Guarantee and Intervention: the Assessment of the Peace of Westphalia in International Law and Politics by Authors of Natural Law and of Public Law, c. 1650–1806

Tür:

Kitap Bölümü

Yazar:

Patrick Milton

Yayın yılı:

2019

Dil:

en

AbstractThe Peace of Westphalia had a profound impact on the early modern law of nations. Contrary to the still widespread myth of the ‘Westphalian system’, the Peace in many ways increased the scope for legally buttressed interventions in the domestic affairs of another state (the Holy Roman Empire), rather than reducing it. This occurred chiefly through an innovative application of the guarantee of an international treaty. Both guarantees and interventions were theorised by natural law authors in the context of their writings on the law of nations. This chapter explores how such writers assessed the Peace of Westphalia in general, and its international aspects in particular – chiefly its international and mutual guarantee – and compares it with the corresponding assessments by authors of other traditions, mainly that of ius publicum. While some natural lawyers allowed for interventions designed to protect foreign subjects, and therefore welcomed the ‘juridification’ of intervention resulting from the guarantee of the treaties of Westphalia, there was a widespread hostility to the guarantee as instrumentalized in practice, especially by France under Louis xiv. Writers of ius publicum similarly viewed the guarantee as a laudable instrument in theory, although they sought to set limits to its actual exercise in international politics, and warned against deriving from it a general right to intervene.

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