330. International law arises out of the relation to one another of independent states. Whatever is absolute in this relation receives the form of a command, because its reality depends upon a distinct sovereign will.
Addition.——A state is not a private person, but in itself a completely independent totality. Hence, the relation of states to one another is not merely that of morality and private right. It is often desired that states should be regarded from the standpoint of private right and morality. But the position of private persons is such that they have over them a law court, which realizes what is intrinsically right. A relation between states ought also to be intrinsically right, and in mundane affairs that which is intrinsically right ought to have power. But as against the state there is no power to decide what is intrinsically right and to realize this decision. Hence, we must here remain by the absolute command. States in their relation to one another are independent and look upon the stipulations which they make one with another as provisional.
331. The nation as a state is the spirit substantively realized and directly real. Hence, it is the absolute power on earth. As regards other states it exists in sovereign independence. Hence, to exist for and be recognized by another as such a state is its primary absolute right. But this right is yet only formal, and the state’s demand to be recognized, when based on these external relations, is abstract. Whether the state exists absolutely and in concrete fact, depends upon its content, constitution, and condition. Even then the recognition, containing the identity of both inner and outer relations, depends upon the view and will of another.
Note.— Just as the individual person is not real unless related to others (§71 and elsewhere), so the state is not really individual unless related to other states (§322), The legitimate province of a state in its foreign relations, and more especially of the princely function, is on one side wholly internal; a state shall not meddle with the internal affairs of another state. Yet, on the other side, it is essential for its completeness that it be recognized by others. But this recognition demands as a guarantee that it shall recognize those who recognize it, and will have respect for their independence. Therefore they cannot be indifferent to its internal affairs.—In the case of a nomadic people, or any people occupying a lower grade of civilization, the question arises how far it can be considered as a state. The religious opinions formerly held by Jews and Mahomedans may contain a still higher opposition, which does not permit of the universal identity implied in recognition.
Addition.— When Napoleon, before the peace of Campoformio, said, “The French Republic needs recognition as little as the sun requires to be recognized,” he really indicated the strength of the existence, which already carried with it a guarantee of recognition, without its having been expressed.
332. The direct reality, in which states stand to one another, sunders itself into various relations, whose nature proceeds from independent caprice on both sides, and hence has as a general thing the formal character of a contract. The subject matter of these contracts is, however, of infinitely narrower range than of those in the civic community. There individuals are dependent upon one another in a great variety of ways, while independent states are wholes, which find satisfaction in the main within themselves.
333. International law, or the law which is universal, and is meant to hold absolutely good between states, is to be distinguished from the special content of positive treaties, and has at its basis the proposition that treaties, as they involve the mutual obligations of states, must be kept inviolate. But because the relation of states to one another has sovereignty as its principle, they are so far in a condition of nature one to the other. Their rights have reality not in a general will, which is constituted as a superior power, but in their particular wills. Accordingly the fundamental proposition of international law remains a good intention, while in the actual situation the relation established by the treaty is being continually shifted or abrogated.
Note.— There is no judge over states, at most only a referee or mediator, and even the mediatorial function is only an accidental thing, being due to particular wills. Kant’s idea was that eternal peace should be secured by an alliance of states. This alliance should settle every dispute, make impossible the resort to arms for a decision, and be recognized by every state. This idea assumes that states are in accord, an agreement which, strengthened though it might be by moral, religious, and other considerations, nevertheless always rested on the private sovereign will, and was therefore liable to be disturbed by the element of contingency.
334. Therefore, when the particular wills of states can come to no agreement, the controversy can be settled only by war. Owing to the wide field and the varied relations of the citizens of different states to one another, injuries occur easily and frequently. What of these injuries is to be viewed as a specific breach of a treaty or as a violation of formal recognition and honour remains from the nature of the case indefinite. A state may introduce its infinitude and honour into every one of its separate compartments. It is all the more tempted to make or seek some occasion for a display of irritability, if the individuality within it has been strengthened by long internal rest, and desires an outlet for its pent-up activity.
335. Moreover, the state as a spiritual whole cannot be satisfied merely with taking notice of the fact of an injury, because injury involves a threatened danger arising from the possible action of the other state. Then, too, there is the weighing of probabilities, guesses at intentions, and so forth, all of which have a part in the creation of strife.
336. Each self-dependent state has the standing of a particular will; and it is on this alone that the validity of treaties depends. This particular will of the whole is in its content its well-being, and well-being constitutes the highest law in its relation to another. All the more is this so since the idea of the state involves that the opposition between right or abstract freedom on one side and the complete specific content or wellbeing on the other is superseded. It is to states as concrete wholes that recognition (§331) is first granted.
337. The substantive weal of the state is its weal as a particular state in its definite interests and condition, its peculiar external circumstances, and its particular treaty obligations. Thus the government is a particular wisdom and not universal providence (§324, note). So, too, its end in relation to other states, the principle justifying its wars and treaties, is not a general thought, such as philanthropy, but the actually wronged or threatened weal in its definite particularity.
Note.— At one time a lengthy discussion was held with regard to the opposition between morals and politics, and the demand was made that politics should be in accordance with morality. Here it may be remarked merely that the commonweal has quite another authority than the weal of the individual, and that the ethical substance or the state has directly its reality or right not in an abstract, but in a concrete existence. This existence, and not one of the many general thoughts held to be moral commands, must be the principle of its conduct. The view that politics in this assumed opposition is presumptively in the wrong depends on a shallow notion both of morality and of the nature of the state in relation to morality.
338. Although in war there prevails force, contingency, and absence of right, states continue to recognize one another as states. In this fact is implied a covenant, by virtue of which each state retains absolute value. Hence, war, even when actively prosecuted, is understood to be temporary, and in international law is recognized as containing the possibility of peace. Ambassadors, also, are to be respected. War is not to be waged against internal institutions, or the peaceable family and private life, or private persons.
Addition.— Modern wars are carried on humanely. One person is not set in hate over against another. Personal hostilities occur at most in the case of the pickets. But in the army as an army, enmity is something undetermined, and gives place to the duty which each person owes to another.
339. For the rest, the capture of prisoners in time of war, and in time of peace the concession of rights of private intercourse to the subjects of another state, depend principally upon the ethical observances of nations. In them is embodied that inner universality of behaviour, which is preserved under all relations.
Addition.— The nations of Europe form a family by virtue of the universal principle of their legislation, their ethical observances, and their civilization. Amongst them international behaviour is ameliorated, while there prevails elsewhere a mutual infliction of evils. The relation of one state to another fluctuates; no judge is present to compose differences; the higher judge is simply the universal and absolute spirit, the spirit of the world.
340. As states are particular, there is manifested in their relation to one another a shifting play of internal particularity of passions, interests, aims, talents, virtues, force, wrong, vice, and external contingency on the very largest scale. In this play even the ethical whole, national independence, is exposed to chance. The spirit of a nation is an existing individual having in particularity its objective actuality and self-consciousness. Because of this particularity it is limited. The destinies and deeds of states in their connection with one another are the visible dialectic of the finite nature of these spirits. Out of this dialectic the universal spirit, the spirit of the world, the unlimited spirit, produces itself. It has the highest right of all, and exercises its right upon the lower spirits in world-history. The history of the world is the world’s court of judgment.