea Cultes une protection et une faveur égales, et garantissent l’admission de tous lea Citoyens, quelle que soit leur croyance religieuse, aux emplois et offices publics. Work cited, p. 141.

6 Protocol of June 28, 1878. 69 British and Foreign State Papers, 1877–1878, p. 960; English translation from the “Letter addressed to M. Paderewski by the President of the Conference (M. Clemenceau) transmitting to him the Treaty to be signed by Poland under Article 93 of the Treaty of Peace with Germany” of June 24, 1919. 112 British and Foreign étate Papers, 1919, p. 226. éee also A. Finch, George, “The International Eights of Man,” in this JOURNAL, Vol. 35 (1941), p. 662.Google Scholar

7 See letter quoted in the preceding note.

8 Text from Article CXXIII of the Treaty of Münster, in A General Collection of Treatys, “Vol. I, 1710, p. 36.Google Scholar

9 See Vollenhoven, C. Van, The Law of Peace, 1936, p. 85.Google Scholar

10 Headlam-Moreley, Sir James, Studies in Diplomatic History, 1930, p. 108 Google Scholar. The statement quoted in the text continues, as follows:

11 Jayne Hill, David, A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, Vol. II, 1925, p. 602 Google Scholar; but see La Briere, work cited, p. 67.

12 L. Lange, Christian, Histoire de I’Internationalisme, Vol. 1, 1919, p. 498.Google Scholar

13 From Articles CXXIII and CXXIV of the Treaty of Miinster, in work cited. Vollenhoven, C.Van, “Grotius and Geneva,” 6 Bibliotheca Visseriana, p. 72.Google Scholar

14 Van Vollenhoven, The Law of Peace, p. 86; see also p. 88.

15 Van Vollenhoven, The Law of Peace, p. 86.

16 Lange, work cited, p. 498. More definite provisions for arbitration were included in the Treaty between Spain and the United Provinces signed at Münster on January 30, 1648. See Van Vollenhoven, work cited, p. 88.

17 Mirabelli, work cited, p. 84.

18 Fauchille, Paul, Traité de Droit International Public, Vol. I, Pt. I, p. 75 Google Scholar; see also Winfield, P. H., The Foundations and the Future of International Law, 1941, p. 18 Google Scholar.

19 Dunn, F. S., “International Legislation,”42 Political Science Quarterly (1927), p.577.Google Scholar

20 Winfield, work cited, p. 20.

21 der Vlugt, W. Van, “L’Oeuvre de Grotius et son Influence sur le Développement du Droit International,” 7 Recueil des Cours (1925), p. 448 Google Scholar; Mirabelli, work cited, pp. 54,92. But see John N. Figgis, From Gerson Grotius, 1414–1625, 1916, p. 284, n. 13. This merit is now claimed for Gentili: A. P. Sereni, The Italian Conception of International Law, 1943, p. 114, “ His first merit lies in having cleared the field of international law from the dogmas of a particular religion andof having distinguished the juridical from the ethical and political aspects of the problems debated.”

22 Van Vollenhoven, The Law of Peace, p. 1 ; Mirabelli, work cited, p . 7 ; Sereni, work cited, p . 124.

23 Oppenheim, International Law, 4th ed., edited by McNair, Arnold, Vol. I, 1928, p. 99 Google Scholar; but see La Briere, work cited, pp. 62, 68.

24 Van Vollenhoven, work cited, p . 91.

25 Mirabelli, work cited, p. 10. See E . Kaeber, Die Idee des europäischen Gleichgewichts in der publieistischen Literatur vom 16. bis zur Mittes des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1907,pp. 8, 20.

26 Dupuis, Charles, Le Principe d’Equtiibre et le Concert Européen, 1909, p . 23.Google Scholar

27 Dupuis,p. 22; see also pp. 12, 20, and 21 ; La Briere, work cited, p. 60, 62.

28 Lange, work cited, p . 133 : Au fond le principe d’équilibre implique une protestation contre le principe de I’Empire universel. A publication in the year 1632 espoused the notion of the systéme des contrepoids and argued that the King of France tiendra la balance du monde en ses mains, qu’il a apporté du Ciel. Kaeber, work cited, p. 32.

29 Kaeber, work cited, p. 4 1 ; Comte de Garden, G. L., Histoire Générale des Traités de Paix, Vol. I, 1848, pp. 246, 250 Google Scholar.

30 Redslob, Robert, Histoire des Grands Principes du Droit des Gens, 1923, p. 223.Google Scholar

31 Dupuis, work cited, p. 9: Le moyen âge avait revé d ’organiser l’Europe sur la double base de l’uniteé de la chrétienté et de la hiérarchie des pouvoirs. Le pape et I’empereur, placeés au sommet de la société internationale devaient, en théorie, maintenir l’unité, en se partageant la domination dans l’ordre spirituel et dans l’ordre temporcl; ils devaient, en meme temps, sauvegarder les droits de tous, en offrant un recours supréme contre les abus auxquels se pouvaient livrer les mille dttenteurs de la souveraineté morcelée par régime féodal. See also Goebel, Julius, The Equality of States, 1923, p. 22 Google Scholar.

32 Van der Vlugt, work cited, p. 448.

33 Mont, J. Du, Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, Vol. VI, Part I, 1708, p. 463.Google Scholar

34 Eppstein, John, The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations, 1935, p. 192;Google Scholar see also p. 325.

35 Vinogradoff, Sir Paul, “Historical Types of International Law,” 1 Bibliotheca Visseriana (1923), p. 45 Google Scholar.

36 Van Vollenhoven, The Law of Peace, p. 81.

37 Du Mont, work cited, p. 450, 469.

38 Van Vollenhoven, work cited, p. 81; de Martens, G. F ., Traité de Droit International, Vol. I, 1883, p. 117 Google Scholar; similarly Paul Fauchille, work cited, p. 75. Fauchille underscores la reconnaissance par les Etats européens de la solidarité de leurs intéréts politiques,. . . dans l’application de l’idée qu’un certain équilibre politiqueitait l’un des facteurs de la paix; Oppenhehn, work cited, p. 69; Treitschke, H., Politics (English translation), Vol. II, 1916, p. 569 Google Scholar; Montagu Bernard, Four Lectures on Subjects Connected with Diplomacy, 1868, p. 6; T. J. Lawrence, “ The Work of Groitus as a Kef ormer of International Law, “Essays on Some Disputed Questions of International Law, 1885, p. 189; Edwin L. Borchard, “International Law,” 8Enyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 1935, p. 169; James Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, 1866 (revised edition), p. 372; see also Mirabelli, work cited, p. 8; Jacob ter Meulen, Der Gedanke der Internationalen Organisation in seiner Entwicklung, 1300–1800, 1917, p. 24; Hill, work cited, Vol. III, p. vii; same, Vol. II , 1906, p. 599, 604; Wolfgang Windelband, Die auswärtige Politik der Grossmächte in der Neuzeit. Von 1494 bis zur Gegenwart, 4th ed. (1936), p. 126 f.; see also é;inger, “ Völkerrechtsgeschichte,” Wörterbuch des Völcerrechts, edited by Strupp, Vol. III, 1929, p. 193; Dupuis, work cited, pp. 13, 21; T. A. Walker, A History of the Law of Nations, 1899, Vol. I, pp. 147 and ff.; The Collected Papers of John Westlake on Public International Law, ed., by L. Oppenheim, 1914, pp. 55 ff.; E. H. Carr, Nationalism and After, 1945, p. 1.

39 de la Bridre, work cited, p. 58.

40 Same, p. 53. The passage quoted with approval in Van Vollenhoven, at p. 83,appearedin the following context: Dans leur moda ités politiques et diplomatiques, en effet, les tractations de Westphalie portent le caractére d’un empirisme tellement brutal, tellement immoral, tellement incohérent, qu’on est en droit de les proposer aux négociateurs futurs de la paix du XXe siécle comme un parfait exemple des erreurs et des fautes dont il faudra désormais nous préserver d tout prix. Bien plus, dans son principe meme (et c’est ld surtout que nous voulons en venir), le réglement europécn adopté d Münster et a Osnabrück constituera la premiére application général et solonnelle de la politique d’éiquilibre, systéme diplomatique aussi radicalement éloigné que possible de l’ordre juridique, fondé sur le respect du droit des tons, qui est aujourd’hui le tria noble objectif des promoteurs de la ’Société dea Nationas.’

41 Van Vollenhoven, The Law of Peace, p. 93.

42 Professor Sereni’s book referred to above constitutes a recent and useful contribution.

43 Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law, 1930, p. 129, Pollock’s Notes, to the effect that theKings of England never owed or rendered any temporal allegiance to the Empire. Figgis,work cited, p. 213 suggests that “the dream of a universal state had disappeared with the failure of Charles V to secure the Empire for his son.”

44 Sereni, work cited, p. 59.

45 é;ame, note 11.

46 Ernest Barker, Church, State, and Study, 1930, p. 65.

47 Sereni, p. 60: “All the cities, however, all the states, are in Bartolus’ mind coordinated within the empire. The emperor is the Lord of the world: to deny it would be heresy. . . . Thus the superiority of the empire over the cities is admitted on a purely ideal plane. Bartolus’ elevation of the empire to the function of a spiritual institution amounts to a complete denial of its political authority, in accordance with the reality of the age. The empire is envisaged by Bartolus as the necessary universal society, in which all the powers of Christendom must co-operate. In Italy, Dante, Marsilio of Padua, Cino da Pistoia, and many other political thinkers, jurisconsults, and poets had invoked the authority of the empire on the same ideal plane. The empire was to have been the unifying force of the Christian world, to have appeased all discords, suppressed wars and reprisals, affirmed the reign of peace and justice on the earth. ForBartolus as well as for these other Italians the empire was then but a messianic dream, an ideal aspiration.” Cf. also Sir Paul Vinogradoff, work cited, p. 43.

48 Maine, work cited, p. 129: “Modern National sovereignty may be regarded, in a general way, as a reaction against both the feudal and the imperial conceptions.Rulers of the Middle Ages, as and when they felt strong enough, expressly or tacitly renounced both homage to any overlord and submission to the Emperor.”

49 Bryce, work cited, p. 243. Sereni, work cited, p. 65, n. 33. “As late as the end ofthe sixteenth century there were still Italian jurisconsults who endeavored to maintain the supremacy and the universality of the authority of the pope and the emperor.”

50 Walker, work cited, p. 149.

51 Barker, work cited, p. 62; Scott, James Brown, The Law, the State, and the International Community, Vol. II, 1939, p. 255.Google Scholar

52 Walker, work cited, p. 149; Sereni, work cited, pp. 64, 115.

53 Relectio of the Reverend Father, Brother Franciscus de Victoria Concerning Civil Power, a translation by Gwladys L. Williams. In James Brown Scott, The Spanish Origin of International Law, 1934. Appendix C, p. xc.

54 Alberico Gentili, De lure Belli Libri Tres, translation of the edition of 1612 by C. Rolfe, John, The Classics of International Law, edited by James Brown Scott, 1933, p. 67 Google Scholar. See also Sereni, work cited, p. 64.

55 Gentili, work cited, p. 68. Affirming that it is right to make war upon pirates, Gentili says: “And if a war against pirates justly calls all men to arms because of lovefor our neighbor and the desire to live in peace, so also do the general violation of the common law of humanity and the wrong done to mankind. Piracy is contraryto the law of nations and the league of human society”: p. 124.

56 James Brown Scott, The Spanish Conception of International Law and of Sanctions,1934, p. 90. The English translation of the above quotation from Suarez, De Legibus, Book II, Ch. XIX, paragraph 9, is taken from Scott, , The Law, the State, and the International Community, Vol. II, p. 257 Google Scholar.

57 Bryce, work cited, p. 372; Mirabelli, work cited, p. 15 ff.

58 Ter Meulen, work cited, p. 34.

59 Walker, work cited, p. 155; Introduction by Coleman Phillipson to Gentili in the above-quoted edition, p. 23a, n. 4.

60 Holland, T. E., Studies in International Law, 1898, p. 23 Google Scholar.

61 Sereni, p. 107: “With Gentili there thus begins the naturalistic conception of international law, later accepted by Grotius.”

62 Sereni, p. 107.

63 Gentili, Book I, Ch. VI, p . 31.

64 Sereni, p. 109.

65 Gentili, while affirming that “ some law of nature exists,” stressed the difficulty involved in discovering “what that law is and how we shall prove that it is this or that”: Book I, Ch. I, p. 5. His reasoning on this subject, particularly at p. 7, is illustrative of the difficulty inherent in any law of nature doctrine. Gentili seems to accept the agreement of states, not necessarily of all states, and usage, as a test of the existence of rules of international law: p. 8. See Phillipson’s Introduction, p. 22a. It is also interesting to note that in discussing arbitration of dispute between sovereigns Gentili starts from the proposition that “the sovereign has no earthly judge.” Book I, Ch. III , p. 15. Having referred to a number of arbitrations, he says:“But why do I multiply examples, as if any one could not call to mind a great number of such occurrences in every age? Why, to be sure, in order that those who avoid this kind of contest by arbitration and resort at once to the other, that is, to force, may understand that they are setting their faces against justice, humanity, and good precedent, and that they are rushing to arms of their own free will, because they are unwilling to submit to any one’s verdict”: p. 16.

66 Grotius, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis, Translated by W. Kelsey, Francis, The Classics of International Law, Edited by James Brown Seott, Vol. II, 1925 Google Scholar, Book I, Ch. I, paragraph14. Phillipson’s Introduction, p. 22a.

67 Oppenheim, L., International Law, 5th ed., edited by H. Lauterpacht, 1937, Vol. I,p. 87 Google Scholar.

68 E. Vattel, The Law of Nations, translated by G. Fenwick, Charles, The Classics of International Law, Edited by James Brown Scott, Vol. III , 1916, p. 9 Google Scholar.

69 Albert de Lapradelle’s introduction to the above edition of Vattel, Vol. Ill , p. liv:“Writing for courts and for the leaders of nations, he could only place law beside diplomacy as wise counsel; he could not set it above diplomacy as a strict rule .”

70 Scott, , The Spanish Conception of International Law and of Sanctions, 1934, p. 91 Google Scholar: “If the two passages (quoted above in the text), however, be compared from the standpoint of international law, the statement of Suarez seemed to lack that sense of ultimate completeness which always seems to have been in the mind of Victoria; his is not merely an international community with law, but it is an international community with a power to create law and to punish the violations of that law. It may well be that the presence of law in Suárez’ community implies both the right consciously to create and thepower to preserve that law inviolate; but neither the right not the power are express,as in the case of Francis of Victoria’s international community. For does not Victoriasay expressly that the jus gentium has ’the force of a pact and agreement among men’? Whereas Suarez implies in the succeeding chapter of this very book that the law of nations may have been introduced simply through ‘usage and tradition, . . . and without any special and simultaneous compact or agreement on the part of all peoples.’ This conception of Suarez looks to an inorganic association; Victoria’s conception looks to an organized society, with a law of nations having the force of a pact, the obligations of which are enforceable, not merely under the law of nations but under the natural law.”

71 Lapradelle, as cited, p. liv: “ It would be vain to look in his work for a reflection of the fine passage of Suárez on the solidarity of nations; but, on the other hand, it would be too much to require in a diplomat of the end of the eighteenth century, even though he were permeated with the spirit of the Encyclopaedia, the same freedom of speech as in a monk of the sixteenth. Vattel, who does not develop to any great extent the idea of arbitration, would probably have no place as an organizer of the society of the future.”

72 Emphasizing the destructive character of Vattel’s elegant doctrine of the law of nations, Van Vollenhoven concludes: “Henceforth, there will be not merely no positive law, even on a limited scale, there will be not merely the claims of the governments to a limitless sovereignty; from that time onward there will be a nominal law of peace, exacting in character, elaborated in detail, full of celestial principles and unctuous rhetoric, but one that is rendered utterly futile by the reservation, ceaselessly reiterated, that it is for the sovereign states to judge the extent to which those principles and that rhetoric shall bind them in the sphere of reality.” The Law of Peace, p. 107 f. See also Brierly, J. L., The Law of Nations, 1936 (2d ed.), p. 32 Google Scholar.

72a Delos, Joseph, La Société Internationale et les Principes du Droit Public, 1929, p.229 Google Scholar f: Considérable des son vivant, traditionnelle aujourd’hui encore, l’oeuvre de Suarez a dépassé de beaucoup le cercle des théologiens. Suarez est, lui aussi, l’un des Fondateurs du Droit International, le plus connu peut-etre, et l’un de ceux qui out le plus influé sur les destinées de la doctrine. Son róle dans de conflit du Droit d fondement objectif et du Droit subjectif, nous semble avoir été décisif d plus d’un égard. Son oeuvre off re de plus le cos topique que nous cherchions: elle permet de saisir, d un moment donné, et particuliérement important, puisqu’il se place aux origines memes du monde moderne, la cause du mal dont souffre la science politique internationale: la substitution du point de vue volontariste au point de vue du Droit d fondement objectif.

72b Lapradelle, as cited, pp. liv, lv.

73 Lauterpacht, H., The Function of Law in the International Community, 1933, p. 421 Google Scholar. Abrief survey of recent doctrines on international law will be found on p. 415.

74 Lauterpacht, p. 426

75 Such a revision has been proposed by Dr. Lauterpacht in a different context: p. 437.