There seems to be a general consensus that a multilateral treaty is the only way to reduce global carbon emissions. Yet, the failure of the Copenhagen conference indicates that the U.N. is the wrong instrument to bring this about.
This raises the question whether unilateral action based on national self-interest may be the only way to manage climate change effectively. But there are other ways. This week, Jeffrey Simpson suggested in his column in The Globe and Mail that perhaps the G8 may be a suitable forum to deal with the issue, now that the centre of attention seems to be moving in the direction of the G20.
Whatever the right forum, any action to manage climate change would require international agreements. Yet the necessary legislation can only be enacted by national governments, i.e., by sovereign states. True, any international treaty imposing obligations of one kind or another reduces national sovereignty as it has been understood since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. When the Europeans formed the E.U. they agreed to sacrifice parts of their national sovereign rights in favour of a larger union. In their time, the American states and the Canadian provinces – all British colonies – agreed to have their powers reduced in favour of a larger union.
The concept of sovereignty is now becoming obsolete.
The term is being used in four ways:
1. The organization of public authority within a state;
2. The ability of public authorities to control transborder movements;
3. International legal sovereignty, i.e., the mutual recognition of states;
4. Westphalian sovereignty: the exclusion of external actions from domestic authority.
It is only in relation to Westphalian sovereignty that the climate change issue is relevant. In 1648, at the end of the Thirty-Years War, it was agreed that the sovereignty of the German princes should prevail over any loyalty to religious authority, that neither Catholics nor Protestants in one principality had the right to interfere with their fellow-believers in other principalities by reason of their religion. The winning formula used was: cujus regio, ejus religio, the religion of the ruler dictates the religion of the ruled.
That concept is being reconsidered, not only because of the issue of climate change. With the growth of international civil society, the Westphalian model is becoming increasingly obsolete. In order to stop genocide, massive killings or other grave human rights violations, a new principle is under discussion – humanitarian interventionism, the antithesis to Westphalia. The international community would have the responsibility to protect the victims of such crimes. The “Responsibility to Protect” was first developed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which was established by the Government of Canada in its report in December 2001.
In his recent book, Worse Than War, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen argued that in this century genocide was likely to be a greater danger than war and that the U.N., a union of sovereign states, was the wrong body to prevent or control it. New international structures should be devised for that purpose.
Goodbye, Westphalia!
Eric Koch’s new book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
When Mount Pinautbo spewed volcanic ash into the air im 1991, the entire earth cooled. The Spectator in its Truth About Global Warming issue suggest an artifical volcano to cool things down. Pump sulphuric acid into the air. Maybe fixing acid rain wasn’t a good thing?
It also said sea levels are rising only 20cm and the Maldives doesn’t have anything to worry about. The Inuit say polar bears are OK. They love open water.
High marks for independent thinking.
But why are the glaciers shrinking ? And the Polar ice pack ? Somehow, I see plenty of factors indicating a worldwide warming. I need more information.
I am hugely surprised you did not comment on the concept of Westphalian sovereignty.
On the issue of global warming all you need to know is that responsible scientists around the globe consider it a serious matter. But that is not what my blog was about.
Eric, you raise some critical issues, and I am glad to see that your initial training as a lawyer has been something you’re able to transcend. As you sense, the facts are the following.
It was the G7 summit that pioneered global climate change governance in 1979 with a regime in many ways more ambitious and effective than anything the UN has been able to produce since.
For the past few years the G8 with the Major Economies Meeting/Forum has been able to make more advances than the UN at Copenhagen did. The most recent G20 summit, at Pittsburgh, also added value by controlling subsidies for carbon-intensive energy sources around the world.
This is all we need, for the MEM/G20 members combine almost all of the countries responsible for all global carbon sources (i.e., emissions and carbon sinks).
As for sovereignty and Westphalia, since the beginning of time Canada’s sovereign has lived and worked in Britain and has concurrently served as the sovereign of several other states. While she is Defender of the Faith, she is neither a pope nor a Holy Roman Emperor, but this thing called Westphalia is alien to the constitutional and political reality in which Canadians have lived for the several centuries since their country was founded in either 1756 or, some would say, 1608.
This does mean Canada should display global leadership to control climate change, if only to save those of our fellow Commonwealth countries that are in danger of being physically eliminated by the sea-level rise that could well come from uncontrolled climate change. Here I would trust the leaders and peoples of the Maldives, who probably have a clear-eyed view of what is actually happening to them.
Thank you, John.
When my brother and I learned about the Westphalian Treaty in high school we had no idea, of course, that it would be mentioned in textbooks on constitutional law in the 21st century, even if, thanks to Henry Vlll and his successors, the concept is alien to Anglo-Saxons. The British never interfered with other peoples’ sovereignty for religious reasons. Unlike his fellow-Protestants the Swedes, England managed to keep out ot the Thirty Years’ War.
How can the Westphalian principle be set aside except by unilateral action by one state, or a coalition of the willing (to borrow a phrase) in a way that will be deeply unpopular, not to say resisted by force of arms if need be, by those on whom the new policy is to be imposed?
I think it is highly unlikely that a non-UN group will arise that can move the world’s players in the right direction – though I guess one does not need unanimity, just the key players. But they could move through the UN as well as outside it, and it would be good for the UN to move inside it.
The chance that a non-UN body can prevent genocide seems slim to me, after the failures of the Iraq and Afghan missions (which were not about genocide but which were non-UN-level military ventures that are widely considered illegitimate and ineffective).
Maybe if the genocide is being done by someone truly marginal … but no one is doing much good in Darfur, because apparently even Sudan can find allies in powerful places.
I suspect we’re stuck with Westphalia, or at least all your definitions of sovereignty, for a while yet.
P.S. I suspect that one reason the English kept out of the Thirty Years War is that they had had a century of intermittent religious civil war already, and of course some more-or-less religious strife leading to a civil war in the later stages of the Thirty Years War. Not to mention that the monarchy was nominally protestant but with serious Catholic sympathies, so choosing a side would not have been easy.
I agree that the chance of a non-UN body being able to prevent genocide is slim. The villain in the Darfur case seems to be China which so far has prevented any international action – inside or outside the UN.
As to England and the Thirty Years War – it was probably more concerned with Ireland than Germany.
Thank you for your comments.
Sex at Couchiching in1958 coming up on Tuesday and Wednesday.