Westphalia: The Beginning

If you are a student of international affairs or have spent time studying the science you must know of the Peace of Westphalia signed in 1648 (hence the address of this blog)

For those that don't-

The Peace of Westphalia is a treaty that was signed in 1648 bringing the thirty years war and the eighty years war to an end.

The Peace of Westphalia is widely recognized as the birth of the international system.

The Peace of Westphalia changed the world in that it introduced the idea of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination, the principle of state equality, and the principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state.

Westphalia is still relevant in today's society.

In 1998 a Symposium on the continuing political Relevance of the Peace of Westphalia, then–NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said that "humanity and democracy [were] two principles essentially irrelevant to the original Westphalian order" and levied a criticism that "the Westphalian system had its limits. For one, the principle of sovereignty it relied on also produced the basis for rivalry, not community of states; exclusion, not integration."

n 2000, then–German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer referred to the Peace of Westphalia in his Humboldt Speech, which argued that the system of European politics set up by Westphalia was obsolete: "The core of the concept of Europe after 1945 was and still is a rejection of the European balance-of-power principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, a rejection which took the form of closer meshing of vital interests and the transfer of nation-state sovereign rights to supranational European institutions."

In the aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks, Lewis ‘Atiyyatullah, who claims to represent the terrorist network al-Qaeda, declared that "the international system built-up by the West since the Treaty of Westphalia will collapse; and a new international system will rise under the leadership of a mighty Islamic state


quotes from wikipedia.