The Westphalian model, sovereignty and law in fin-de-siecle German international theory.

Abstract

This article considers the Westphalian model and its supposed origins in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century positivist thought. It shows how three German theorists, Georg Jellinek, Heinrich Triepel and Max Huber, subscribed to a weak version of the Westphalian model that allows for a multilateral international community based on law but not the strong version associated with absolute sovereignty and the exclusion of international community. It further shows how their ideas, especially their rejection of private property and contract law analogies, and their treatment of sovereignty, are of continuing relevance. It also serves as a correction to the all too frequent portrayal of German thought at this time in terms of hyper-nationalism and proto-Darwinian approaches to the international order.