Peace of Westphalia

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Ratification of the Treaty of Münster
Ratification of the Treaty of Münster

The Peace of Westphalia refers to the pair of treaties (the Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück) signed in October and May 1648 which ended both the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War. The treaties were signed on October 24 and May 15, 1648 and involved the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, the other German princes, Spain, France, Sweden and representatives from the Dutch republic. The Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed in 1659, ending the war between France and Spain, is also often considered part of the treaty. The peace as a whole is often used by historians to mark the beginning of the modern era.

The texts of the two treaties are largely identical and deal with the internal affairs of the Holy Roman Empire.[1] The Peace continues to be of importance today, with many academics asserting that the international system which exists today began at Westphalia. Both the basis and the result of this view have been attacked by revisionist academics and politicians alike, with revisionists questioning the significance of the Peace, and commentators and politicians attacking the "Westphalian System" of sovereign nation-states.

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[edit] Locations

The peace negotiations were held in the cities of Münster and Osnabrück, which lie about 50 km apart in the present day German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Sweden had favored Münster and Osnabrück while the French had proposed Hamburg and Cologne. In any case two locations were required because Protestant and Catholic leaders refused to meet each other. The Catholics used Münster, while the Protestants used Osnabrück.

[edit] Results

A simplified map of Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
A simplified map of Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
Holy Roman Empire in 1648
Holy Roman Empire in 1648

[edit] Internal political boundaries

The power which Ferdinand III had taken for himself in contravention of the Holy Roman Empire's constitution was stripped, meaning that the rulers of the German states were again able to determine the religion of their lands. [See cuius regio, eius religio, below] Protestants and Catholics were redefined as equal before the law, and Calvinism was given legal recognition. [2] [3]

[edit] Tenets

The main tenets of the Peace of Westphalia were:

  • All parties would now recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, by which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio). [2] [3]
  • Christians living in principalities where their denomination was not the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will [2]

There were also territorial adjustments:

[edit] Significance in international relations theory

[edit] Traditional realist view

The Peace of Westphalia is crucially important to modern international relations theory, with the Peace often being defined as the beginning of the international system with which the discipline deals. [1] [4] [5]

International relations theorists have identified the Peace of Westphalia as having several key principles, which explain the Peace's significance and its impact on the world today:

  1. The principle of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination
  2. The principle of (legal) equality between states
  3. The principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state

These principles are common to the way the dominant international relations paradigm views the international system today, which explains why the system of states is referred to as "The Westphalian System".

[edit] Revisionist view

The above interpretation of the Peace of Westphalia is not without its critics. Revisionist historians and international relations theorists argue against all of these points.

  1. Neither of the treaties mention sovereignty. Since the three chief participants (France, Sweden and Holy Roman Empire) were all already sovereign, there was no need to clarify this situation. [1] In any case, the princes of Germany remained subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor as per the constitution [2]
  2. While each German principality had its own legal system, the final Courts of Appeal applied to the whole of the Holy Roman Empire - the final appellate was the Emperor himself, and his decisions in cases brought to him were final and binding on all subordinates. [1] The Emperor could, and did, depose princes when they were found by the courts to be at fault [1] [6]
  3. Both treaties specifically state that should the treaty be broken, France and Sweden held the right to intervene in the internal affairs of the Empire. [1]

Rather than cementing sovereignty, revisionists hold that the treaty served to maintain the status quo ante. Instead, the treaty cemented the theory of Landeshoheit, in which state-like actors have a certain (usually high) degree of autonomy, but are not sovereign since they are subject to the laws, judiciary and constitution of a higher body. [1]

[edit] Modern views on the 'Westphalian Systems'

Main article: Westphalian sovereignty

The Westphalian System is used as a shorthand by academics to describe the system of states which the world is made up of today.[1]

In 1998 a Symposium on the continuing political Relevance of the Peace of Westphalia, then–NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said that "humanity and democracy [were] two principles essentially irrelevant to the original Westphalian order" and levied a criticism that "the Westphalian system had its limits. For one, the principle of sovereignty it relied on also produced the basis for rivalry, not community of states; exclusion, not integration." [7]

In 2000, then–German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer referred to the Peace of Westphalia in his Humboldt Speech, which argued that the system of European politics set up by Westphalia was obsolete: "The core of the concept of Europe after 1945 was and still is a rejection of the European balance-of-power principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, a rejection which took the form of closer meshing of vital interests and the transfer of nation-state sovereign rights to supranational European institutions."[8]

In the aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks, Lewis ‘Atiyyatullah, who claims to represent the terrorist network al-Qaeda, declared that "the international system built-up by the West since the Treaty of Westphalia will collapse; and a new international system will rise under the leadership of a mighty Islamic state".[9] It has also been claimed that globalization is bringing an evolution of the international system past the sovereign Westphalian state.[10]

However, European nationalists and some American paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan hold a favorable view of the Westphalian state. [11][12] Supporters of the Westphalian state oppose socialism and some forms of capitalism for undermining the nation state. A major theme of Buchanan's political career, for example, has been attacking globalization, critical theory, neoconservatism, and other philosophies he considers detrimental to today's Western nations.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Osiander, Andreas 'Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth' International Organization, Vol. 55 Issue 2 (Spring 2001) pp.251-287
  2. ^ a b c d Treaty of Munich 1648
  3. ^ a b Barro, RJ and McCleary, RM 'Which Countries have State Religions? Page 5. http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/state_religion_03-03.pdf - URL Accessed 7 November 2006
  4. ^ a b Gross, Leo 'The Peace of Westphalia' The American Journal of International Law Vol. 42 Issue 1 (Jan 1948) pp.20-41
  5. ^ Jackson RH and Owens P (2005) 'The Evolution of World Society' in Bayliss J and Smith S eds. The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press) p.53
  6. ^ Trossbach, Werner (1986) 'Furstenabsetzungen im 18. Jahrhundert' Zeitschrift fur historische Forschung Vol 13 pp. 425-54
  7. ^ http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1998/s981112a.htm. URL accessed 14 July 2004.
  8. ^ http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/eu_politik/ausgabe_archiv?suche=1&archiv_id=1027&bereich_id=4&type_id=3. URL accessed 29 June 2004.
  9. ^ http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=5420. URL accessed 29 June 2004.
  10. ^ Cutler, A. Claire (2001). "Critical Reflections on the Westphalian Assumptions of International Law and Organization : A Crisis of Legitimacy.". Review of International Studies 27: 133-150. 
  11. ^ http://www.theamericancause.org/patsaygoodbye.htm. URL accessed 3 August 2006.
  12. ^ http://www.theamericancause.org/print/052206_print.htm. URL accessed 3 August 2006.

[edit] Further reading

Michael J. Kelly, Pulling at the Threads of Westphalia: Involuntary Sovereignty Waiver - Revolutionary International Legal Theory or Return to Rule By the Great Powers? 10:2 UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs (2005).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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