The Peace of Westphalia and its 4 Principles for Interstate Relations Isn't Failing

Tom Timberman

Editor’s note: See “Losing the International Order: Westphalia, Liberalism and Current World Crises” by Peter Harris, The National Interest.

The impetus for the Peace of Westphalia was decades of bloody, highly destructive war, as it was for the League of Nations and the United Nations. The documents signed in 1648 were three peace treaties among different sets of combatants; it was not a single document that embodied a new philosophy of governance. It did give all political science professors a handy starting point for their freshman courses.

However, each of the three treaties included what we might call today "confidence building measures" that would discourage interstate aggression. They were:

National self-determination;

Precedent for ending wars through diplomatic congresses;

Peaceful coexistence among sovereign states as the norm;

Maintained by a balance of power among sovereign states and acceptance of principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other sovereign states.

Given that all participants in the three peace treaties, with one exception (Dutch Republic), were more or less absolute monarchies, it's no surprise that principles of democracy, rule of law etc. were not discussed and had to wait another century or so to find their way into the Enlightenment. I agree with Prof. Harris that "liberal thought" began to trickle down and over time became 18th and 19th embellishments of some sovereign states internal politics and governance practices.

However, in many places outside of Western Europe and North America, it was democracy that failed to blossom and the strong-man pattern of government that prevailed still does. Often, these countries have the external trappings of parliaments, "independent" judicial systems and constitutions that usually say all the right things. It's these oligarchs and dictators that violate human rights, deliver deadly violence upon their citizens and raise the ire of the "democratic" or "liberal" sovereign states.

Knights Templar (medieval ancestors of ISIS, AQ etc?[i]), brigands, highwaymen, condottieri have been replaced with terrorist groups with money, internal combat structure, modern weapons and social media. If these groups actually succeed in organizing caliphates or feudal fiefdoms, they would probably become easier to destroy. In the meantime, who should bear the responsibility to snuff them out; perhaps the communities, tribes or states that spawned them? When the Western powers intervene in the 21st Century, the situation generally becomes worse.

Thus, the Peace of Westphalia and its 4 principles for interstate relations isn't failing, the point that Prof. Harris makes, it's democracy more specifically that is faltering often because it never took root. The Enlightenment was conceived by European intellectuals and then dispersed among middle and upper class Euros. They understood, accepted and proselytized its principles among their compatriot masses and led them to revolution. However, the attempts by Euro-Anglo-Americans to impose democracy, the rule of law and human rights on societies with other cultures, traditions and authority structures, haven’t worked out so well in the Middle East, Afghanistan, etc.

What does the future hold? Perhaps broader communities of shared or common interests who collaborate to advance those that benefit all participants. These communities already exist, i.e. the UN and its agencies, other regional groupings, EU, OSCE, ASEAN, NAFTA, NATO that are organized around specific categories of interests: economic, financial (World Bank, IMF, Asia Bank), security, justice, development and others more specialized. The tensions between sovereignty relinquished and the organizations that exercise it on behalf of everyone are very much in evidence in EU Europe.

However, until the UN acquires its own military force to maintain a peaceful, prosperous order among nations, I don’t expect sovereign states as the basic political unit to disappear.

End Note