CSS International Relation Paper 1 2019 Question No 2

Discuss the significant features of "Treaty of Westphalia" and the development of modern Nation-State System.

1. Introduction

In our time, the Treaty of Westphalia 1648 has acquired a special resonance as a path breaker of a new concept of international order that has spread around the world. Unlike other landmark agreements such as the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15 or the Treaty of Versailles in 19419, the Peace of Westphalia did not emerge from a single conference or meeting of leaders. However, its signing ushered in a new era in world history with the proliferation of nation-states based on nationalism and culture rather than religion.

2. Historical Background of the Treaty of Westphalia

A century of intermittent wars attended the rise and spread of the Protestant critique of Church supremacy: The Habsburg Empire and the papacy both sought to stamp out the challenge to their authority, and Protestants resisted defense of their new faith. The period labeled as the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) brought this turmoil to a climax.

By the time representatives of the Holy Roman Empire and its two main adversaries, France and Sweden, agreed in principle to convene a peace conference, the conflict had ground on for twenty-three years. Mirroring the variety of contenders from Spain to Sweden, the peace emerged from a series of separate arrangements made in two different Westphalian towns.

  1. Catholic powers, including 178 separate participants from different states constituting the Holy Roman Empire, gathered in the Catholic city of Munster.
  2. Protestant powers gathered in the mixed Lutheran and Catholic city of Osnabruck, roughly thirty miles away.

The Peace of Westphalia that emerged from these convoluted discussions is probably the most frequently cited diplomatic document in European history, though in fact no single treaty exists to embody its terms.

Main Features of "Treaty of Westphalia"

  1. The state, not the empire, dynasty or religion, was affirmed as the building block of European order.
  2. The inherent equality of sovereign states, regardless of their power or domestic system, was instituted. Newly arrived powers, such as Sweden and Dutch Republic, were granted protocol treatment equal to that of established powers like France and Austria.
  3. The concept of state sovereignty was established under the aegis of balance of power.
  4. The right of each signatory to choose its own domestic structure and religious orientation free from intervention was affirmed, while novel causes ensured that minority sects could practice their faith in peace and be free from the prospect of forced conversion.
  5. A system of "international relations" began to take shape with resident representatives stationed in capitals of fellow states.
  6. International law, developed by traveling scholar-advisors such as Hugo de Groot (Grotius) during the war, was treated as an expendable body of agreed doctrine aimed at the cultivation of harmony, with the Westphalian treaties themselves at its heart.
Henry Kissinger writes in his book, World Order, that "the genius of this system, and the reason it spread across the world, was that its provisions were procedural, not substantive...By the mid-twentieth century, this international system was in place on every continent; it remains the scaffolding of international order as it now exists."