Sovereignty and Peace

Extract

Lionel Curtis has now collected in one volume four of the pamphlets he wrote during the war). We are greatly indebted to him for this collection which certainly deserves careful reading by all who are devoted to the cause of peace and who take the shaping of the future seriously. For the essence of his case, here powerfully stated, is that sovereignty excludes the rule of law and leads to anarchy and to a fragmentation of human society in which the will of the stronger ultimately prevails. Such a world is doomed to war unless the national States surrender their sovereignty and merge it into one international sovereign State.

In fact, it cannot be disputed that international law has failed to maintain peace between the States and that this is mainly due to the fact that the national States have not relinquished their sovereignty. For sovereignty is uncontrolled, irresponsible and unlimited power. It embodies in collective entities the evil spirit of selfishness which knows no restraints and no standards of judgment other than its own. It entitles the State to maintain its political existence in the international sphere, even against justice and law. This state of affairs explains why, in the age of the national state, every international question of political weight has become overlaid by considerations of force and power, and why any State, for the sake of its honour, its political existence or its vital national interests can declare war on another State and thereby annul the existing international relations between the States. Writers on international law have even developed the doctrine of the lawfulness of war, although the effect of war is always to exclude the operation of law. Briefly, sovereignty legitimizes licence and arbitrariness and makes an effective institutional world organisation impossible. It perpetuates chaos in international relationships and cannot lead to a pacification of the world.