From Westphalia to Cosmopolis?

This is the first volume in a two-volume work contrasting two alternative world orders and assessing their comparative strengths and weaknesses and the chances for, and obstacles to, gradually moving from one to the other. Often referred to as the Westphalian system, it may briefly be described as an order of sovereign states, recognising each other as such and as a consequence thereof obliging themselves to not interfere in the internal affairs of each other. This volume is devoted to the darker sides of Westphalia commencing with wars and ending with genocide and other forms of crimes against humanity. As openly acknowledged by Hedley Bull, the fact that the Westphalian world system may thus enhance ’order’ does not automatically ensure justice or other human desiderata such as human rights, prosperity or personal security. While the Westphalian order did provide a growing body of international law regulating the conduct of war and limiting the right of states to go to war, as history has shown, these regulations have neither prevented wars nor really succeeded in tempering their conduct. The protective legal walls of the sovereignty/non-intervention norm have often allowed incumbent regimes to ruthlessly exploit and terrorise their own citizens. Proposals for a ’sovereignty of responsibility’ as an alternative to unlimited sovereign rights, whilst compatible with Westphalian rules, is better treated as modest steps away from Westphalia towards an alternative world order. A transference of responsibility elsewhere either to another state or world organisation, brings us to a more just and cosmopolitan order, the subject of the second volume.