THE NOTION THAT THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORIAL STATE CAME TO DOMINATE Essay

THE NOTION THAT THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORIAL STATE CAME TO DOMINATE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS FOLLOWING THE repose OF WESTPHALIA IS A MYTH - Essay ExampleHaving begun in May 1618, the series of wars involving the Austrian Monarchy, the sacred papistic Empire and practic all toldy the whole Europe, which became known as the Thirty years War, was brought to an end by the agreement of Westphalia, aka the Westphalian settlement complex two-part parallel negotiations concluded in October 1648 (Williams, 1980 Watson, 1992). Osiander (2001) points out that, according to the standard view, the Thirty geezerhood War had been a struggle between two main parties. On the one side there were the Emperor of the holy Roman Empire and the Spanish King, both being members of the Habsburg dynasty and loyal to the Pope and the Catholic Church (Osiander, 2001). On the other side there appeared the protestant kings of Denmark and Sweden, the King of France, Protestant German princes, the Dutch Republic etc., who presumably rejected the imperial power, on with the authority of the Pope, defending instead the sovereignty of all states (Osiander, 2001 Watson, 1992). The end of the Thirty Years War, as marked by the Peace Treaty of Westphalia, is widely regarded as the start point for of the international system (Osiander, 2001) Gross (1948), for example, writes that the Peace of Westphalia has had a lasting influence on international law and policy for over triple centuries. In other words, as Watson (1992) points out, the Westphalian settlement not only legitimised a commonwealth of sovereign states, being a triumph of the state in control condition of its internal affairs and independent externally, but also was held to provide a fundamental and countrywide charter for Europe. Nevertheless, there are rather different verdicts, like the one of Dame Veronica Wedgwood, stating that the public security was totally ineffectual in settling the problems of Europe (Watson, 1992). Thi s paper reviews the achievements of the Treaty of Westphalia, which constituted the Westphalian system, or framework, with the excogitation of sovereignty at its core (Osiander, 2001), to establish whether it was so successful in bringing about a new world order that eventually brought about the birth of the United Nations. Historical Background The Holy Roman Empire was founded in the year 800 AD when the Frankish king, Charlemagne, was crowned by Pope social lion III (Wilson, 2011). Emperor Charlemagne greatly expanded the Empires territory to the east, especially along the Baltic shore thus, by the late fifteenth century, the core area of the Empire covered that of modern Germany and Austria, as well as Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands (Wilson, 2011). The Empire officially included Switzerland although its exact constitutional position had been a count of certain controversy as well as the kingdom of Bohemia (the territory of present-day Czech Republic) with its depe ndencies of Moravia, Lusatia and Silesia along with Lorraine, Alsace and other areas to the west (Wilson, 2011). Additionally, the cities and principalities of Northern Italy constituted a region known as Imperial Italy, which was formally part of the Empire (Wilson, 2011). The Catholic Church and the Pope had played a vital role in the Holy Roman Empire from its very inception, being the supreme authority in religious matters (Wilson, 2011 Munck, 2005). aft(prenominal) the death of Emperor Charlemagne, the vast territory of the Holy Roman Empire had been divided into separate regions, to wit Germany, France, and Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands (Wilson, 2011 Munck, 2005). During the following centuries, the composition of the Holy Roman Empire had been a loose configuration of more than three hundred principalities, alongside nearly one thousand political units with quasi-autonomous power, including free imperial cities (Munck, 2005). Thus constituted, the Holy Roman Empi re is described by some historians as an