From Nomos to Hegung: Sovereignty and the Laws of War in Schmitt's International Order

Jacques, Johanna

doi:10.1111/1468-2230.12122

From Nomos to Hegung: Sovereignty and the Laws of War in Schmitt's International Order

Jacques, Johanna

Authors

Dr Johanna Jacques johanna.jacques@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Abstract

Carl Schmitt's notion of nomos is commonly regarded as the international equivalent to the national sovereign's decision on the exception. But can concrete spatial order alone turn a constellation of forces into an international order? This article looks at Schmitt's work The Nomos of the Earth and proposes that it is the process of bracketing war called Hegung which takes the place of the sovereign in the international order Schmitt describes. Beginning from an analysis of nomos, the ordering function of the presocratic concept moira is explored. It is argued that the process of Hegung, like moira, does not just achieve the containment of war, but constitutes the condition of possibility for plural order.

Citation

Jacques, J. (2015). From Nomos to Hegung: Sovereignty and the Laws of War in Schmitt's International Order. Modern Law Review, 78(3), 411-430. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12122

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 8, 2014
Online Publication Date	May 1, 2015
Publication Date	May 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Sep 8, 2015
Publicly Available Date	May 1, 2017
Journal	Modern Law Review
Print ISSN	0026-7961
Electronic ISSN	1468-2230
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	78
Issue	3
Pages	411-430
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12122
Keywords	Carl Schmitt, Nomos, Moira, Hegung, Hedge, Recognition, Sovereignty, Laws of war, International order.

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Jacques, J. (2015), From Nomos to Hegung: Sovereignty and the Laws of War in Schmitt's International Order. The Modern Law Review, 78(3): 411-430, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12122. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.