BACK TO WESTPHALIAN PRINCIPLES
By Bernard CHALUMEAU
The treaties of Westphalia and the genesis of International law.
http://laiglesforum.com/sovereignty-back-to-westphalian-principles/3133.htm
Like all French school children, we are aware that the Treaties of
Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War, which began with the
defenestration of Prague in 1618, giving France the Three Bishopricks of
Metz, Toul and Verdun of the Holy Roman Empire.
However, let us take a closer look because there was much more to it than this:
These treaties are constituted of several agreements signed between the parties to the various conflicts:
– On January 30th, 1648, in Münster, the treaty between Spain and the United Provinces ended the war of Eighty Years.
- On October the 24th, in Münster, the treaty between France and the Holy Roman Empire ended
the Thirty Years War, to which was added an act by which the Holy
Empire gave to France the three Bishopricks of Alsace, Brisach and
Pignerol, and another by which Emperor Ferdinand III, the archdukes of
Austria, Charles, Ferdinand and Sigismund gave Alsace to France.
– On October 24, in Osnabrück, it also ended the 30 Years War.
-On July 2,1650, in Nuremberg, the two agreements between the Holy
Empire and France and between the Holy Empire and Sweden relating to the
enforcement of the peace.
These treaties were the bases for the organization of Germany up to the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
Unfortunately, most school texts fail to indicate that the principles
of international law were born on the date these important treaties
were signed.
The object of this article is not to describe the very complex
progress of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) where many conflicts pitted
the Hapsburg of Spain and the Holy German Empire, supported by the
Roman Catholic Church, against the Protestant German States of the Holy
Empire allied with the nearby European powers with Protestant
majorities, United Provinces and Scandinavian countries, as well as
France, which intended to reduce the power of the Hapsburgs on the
European continent.
However, one must bear in mind that it was the most dreadful
slaughter of the entire 17th century, which killed several million men,
women and children.
Since the demography of Europe was seriously affected, the
belligerents thus looked for ways and means to avoid a recurrence of
such horrific massacres.
The negotiations of these treaties lasted a long time (from 1644 till
1648), because it was necessary to establish new modes of relations
between States with a view to limiting wars and to strengthen
“the law of nations.”
In his work “The six books of the Republic”, published in 1576, the
famous French lawyer Jean BODIN (1529-1596), had published his thoughts
on public law, “res publica,” and on the powers of the king, as the
first legal principles of sovereignty:
“Sovereignty is the
absolute and perpetual power of the State, which is the greatest power
to command. The State in the person of the monarch is supreme inside its
territories, independent of any high authority, and legally equal to
the other States”
Further, the Dutchman Hugo Grotius published in 1623 a work entitled
“De Jure Belli et Pacis,” which proposed the establishment of a “mutual
association” between nations, that is to say an international
organization, thereby laying the groundwork for
a code of public international law. Their
ideas were intended to guide the negotiators of these treaties in
establishing what has conventionally been called since that time “the
Westphalian system” as a guideline for the concept of modern
international relations.
– The balance of powers, meaning that any State, large or small, has
the same importance on the international scene (For example, see the
Article CXXII of the Münster Treaty in Old French below)
– The inviolability of national sovereign power (See article CXII of the Treaty below).
– The principle of non-intervention in the affairs of others (see article LXIV of the Treaty below).
Since the treaties of Wesphalia, a new actor succeeds the division of the power between villages, duchies and counties, namely,
the modern State.
The world is organized with States whose sovereignty must be respected
by the bordering states by virtue of the Westphalian concept of the
border. International relations become interstate and the respected
borders guarantee the peace.
| These treaties proclaim the absolute sovereignty of the State as the fundamental principle of international law. |
Europe becomes a set of States, having precise borders, recognized by
others, in which the prince or monarch exercises his full and complete
sovereignty. The characteristics of these modern States include the
constitution of permanent armies and the expression by the elites of the
fact of national existence. In these States, language appears as a
factor of unity.
The Westphalian principles subsequently contributed to the emergence of the idea of the Nation States in the 19
th
century, as well as the principle of nationalities, where every
National State enjoys, within its own borders, complete independence,
being provided with the highest possible form of sovereign power with
its own army, its own currency, its justice system, its police and an
economy, allowing it to live as independently as possible of the other
States.
Later the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States,
signed on December 26th 1933, would add four essential elements:
“To be sovereign, a State must have :
– a permanent population.
– a defined territory.
– an operational government.
– the capacity to enter directly in relation with other states.” |
It added a fundamental clause:
| The political existence of a state is independent of its recognition by other states. |
The United Nations, undoubtedly horrified by this measure, which it
considered too Westphalian for its taste — since it paved the way for
the emergence of multiple large or small States — then hurried to add
notions of “internal sovereignty” and “external sovereignty,” so that,
to be sovereign, States must have, in addition to their capacity to
exercise their power over the population inside their territory without
any outside constraint, the need to be recognized as sovereign States by
the other States of the international system.
The law of nations (Jus gentium ) or public international law:
Established under the Treaties of Westphalia, this law governs the
relations between the subjects of this legal system, which are States
and international organizations.
A subject of international law must comply with this law and must be
able to benefit from it. In the beginning, the State was the only
subject of international law. But this concept became obsolete, because,
after1815, the States found it necessary to join together in
international organizations, gradually acquiring the status of legal
subjects. Thus, the United Nations became, like the EU and other
international organizations, subjects of derived law (generally referred
to in American English as case law).
Introduction of the right of intervention in international relations:
Unfortunately, since the end of World War II, the increase in the
number of treaties between States of the western world tended to
suppress Westphalian principles by considerably developing their
military, economic and financial interdependence.
At the end of the Cold War, the United States of America, an enormous
consumer of energy and raw materials, desiring to extend its hegemony
throughout the planet and to get energy and raw material at the lowest
possible prices, noticed that the Westphalian ban on intervention in
other States thwarted its designs.
The United States of America felt obliged to find a way to by-pass Paragraph 7 of Article 2 of the UN Charter, which stated:
“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the
United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of any State,” summing up the very
Westphalian-sounding article 8 of the Agreement of Montevideo, which
banned intervention in the internal affairs of a State.
Based on the ideas of persons such as the philosopher Jean-François
Revel in 1979 and of Bernard Kouchner, a new “right” called the “
right of intervention,” was
concocted, i.e., the recognition of a right of one or more States to
violate the sovereignty of another State, within the framework of a
mandate granted by a supranational authority.
It was a wondrous invention which allowed:
– to abolish Westphalian principles,
– to add the notion of supranationality,
– to intervene on the territory of any State even against the will of that State,
– to establish world governance under the aegis of ad hoc international organizations,
– to subjugate the weakest States to one or more stronger States,
– to establish the hegemony of the US government.
The precious Westphalian principles were thereby overturned and
the whole world returned essentially to the monstrous situation of the
Thirty Years War.
The desired ad hoc international organization in the hands of United
States of America was found, namely, the UN. All that was needed was the
pretexts for war.
No problem:
– The US oligarchy rushes to the target State to be destabilized, a
CIA team, which will increasingly include, or be supplanted by, a Soros
foundation, USAID or the like, providing camouflage in the form of
“private” intervention.
– This team, relying on existing opposition or opposition to be
created from whole cloth in the current regime, develops a “National
Liberation Front” or the equivalent thereof.
– It equips it with the necessary weapons and bolsters it with troops, usually drawn from the Islamic sphere of influence.
– Thanks to mass media under its control, it floods public opinion
with information and images, often doctored, that overwhelm the
government in power.
– All that remains is for the UN to pass a “resolution” allowing the
armed forces of several States, mainly of the EU and the US, to come to
the aid of the young “National Liberation Front” and oust the current
regime.
This system worked very well for the interventions in Romania,
Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Darfur, Ivory Coast, Libya, Syria,
Nigeria, Ukraine, etc., spreading war throughout the planet.
The right of the bankers replaces the right of the people :
Thanks to the “legality” of the UN ad hoc resolution, the armed
forces deployed in the target State destroy a maximum of infrastructure,
such as power plants, factories, bridges, roads, railways, airports,
runways, and so on…
Thus, when the target State is “pacified,” American companies share
in the juicy reconstruction contracts. The new leader of the regime, set
up by the “liberators,” is very helpful in awarding these contracts to
said companies. At that point, the target State, its population and
resources are under the control of the US oligarchs.
These operations are managed behind the scenes by bankers, generally
US bankers. The bankers finance both belligerent parties, enjoining the
winner to honor the loser’s debts. They finance the military-industrial
lobbies committed in the conflict and manage the process in such a way
that it is drawn out as long as possible.
So, the bankers win every time!
The superiority of the right of the bankers over the right of the
people was established in Europe by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 by the
introduction of a single currency, the “euro,” controlled by the
European Central Bank, completely independently of the Member States’
governments under Article 108 of that treaty.
ARTICLE 108
“When exercising the powers and
carrying out the tasks and duties conferred upon them by this Treaty and
the Statute of the ESCB, neither the ECB, nor a national central bank,
nor any member of their decision-making bodies shall seek or take
instructions from Community institutions or bodies, governments of the
Member State or from any other body.” |
All European treaties since then have reinforced those provisions,
resulting in an impoverishment of populations subject to this single
currency and complete submission to a new slavery for the benefit of
bankers.
| It is no longer states that control the banks, but the banks that control the states. |
Evidence of this is on flagrant display throughout the world, notably
in Cyprus where depositors were ruined by bankers with the support of
the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission in Brussels and
the Central Bank of the EU.
The objective of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, expressed below:
“Let me produce and control the issue of currency of a state, and I do not care who can make laws”
has been achieved!
Having succeeded in removing Westphalian principles from
international law, the bankers rule the planet, start wars wherever and
whenever they want and enslave the people of the world. |
Conlusion:
The Westphalian system described herein clearly shows that whoever
advocates it, in France or elsewhere, i.e., patriots and the
sovereignists, are peace activists! They are the future of nations. That
is why the banker-controlled mass media are bent on either
contradicting them with outright lies, or silencing them.
| To secure peace in the world, Wesphalian principles must be restored! |
History in fact shows that, as long as these principles were
respected, the world (ie, Europe initially and then throughout the world
from the 19th century onward) experienced overall stability, but when
they were abandoned by a State or group of States, horrific conflict
occurred again.
Many historians believe that the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was
responsible for World War II by violating Westphalian principles,
substituting a collective security.
That is why I urge all patriots and French sovereigntists, particularly French youth, to enter into Resistance.
I invite them to partner with the youth of Europe and the rest of the
world to fight by all possible means to restore Westphalian principles
everywhere based on respect for the inalienable sovereignty and
independence of States.
There is not only an absolute necessity to recover their freedom,
their way of life, the kind of society they want to live in to escape
this new slavery, but also and above all, the need to preserve their
property, their lives and those of their descendants, who are, as we can
see today, physically threatened.
As for me, I remain at their disposal to help them while strength and breath shall last.
French patriots!
The wind of hope is rising! It is bringing back our France! It is bringing back our freedom!
Bernard CHALUMEAU |
Translation by Bernard Chalumeau, translation editing by Don Hank
