Peace of Westphalia

Known also as the treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, The Peace of Westphalia is the series of treaties that ended the Thirty Years' War and officially recognized the United Provinces and Swiss Confederation. The Spanish treaty which ended the Eighty Years' War was signed on January 30, 1648. The treaty signed October 24, 1648 comprehended the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, the other German princes, France, and Sweden.

Significance

It is often said that the Peace of Westphalia initiated the modern fashion of diplomacy as it marked the beginning of the modern system of nation-states (or "Westphalian states"). Subsequent wars were not about issues of religion, but rather revolved around issues of state. This allowed Catholic and Protestant Powers to ally, leading to a number of major realignments.

Related Topics:
Diplomacy - Nation-state - Religion

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Modern views

In 1998 on a Symposium on the Political Relevance of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, then NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said that "humanity and democracy two principles essentially irrelevant to the original Westphalian order" and criticized 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." http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1998/s981112a.htm

Related Topics:
1998 - NATO - Javier Solana - Sovereignty

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In 2001, 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." http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/eu_politik/ausgabe_archiv?suche=1&archiv_id=1027&bereich_id=4&type_id=3

Related Topics:
2001 - German - Joschka Fischer - 1945

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In the aftermath of the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks, the terrorist network al-Qaida also 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". http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=5420 Also, it is often claimed that globalization is bringing an evolution of the international system past the sovereign Westphalian state.

Related Topics:
11 March 2004 Madrid attacks - Al-Qaida - Globalization

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