71 the Westphalia Peace Treaties and the Development of The

The Westphalia Peace Treaties and the

Development of the Tradition of Great European Peace Settlements prior to 1648

RANDALLLESAFFER*

1. The triple significance of the Westphalia peace settlement

According to modern scholarship, the two peace treaties signed at Munster between the Empire and France and at Osnabruck between the Empire and Swe- den on October 24th, 1648 constitute a major turning point in German and Eu- ropean political, religious and legal history. The significance of the treaties is clearly triple.' The treaties were more than just normal peace settlements. They also implied important constitutional and religious settlements regarding the Empire. According to the text of the treaties themselves, the peace settlements were to be considered as imperial laws and even as part of the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire.2 In addition to the establishment of the principle of territorial sovereignty for each of the more than three hundred Stande that made up the Empire, the treaties recognized the right of the Stdnde to participate in all decisions regarding the Empire and restored their right to form alliances with each other or with foreign powers, as long as these alliances were not directed against the emperor, the Empire or the public peace.3

*Catholic University of Louvain. I Fritz Dickmann, Der Westfdlisclie Frieden (Monster 1972) 5-9. Karl Otmar von Are- tin, Das Alte Reich 1648-1806 I (Stuttgart 1993) 17-21. 2 The Osnabruck treaty will be referred to as iPo, the Munster treaty as IPM.The quota- tions and subdivision in articles and paragraphs are taken from the Parry edition. The numbers for the paragraphs of the Munster treaty are those from the English translation in that edition: Clive Parry, The Consolidated Treaty Series I (Dobbs Ferry 1969). Art. 17, par. 2 iPo. Par. 120 IPM.See also: Albrecht Randelzhofer, Volkerrechtliche Aspekte des Heiligen Römisches Reiches nach 1648 (Berlin, 1988) 54-62. 3 With this last term the treaties themselves were meant. Art. 8, par. 1 and 2 lPO.Par. 64 and 65 IPM.The right to form alliances had been abolished by the peace treaty of Prague signed on 30 May 1635 between the Emperor and Saxony, to which most of the German powers subsequently acceded. Art. 27. Jean DuMont, Corps universel diplornatique du

71 Furthermore, the peace treaties brought an end to the religious struggle within the German Empire, among other things by establishing equality between princes and Stände regardless of their religion.4 Taken together, the constitutional and religious settlement amounted to the construction of a highly federative Empire based on the principles of territorial sovereignty and sovereign equality of the Statide. In that way, the 1648 settlement determined the constitutional and religious constellation of the Empire for the rest of its exis- tence.5 But most of all, emphasis has been paid to the fundamental significance of the Westphalia peace treaties for the historical development of the modern law of nations and the classical European order. The broad majority of nineteenth and twentieth century specialists of international law and its history consider the 1648 treaties - next to Grotius' De lure Belli ac Pacis libri tres (1625) - as the very birth of the classical ius publicum Europaeuni. Most authors thereby point to the same innovations to support such an assessment of the treaties. Though this principle was not present in the text, the treaties introduced the idea of sovereign equality among the states of Europe. This was however a broad extension of the recognition of the equality of the German Stdnde regardless of their religion.6 Secondly, the recognition of the equality of religions led to the secularization of European politics? And thirdly, the peace treaties droit des gens (Amsterdam, 1726) IV, 1, 97 (further referred to as DM).See also: Ernst- Wolfgang Bockenforde, 'Der Westfalische Friede und das Bundnisrecht der Reichs- stdnde,' Der Staat, V III ( 1 969)458-475. 4 Art. 5, par. 1 and art. 7 iPo. 5 See also: Max Braubach, Der Westfalische Friede (Monster, 1948) 64. Bockenforde, 'Der Westfalische Friede,' 450-451. Fritz Dickmann, 'Der Westfalische Frieden und die Reichsverfassung,' in: Forschungen und Studien zur Geschichte des Westfalischen Friedens (Munster, 1965) 12-15. Heinz Duchhardt, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte 1495-1806 (Stuttgart, 1991) 181-187. Randelzhofer, Völkerrechtliche Aspekte, 54-56 and 297-300. Aretin, Das Alte Reich 1, 17-18. Dietmar Willoweit, Deutsche Verfas- sungsgeschichte. Vom Frankenreich bis zur Teilung Deutschlands (Munchen, 1992) 139-144. 6 See e.g.: Fritz Dickmann, Der Westfälische Frieden, 6. Andrea Rapisardi Mirabelli, 'Le congres de Westphalie, ses negociations et ses r6sultats au point de vue de l'histoire du droit des gens,' Bibliotheca Visseriana Dissertationum Ius Internationale Illustranti- um, XX (1929) 10 and 14. Andreas Osiander, The States System of Europe 1640-1990. Peacemaking and the conditions of International Stability (Oxford, 1994) 82-89. 7 See e.g.: Leo Gross, 'The Peace of Westphalia, 1648-1948,' American Journal of In- ternational Law, XLII (1948) 22-23. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York, 1995) 64-66. Mirabelli, 'Le congres de Westphalie,' 13. Henry Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America; from the earliest times to the Treaty of Washington, 1842 (New York, 1845) 69.