Westphalian sovereignty

Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of nation-state sovereignty based on two things: territoriality and the absence of a role for external agents in domestic structures.
Scholars of international relations have identified the modern, Western originated, international system of states, multinational corporations, and organizations, as having begun at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.^[1] Both the basis and the conclusion of this view have been attacked by some revisionist academics and politicians, with revisionists questioning the significance of the Peace, and some commentators and politicians attacking the Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states.

The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October of 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic.

The Peace of Westphalia treaties involved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, of the House of Habsburg, the Kingdoms of Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and sovereigns of the free imperial cities and can be denoted by two major events.

·         The signing of the Peace of Münster^[1] between the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Spain on 30 January 1648, officially ratified in Münster on 15 May 1648.

·         The signing of two complementary treaties on 24 October 1648, namely:

o    The Treaty of Münster (Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriensis, IPM),^[2] concerning the Holy Roman Emperor and France and their respective allies.

o    The Treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugensis, IPO),^[3] concerning the Holy Roman Emperor, the Empire and Sweden and their respective allies.

The treaties resulted from the big diplomatic congress,^[4][5] thereby initiating a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of a sovereign state governed by a sovereign. In the event, the treaties’ regulations became integral to the constitutional law of the Holy Roman Empire.

The treaties did not restore the peace throughout Europe, however. France and Spain remained at war for the next eleven years, making peace only in the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659.

Globalization and Westphalian sovereignty

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the emerging literature on globalization focused primarily on the erosion of interdependence sovereignty and Westphalian sovereignty. Much of this literature was primarily concerned to criticize realist models of international politics in which the Westphalian notion of the state as a unitary agent are taken as axiomatic (Camilleri and Falk 1992).
The European Union concept of shared sovereignty is also somewhat contrary to historical views of Westphalian sovereignty, as it provides for external agents to interfere in nations' internal affairs.
In a 2008 article Phil Williams [1] links the rise of terrorism and other violent non-state actors (VNSA's), which pose a threat to the Westphalian sovereignty of the state, to globalization.

Failed states

A further criticism of Westphalian sovereignty arises in relation to allegedly failed states, of which Afghanistan (before the 2001 US-led invasion) is often considered an example.{^[12]} In this case, it is argued that no sovereignty exists and that international intervention is justified on humanitarian grounds and by the threats posed by failed states to neighboring countries and the world as a whole.
Some of the recent debate over Somalia is also being cast in these same terms.{^[13]