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Europe in the Balance: An Appraisal of the Westphalian System

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References

  1. Such as at Nymegen (1678), Rijswijk (1697), Utrecht (1713), Paris (1856) or Berlin (1878).

  2. Most illustrative of the conduct of states in this respect is the impotence of the First Hague Peace Conference of 1899. Summoned without a compelling need, it achieved only a fraction of what the Guns of August enforced a mere twenty years later.

  3. The Spanish-French enmity would linger on till 1659.

  4. The thesis defended by P. Geyl, L.J. Rogier and J.W. Smit. See E.H. Kossmann, Politieke theorie en geschiedenis [Political Theory in History] (Amsterdam, E.H. Bakker 1987). On the occasion of the 1948 commemoration three articles in 111 De Gids (1948) by W.J.M. van Eysinga, J.A. van Hamel and L.J. Rogier; H.A. Enno van Gelder, Vijf Eeuwgetijden [The Tides of Five Centuries] (Amsterdam, Van Kampen 1948); J.J. Poelhekke, De Vrede van Munster [The Peace of Munster] (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff 1948); J. Presser, in H. Enno van Gelder, et al., eds., Vrede van Munster 1648–1948 (Delft, Delftsche Uitg. Mij. 1948); C. Smit, Het vredesverdrag van Munster [The Peace Treaty of Munster] (Leiden, Brill 1948); J.J. Woltjer, De Vredemakers [The Peacemakers], 89 TVG (1976) pp. 299–321.

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  5. J.I. Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 1601–1661 (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1982); idem, The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1995); G. Parker, The Army of Flanders andthe Spanish Road (1567–1659) (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1972); idem, The Thirty Years War (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1984); J. Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London, Arnold 1963).

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  6. Among the wealth of literature: A.Th. van Deursen, Mensen van klein vermogen [Men of Small Fortune] (Amsterdam, Ooievaar 1996); S. Groenveld, et al., De kogel door de kerk? De opstand in de Nederlanden 1555–1609 [A Bullet through the Church? The Uprising in the Netherlands 1555–1609] (Zutphen, De Walburg Press 1991); idem, and H.L.Ph. Leeuwenberg, De bruid in de schuit. De consolidatie van de Republiek 1609–1650 [The Bride in the Boat. The Consolidation of the Republic 1609–1650] (Zutphen, The Walburg Press 1985); J.J. Poelhekke, Frederik Hendrik, Prins van Oranje. Een biografisch drieluik [Frederik Henrik, Prince of Orange. A Biographical Triptych] (Zutphen, The Walburg Press 1978); J. de Vries en A. van der Woude, Nederland 1500–1815 (Amsterdam, Balans 1995); H. de Schepper, et al., eds., Congres Vrede van Munster, Conference Proceedings, Werkgroep Zeventiende Eeuw (Hilversum, Verloren 1997).

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  7. See H. Bull, The Anarchical Society, A Study of Order in World Politics (London, MacMillan 1977).

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  8. Ch. De Visscher, Theory and Reality in Public International Law (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press 1968) p. 17.

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  9. De Visscher, op. cit. n. 8, at p. 6.

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  10. Lutherans only at this stage.

  11. How indeed should one have reacted to Princes who first abandoned Catholicism, then again substituted Lutheranism for Calvinism; or to the Bishop of Cologne, who turned Protestant but refused to resign?

  12. Thus, the same creed which openly served patriotism in Holland, served the subversive Huguenots in France.

  13. Jean Bodin (1530–1596), author of Six Livres de la République (1576).

  14. William Barclay (1541–1608), a Scottish political thinker, whose main thesis was elaborated in De regno et regali potestate (1600). Barclay insisted on the patriarchical principle of primogeniture as the exclusive way of succession.

  15. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), author of De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651; R. Tuck, ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1996). See T. Sorell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1996), and R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1993).

  16. Charles De Visscher once acutely observed that fear and anxiety have been the common denominators of all advocates of absolutism through the centuries. In Italy it materialised into the plea for the strictest Realpolitik, the ferocity of the lion and the slyness of the fox, with cynical disdain for moral precepts or religious considerations. See De Visscher, op cit. n. 8, at p. 12.

  17. The German Johannes Althusius (1557–1638), author of Politica methodice digesta (1603).

  18. Such as Bacon's New Atlantis, Harrington's Oceana, Campanella's City of the Sun or Andreae's Christianopolis.

  19. The idea can be traced to the 13th century in the works of Pierre Dubois, and continued with King Georg von Podebrad, Emeric Crucé and the Grand Dessein of Henri IV's minister De Sully down to William Penn, the Abbé de St.-Pierre, Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant. See C.J. Lange and A. Schou, Histoire de l'internationalisms II; De la paix de Westphalie jusqu'au Congrès de Vienne (Kristiana, Aschehoug 1954); J. Ter Meulen, Der Gedanke der Internationalen Organisation in seiner Entwicklung, 3 Vols. (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff 1917–1940), Vol. 1; H.J. Schlochauer, Die Idee des ewigen Friedens (Bonn, Rohrscheid 1953).

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  20. Grotius was perhaps the first to systematically assemble the prevailing traditions of his day around a body of principles rooted in the law — and the law exclusively. See H. Bull, et al., eds., Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1990); C.G. Roelofsen, Studies in the History of International Law, diss. Utrecht (Utrecht, s.1., s.n. 1991) pp. 75–131; Ch. De Visscher, op. ax.., passim.

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  21. To 19th century Eurocentrism and ‘civilised nations’ doctrine the universalist outlook obviously had no appeal.

  22. The tension between law as a product of natural reason (fusis), a universally valid, cosmic counterpart to the particular man-made ‘law and order’ of the city-state (nomos) was a constant topic of argument in antique Greece, the one phrased in statements of most general nature, the latter, typically, in strict prescriptions.

  23. To Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, man was a member of the oikeiosis, that great family of mankind which spanned the entire globe: katholikon. See G. Abel, Stoizismus und frühe Neuzeit (Berlin, De Gruyter 1978); G. Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1982).

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  24. See L. Gross, ‘The Peace of Westphalia, 1648–1948’, in 42 AJIL (1948) pp. 20–41 at pp. 31–33; P. Vinogradoff, ‘Historical Types of International Law’, in H.A.L. Fisher, ed., Collected Papers Vinogradoff, II (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1928) pp. 296 et seq.

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  25. , Suarez, De Legibus II.XIX.9: ‘for these states when standing alone are never so self-sufficient that they do not require some mutual assistance, association and intercourse’, and Grotius, DJBP, Prolegomena 22: ‘... there is no state so powerful that it may not some time need the help of others outside itself.’

  26. See L. Gross, op. cit. n. 24; T. Turretini, La signification des traités de Westphalie dans la domainedudroitdes gens (Geneva, Imprimerie Genevoise 1949); F. Dickmann, Der Westfälische Frieden (Munster, Verlag Aschendorff 1972); F.L. Israel, ed., Major Peace Treaties of Modern History 1648–1967, Vol. I (New York, Chelsea House 1967); A. Osiander, The States System of Europe, 1640-1990 (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1994).

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  28. It all started when the ambitious Catholic King of Bohemia, by imposing the cuius regio principle on his territories, enforced absolutism on his nobility. His political cleansings through the Edict of Restitution made the Protestant Union to call in the help of Christian IV of Denmark, Gustave II Adolph of Sweden and Louis XIII.

  29. See K.J. Holsti, Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648–1948 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1991) p. 25.

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  30. Innocent X refused to sign and proclaimed the Peace null and void in the Bull Zelo domus Dei.

  31. Mazarin felt no scruples in proposing an alliance to the Protestant regicide of his king's uncle, Oliver Cromwell.

  32. Cf. the word of Hobbes: ‘The Sword of Justice in the municipal sphere is directed by law; the Sword of War, in international affairs, is directed by power.’

  33. See E. Gulick, Europe's Classical Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press 1955); A. Vagts and D. Vagts, ‘The Balance of Power in International Law: A History of an Idea’, 73 AJIL (1979) pp. 555–580.

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  34. It is this notion which still prevails in the Permanent Membership of the Security Council.

  35. See H. Bull, op. cit. n. 7, at pp. 101–126.

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  36. Treatises of the period, Graswinkel's De jure majestatis (1642), Uytenbogaert's Overheydt (1644) or Grotius' De imperio (1647) all settle the issue of state and church by advocating the pragmatic, regent and merchant class approach. See H. W. Blom, in Munster/De Zeventiende Eeuw [Munster/The Seventeenth Century] pp. 89–97; idem, Causality and Morality in Politics, diss. (1995) pp. 167 et seq.

  37. See S. Groenveld and H.L.Ph. Leeuwenberg, eds., De Unie van Utrecht. Wording en werking van een verbond en een verbondsacte [The Union of Utrecht. The Origin and Operation of a Treaty and a Treaty Act] (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff 1979); S.J. Fockema Andreae, De Nederlandse Staat onder de Republiek [The Dutch State under the Republic] (Amsterdam, Noord-Hollandsche U.M. 1962); and H. Colenbrander, Geschiedenis Staatsinstellingen [Constitutional History] (The Hague, Nijhoff 1922).

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  38. See A.A.H. Struycken, De Hoofdtrekken van Nederlands buitenlandsch beleid [The Main Features of Dutch Foreign Policy] (Arnhem, S. Gouda Quint 1923) p. 18.

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  39. See J.J.C. Voorhoeve, Peace, Profits and Principles. A Study of Dutch Foreign Policy (Leiden, Martinus Nijhoff 1985); N.C.F. van Sas, ed., De Kracht van Nederland, Internationale Positie en Buitenlands Beleid [The Strenghth of the Netherlands, the International Position and Foreign Policy] (Haarlem, Becht 1991); D. Hellema, Buitenlandse Politiek van Nederland [Foreign Policy of the Netherlands] (Utrecht, Het Spectrum 1995).

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  40. HA. van Karnebeek, Veertig Jaren (1898–1938) [Forty Years (1898-1938)] (The Hague, Van Stockum 1938) p. 4.

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  41. Being whichever power dominated the European scene: Spain, France or Germany.

  42. William even aspired to expansionism along the Rhine and Mosella, only to find himself checked by Prussia.

  43. Vagts and Vagts, op. cit. n. 33, at p. 580.

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  44. Holsti, op. cit. n. 29, at p. 44.

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  45. Charles II, the Spanish King, stipulated by will that the kingdoms of Spain and France were never to be joined in a personal union under a Bourbon.

  46. Vagts and Vagts, op. cit. n. 33, at pp. 556–557.

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  47. Grotius pushed this claim even further: it was not only a question of affirming on an ontological plane the substantial unity of the human community within the juridical and political order of modern states, but also, on the existential level, of recovering the unity destroyed by religious struggles. The dependence of a law of nations on natural law guarantee[d] this cohesion.

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Eyffinger, A. Europe in the Balance: An Appraisal of the Westphalian System. Neth Int Law Rev 45, 161–187 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165070X0000019X

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