The Nomos of the Earth: In the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum

by Carl Schmitt

Rare book

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Law, History, Nonfiction, European History, German Literature

372 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Carl Schmitt's early career as an academic lawyer falls into the last years of the Wilhelmine Empire. (See for Schmitt's life and career: Bendersky 1983; Balakrishnan 2000; Mehring 2009.) But Schmitt wrote his most influential works, as a young professor of constitutional law in Bonn and later in Berlin, during the Weimar-period: Political Theology, presenting Schmitt's theory of sovereignty, appeared in 1922, to be followed in 1923 by The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, which attacked the legitimacy of parliamentary government. In 1927, Schmitt published the first version of his most famous work, The Concept of the Political, defending the view that all true politics is based on the distinction between friend and enemy. The culmination of Schmitt's work in the Weimar period, and arguably his greatest achievement, is the 1928 Constitutional Theory which systematically applied Schmitt's political theory to the interpretation of the Weimar constitution. During the political and constitutional crisis of the later Weimar Republic Schmitt published Legality and Legitimacy, a clear-sighted analysis of the breakdown of parliamentary government Germany, as well as The Guardian of the Constitution, which argued that the president as the head of the executive, and not a constitutional court, ought to be recognized as the guardian of the constitution. In these works from the later Weimar period, Schmitt's declared aim to defend the Weimar constitution is at times barely distinguishable from a call for constitutional revision towards a more authoritarian political framework (Dyzenhaus 1997, 70–85; Kennedy 2004, 154–78).

Though Schmitt had not been a supporter of National Socialism before Hitler came to power, he sided with the Nazis after 1933. Schmitt quickly obtained an influential position in the legal profession and came to be perceived as the ‘Crown Jurist’ of National Socialism. (Rüthers 1990; Mehring 2009, 304–436) He devoted himself, with undue enthusiasm, to such tasks as the defence of Hitler's extra-judicial killings of political opponents (PB 227–32) and the purging of German jurisprudence of Jewish influence (Gross 2007; Mehring 2009, 358–80). But Schmitt was ousted from his position of power within legal academia in 1936, after infighting with academic competitors who viewed Schmitt as a turncoat who had converted to Nazism only to advance his career. There is considerable debate about the causes of Schmitt's willingness to associate himself with the Nazis. Some authors point to Schmitt's strong ambition and his opportunistic character but deny ideological affinity (Bendersky 1983, 195–242; Schwab 1989). But a strong case has been made that Schmitt's anti-liberal jurisprudence, as well as his fervent anti-semitism, disposed him to support the Nazi regime (Dyzenhaus 1997, 85–101; Scheuerman 1999). Throughout the later Nazi period, Schmitt's work focused on questions of international law. The immediate motivation for this turn seems to have been the aim to justify Nazi-expansionism. But Schmitt was interested in the wider question of the foundations of international law, and he was convinced that the turn towards liberal cosmopolitanism in 20th century international law would undermine the conditions of stable and legitimate international legal order. Schmitt's theoretical work on the foundations of international law culminated in The Nomos of the Earth, written in the early 1940's, but not published before 1950. Due to his support for and involvement with the Nazi dictatorship, the obstinately unrepentant Schmitt was not allowed to return to an academic job after 1945 (Mehring 2009, 438–63). But he nevertheless remained an important figure in West Germany's conservative intellectual scene to his death in 1985 (van Laak 2002) and enjoyed a considerable degree of clandestine influence elsewhere (Scheuerman 1999, 183–251; Müller 2003).

Unsurprisingly, the significance and value of Schmitt's works

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Hokay. So. Here’s the earth:

It’s all green and fertile and shit. But whatever would a legal theorist of 20th century Europe writing in 1950 think is missing? If you guessed a human societal system that determines how the world goes ‘round, you win! According to Schmitt, modern time is divided into a series of “nomos”- erroneously translated as “rules” which make up a whole system of rules, “nomos” in a Schmittian (god that’s an awkward name to “-ian”) sense means a community of political entities united by certain underlying systems and assumptions that bind them together and create a workable world order. There are two major characteristics that define each nomos: 1- land appropriation. Schmitt believes that the process of “land appropriation” consists of three stages: claiming, division, and production. How this process is recognized and regulated will describe a particular nomos to you. 2- definition of war. The order that defines war is the order that rules the earth, and the definition of what constitutes “war” in both substance and actors is the other key to understanding how the order is perpetuated. But at the most basic level, everything must be based on a spatial order, with concrete lines, otherwise it means nothing.

Schmitt is essentially doing history backwards, trying to solve the central problematic of the rise and fall of Europe’s power in the world. In order to do this, he lays out the succession of “nomos” that have ruled the world. He begins with the Romans, although isn’t too interested in them except for a few things. He carefully notes how each state/empire (like Rome) sees their territory as “the world”- meaning civilization, where rules apply as opposed to the outside, which is uninteresting unless threatening. As a consequence, There is NO idea of a common spatial order of spheres, so NO idea of coexistence in a common space where rules must be made- so as the Age of Discovery and a “global consciousness” starts to come about, this sort of system is necessarily dead.

Where he really starts to get interested is with what he refers to as the Respublica Christiana. This is the international law system of the European Middle Ages. In this system, there are also two sets of rules: one for territory that belongs to Christians, and one for the “heathen” lands, which, especially since the 7th century, became Muslim territories. This idea gives content to the idea of “Europe,” insofar as that is the land where rules of “European soil” apply, and areas outside are “free soil”- since unoccupied by Christians, that territory was free to be “given” to missionaries.

Rulers in this system could acquire land and make war, but it MUST of necessity be a religious war- there is no other kind of war at this time. Here is where “just war” doctrine enters- you must believe yourself on the side of God, and therefore, the other person must be the devil. Therefore, he could not continue to exist. Therefore, all wars must be wars of complete annhiliation- no room for recognizing the Other as human. The Pope and the Holy Roman Empire were to play the function of what he calls a “katcheton,” which is the restrainer of the anti-Christ, or, practically speaking, chaos, or unjust war. While there is a somewhat fuzzy conception of territory, with domains being based more on jurisdictional authority (people, not land), Schmitt argues that this still had a system of its own that qualifies it for the land-appropriation category. In this viewpoint, as long as everyone could recognize each other as a member of this community, and circled around Rome, and the Pope still had the authority to organize Crusades, this order still held. This community of Christians is even tightened by the discovery of the new world. He sees this discovery as absolutely pivotal, and an unrepeatable historical anomaly that forced Christianity to account for an entirely new world that was not present in the Bible, and what to do with it. Accordingly, the ideas about “free soil” vs. “European soil” were extended to this New World, with everything on one side of a line operating in a state of nature, under a different status. He interestingly applies this to the growth of piracy at this time too: freedom of the sea vs. limits on land is another hallmark that starts to develop. Two different concepts of the sea begin to be posited: one by France, who finds the sea the common property of all, one by England, who finds the sea to be the property of no one- presaging, of course, future problems. As England rises, the status of pirates and freebooters, formerly tolerated or even encouraged, but certainly acknowledged as not falling within the law, came to be changed with England’s claim to rule over the seas. But then, of course, came Luther, saying “Here I stand, I can do no other.” As my professor said, there is just no room for this in the medieval mindset of orientation towards Rome. This is the beginning of the end.

THEN we get the next order: the Jus Publicum Europaeum of the title. This order is based around an entirely different set of concepts. For one, the essential actors in this law are states, who are conceptualized as individuals, but may or may not be so. The law of Europe is strictly juxtaposed against the law of elsewhere, developing firmly the concept of “amity lines” where everything is allowed “beyond the line” and redrawing them as necessary with the changing o borders. The state is the only legitimate actor in war now- war is one state fighting another. And, importantly, such wars are sanctioned and allowed as long as they meet this criteria. He spends a lot of time drawing a picture of the idea of an “enemy” or a “Justus hostis” in international law. An “enemy,” in war is depicted as sharply distinct from a “criminal” in war. Not all enemies are criminals- an enemy you still have to treat like a human being, and not subject to total annihilation, because technically all war is allowable, within certain bounds. Schmitt regards this as the greatest achievement of the European world order- he refers to this as the “bracketing of war.” From the 16th to the late 19th century, so goes the tale, this system of lines, with Europe as the “sacral center of the earth,” held true.
In his viewpoint, it starts to fall apart with the French Revolution, which makes “self-determination” the ideal rather than legitimacy.

Then after the “fake” restoration of the 19th century, it really falls apart by 1890 (the year Bismarck leaves office) due to a number of factors including the ambiguity of the foreign policy of the world’s rising great power, the United States, the dissolution of consensus about the meaning of war and the “lines of the world,” and the fact that nations from outside of Europe had joined the European system of international law. This last point helps to drive home one of the major underpinnings of his theory. Namely, that instead of believing that the fact that other states wanted to join the European state system constituted “the triumph of… European international law,” Europe should have recognized that states outside the balance-of-power state system of Europe that had already been established needed to be “shown out the door.” Schmitt posits that the attempt to expand European law to other areas of the world should not have been attempted because these states “lack any spatial or spiritual consciousness of what they once had in common… and a common bracketing of war no longer was feasible, and for which not even the concept of ‘civilization’ could provide any concrete homogeneity.” In his view, a proper nomos must have specific roots in both a particular space and particular spatial concept of the world, otherwise it results in an order “taking a headlong leap into the nothingness of a universality lacking any grounding in space or on land,” and which therefore has no meaning. While this may appear Euro-superior or nationalistic in some way, it is actually indicative of his conception of how the international order works: that no matter what happens in Europe, everyone is concerned about it, especially the Great Powers, which creates a situation in which everyone is very spatially conscious because all changes of space and territory affect them. Other powers joining do not have this consciousness, and therefore the new international order, far from simply globalizing Europe, pulled the “sacral center” away from its shores.

Schmitt is vehemently anti-Versailles*, for the stated reason that it finally destroyed what was left of the meaning of the old “nomos” and did not replace it with any coherent system afterward- there is no agreement on what a “war” means and who is a legitimate actor, land consciousness has completely gone by the wayside, and there is no juridical precision in definitions any longer, only the interference of political thinking. The United States becomes the new “sacral center” of the earth, where the new nomos should be formed, because it gets to define war (as evidenced by Wilson and the Kellogg-Briand pact) and its order is also determined by free soil/taken land appropriations (Manifest Destiny). Schmitt sees the nomos of the United States as being characterized by simultaneous presence and absence- political absence officially even while its economics and unofficial opinions continue to dictate the course of the new order. The US will not lead because it is still supposedly isolationist for a time, so this creates utter confusion and impreciseness that ends up leading to all sorts of chaos and ultimately into World War II. He also believes that the US’ unofficial influence has led to a “criminalization” of war which has dehumanized the institution once more and lead us back into a more “just war” oriented conception of war which makes war into essentially a “police action” and the “aggressor” (which he thinks is poorly and worrisomely defined now as well- is everyone who fires the first shot really the aggressor, to be blamed for the war?) into a criminal who must be tried and put behind bars. He gets into really interesting distinctions of “aggressor” and “aggressive war,” and definitions of “recognition,” the meaning of “neutrality,” and how the US fucked with it, and some really fascinating logic about “legal title” due to things like occupation and discovery and what the status of “military occupation” means in light of constitutions. Schmitt ultimately does not approve of many of the United States’ actions, but also believes that it is the only power possible of steering the world into a new coherent nomos.

In today’s globalized world, a great amount of time is spent trying to define what it is that defines and links entities of all kinds, particularly as these definitions have become more imbued with political meaning and power in an age of nationalism and identity politics. In this sense, Carl Schmitt’s great focus on the construction of things through an examination of lines, borders, “bracketing”, and differentiated space feels quite contemporary and immediate to some major trends of study in academia, including the theorization of borders and the study of the formation of identity.

Due to my academic background in European studies, I found his striking examination of the formation of the idea of “Europe,” as a juridical concept used to differentiate the legal status of the countries of the continent from that of America was a fascinating concept, and hard not to contrast to the declaration by Spengler (whose Decline of the West I recently read) that “Europe is an empty word.” He completely takes the word “Europe” out of the place it is typically thought to inhabit- the intellectual and cultural trends it is traditionally held to have slowly developed out of- and turns it into a byproduct, an accidental result of a practical division of power which combined with a sense of the limits of the “world” and the “free space” beyond it where the rules of the limited “world” did not apply. His focus on the prevalence of lines in European wars and explorations and the subsequent different uses of those lines seems particularly pertinent- “lines” of all kinds have come to seem self-evidently important, to the extent that they do not require an explanation.

I see this present frequently in European Union enlargement discussions- “Turkey is not in Europe,” or, for example, “Morocco will be next,” being posed as a threat against Turkey’s EU admission, taken to seem absurd because it is so far “beyond the line.” It could also be argued that even today a manifestation of the idea of “free space” still exists in the public imagination in terms of how violence, especially political violence, is covered in the media in terms of the amount of reportage given to violence that makes a country seem threatened versus violence in a place where violence is “expected” or “normal”- violence that is far enough away in mindset and/or in fact to be non-threatening. The response of certain European governments and the United States government to the outburst of protests in Tunisia and Egypt, while also of course being motivated by many other factors, seems expressive of this idea (particularly France’s muted reaction to the protests against the Tunisian regime, and the US government’s careful handling of its position on Mubarak, given US interests in the region.

Schmitt’s concepts are therefore still completely relevant, challenging and useful for both questioning one’s own beliefs and in formulating one’s objections to his own. I could go on, and there is tons more to talk about in the major concepts that he discusses, but this is obscenely long already, and you probably get the idea. Honestly, I’m still not sure I understand all of it, but it’s a good feeling. Like I could keep coming back for more, if only to be all, “how you be so crazypants???” I don’t regret the investment of my time- I don’t think anyone interested in these issues will either.

*Sooo… the big reveal here is that he was also anti-Versailles because he was a big fat ole’ Nazi. Like, to the extent that he refused denazification stuff after the war and wasn’t able to really teach again. To the extent that he is STILL defending German actions in both World War I and by implicit extension WWII in this text. There’s a whole section about the “war guilt” clause and how it doesn’t make sense in the juridical framework, and a whole ridiculously stupid thing about why Belgian neutrality wasn’t valid anyway so Germany didn’t do anything wrong, and why Poland wasn’t really a state, so dividing up is totally cool because one has to qualify for “statehood” for something to be done that justifies war. There’s a lot of fascinating ideas in here, so I don’t say this to warn you off of it necessarily, but I don’t want people to feel betrayed and feeling like they got sucked in by Nazi propaganda and I didn’t warn them or something. So, now you know. Make your own call.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

arguably schmitt's best work. he dissects the greek work "nomos" and explains that it has a tripartite meaning. it refers to the three conditions of possibility for having the rule of law: the acquisition of land, the cultivation of that land, and the distribution of profits from the land...all rooted in a people that thereby becomes sovereign over that land. as peoples began to establish their sovereignty, and thus develop the legitimacy needed to draft laws to bind themselves, they became aware of their positions in the world with respect to other peoples. the first major civilizations, eventually, fought with each other - "wars of annihilation," he called them, because there was a still inchoate understanding of the entire world order of peoples...the "nomos" of the earth. as peoples developed and we finally got to the era of nation-states, different peoples learned how to at least respect their enemies, even if they were enemies. we even got so far as to start collaborating on some international principles. but we never got a fully coherent "international law," in his view. one of the reasons why? well, eventually the nice and neat nation-state world order (which obviously didn't apply to the entire world) started to break down as some spaces were used as spaces of "exception" - the gulags, the concentration camps, etc. these spaces has people on land, but those people were not "sovereign" over their land. they were criminals, or refugees, and were living in spaces that nations relied on but that didn't fit into the nation-state model, for all the obvious reasons. so schmitt realized that his ideal nomos of the earth was already breaking down...and that with the rise of spheres of influence coming from the US and USSR, we were in danger of slipping back into an era of empires and wars of annihilation. sound familiar?

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl Schmitt's "The Nomos of the Earth" stands as a seminal work in the field of political theory, offering a profound analysis of the relationship between political order, sovereignty, and international law. Published in 1950, this book delves into the historical development and conceptual underpinnings of the global order, examining the notion of nomos as the organizing principle of human societies. In this academic review, we aim to critically engage with Schmitt's arguments, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his approach, and discuss the enduring impact of "The Nomos of the Earth" on political and legal scholarship.


"The Nomos of the Earth" explores the geopolitical and legal dimensions of political order, tracing the historical evolution of the global nomos—the spatial and temporal ordering of political communities. Schmitt argues that the nomos is the fundamental organizing principle that determines the distribution of power, territorial boundaries, and the establishment of international law.

The book is structured around three main parts. Firstly, Schmitt examines the origins of the global nomos, focusing on the spatial division of the Earth among sovereign states. He analyzes the significance of the Westphalian system and the emergence of the nation-state as a key actor in shaping the international order. Schmitt contends that the nomos is inherently tied to the concept of sovereignty, with states asserting their autonomy and defining their territorial jurisdiction.

Secondly, Schmitt explores the historical transformations of the global nomos, particularly in the context of colonialism and imperialism. He examines the expansionist endeavors of Western powers, the reordering of territories, and the imposition of legal frameworks on non-Western societies. Schmitt argues that colonialism disrupts the existing nomos and establishes a new hierarchical order, leading to conflicts and challenges to the global political order.

Lastly, Schmitt reflects on the challenges to the nomos in the twentieth century, including the rise of totalitarian ideologies, the erosion of state sovereignty, and the emergence of supranational organizations. He explores the tensions between territorial sovereignty and universal claims of human rights, analyzing the implications for the global order and the role of international law in resolving conflicts.


"The Nomos of the Earth" presents a provocative and thought-provoking analysis of political order and international law. Schmitt's work is characterized by its deep historical and philosophical insights, engaging with key concepts such as sovereignty, territoriality, and legal systems. His emphasis on the significance of the nomos provides a unique lens through which to understand the complexities of global politics and the challenges faced by the international community.

One of the strengths of Schmitt's work lies in his ability to uncover the intricate connections between power, law, and political order. His analysis of the historical shifts in the global nomos offers valuable insights into the dynamics of imperialism, colonialism, and the reconfiguration of territorial boundaries. Furthermore, Schmitt's exploration of the tensions between state sovereignty and universal principles adds a crucial dimension to the ongoing debates on global governance and human rights.

However, it is important to critically engage with Schmitt's perspective and the potential limitations of his analysis. His association with National Socialism and his controversial views on democracy and liberalism have drawn significant criticism, challenging the credibility and ethical implications of his work. Readers must approach Schmitt's ideas with caution and an awareness of the historical context in which they were developed.


"The Nomos of the Earth" by Carl Schmitt remains a significant contribution to the field of political theory and international law. The book's rich historical analysis, nuanced exploration of power and sovereignty, and examination of the global nomos offer valuable insights into the complexities of the global order.

GPT

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thorough and fascinating overview of laws and spatial orientations ("Räumsinne" in German) that have both changed and remained consistent throughout millennia.

Carl Schmitt, jurist and political theologian, examines everything from Greek antiquity to Spanish conquest of the Americas up until the League of Nations to question whether or not there is some fundamental moral or natural order under-girding the laws that men have used to govern one-another and themselves through the ages. Although Schmitt is undoubtedly conservative, his examination of colonialism and imperialism, contrasted with his even-handed treatment of Marxism, makes this essential reading for anyone who wants to read a meditation on the theoretical uses of power, and the application and abuses of power and force in the realm of human affairs (especially in war). As with all of Schmitt's works, there is also much examination of geopolitics and the implication of where and how borders are drawn, and by whom and under what system of reasoning.

The reading isn't light, but Schmitt is a clear thinker and expresses himself in a way that the advanced layman should have no trouble understanding. His meditations on space/ Räume are not only relevant today, but are even more important concepts to understand now, as the terrain in which humans vie for control of one-another have expanded beyond land, sea, and even space as Schmitt understood it.

He died just as the next philosophical turn ("Wendung" in German) was changing from the macro- and micro- to the nano-, and of course with the rise of drone warfare and the surveillance state, his grappling with the big questions is an endeavor from which no one should be excluded.

"The Nomos of the Earth" is an open invitation to begin thinking in deeper terms about power, borders, contracts, and whether Hobbes or Roseau will have the final say in how man will either advance or destroy himself with civilization, its laws, and its technology. Schmitt also leaves open the possibility that some sort of compromise between various orientations and understandings might be reached, precluding the need for conflict or a struggle which (considering the means we now have at our disposal) could be all-consuming/annihilating. The work strikes just the right balance between a pragmatic rumination and a (for Schmitt) humanistic tendency to believe that a resolution of our many antagonisms might not be beyond reach. Recommended.

[Stefan Ghita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autopsia di un giurista:

Per citare il mio professore di Storia contemporanea, a cui tanto devo, Carl Schmitt è effettivamente "un grandissimo stronzo" (allego importante documento a riguardo per chi fosse interessato:https://www.jstor.org/stable/26146395)

Nonostante ciò ritengo che anche gli stronzi possono fare osservazioni interessanti(specialmente vedendo la situazione del diritto internazionale ultimamente)e quindi vanno letti. Purtroppo quando ha ragione Schmitt perdiamo un po' tutti...

4.5 ⭐.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 1 out of 5]

Save yourself the trouble and simply read Part I and Part V. The tedious middle portion of the book is not worth the effort. It is ultimately about the transformation of the 'just enemy' and 'just war' doctrines which are only tangentially related to the problematic of the categories of nomos; appropriation, distribution and production. To me what stands out in Schmitt's presentation is the idea that appropriation, as the founding ACT, recedes from view in the memory of the commonwealth once it is enacted, essentially taken over by the problem of distribution and production. If Schmitt is correct, even Communism cannot escape this problematic. But Schmitt's argument that Communism itself is 'imperialist' because it advocates the appropriation of the appropriators (seizing the means of production) shows a lack of due consideration to the 'internationalist' nature of the political conquest by power by the world's proletariat.

[Colm Gillis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compared to Schmitt's other books, this one is slightly disappointing. What is has going for it is a very detailed history of the development of international law. Schmitt applies the geopolitical observations he made in 'Land and Sea' and is able to critique the development of the world-view of a country like the US by using this model. What was most disappointing was the Euro-chauvinistic approach by Schmitt. He was led to dismiss the contribution of countries like Japan and Turkey and seemed more interested in proving the superiority of European culture as opposed to objectively analysing international law. I was tempted to give it 3 stars but the book is well-written and there are plenty of 'Eureka' moments that four stars seems justified.

[Santiago Sousa · Rating 4 out of 5]

disparado o livro mais consistente do carl schmitt.
por incrível que pareça, todo o debate sobre colonização e dependência dá um grande salto quando nos apropriamos do modo que o schmitt entende o vínculo material entre terra, direito e justiça.
o capítulo em que ele polemiza com francisco de vitória torna explícito como o direito público europeu foi construído simultaneamente ao movimento de conquista e tomada da terra na américa.
claro que o ponto de vista do autor é legitimador da conquista, no entanto, a própria estrutura do texto nos revela que a europa inventou e produziu a periferia ao longo da modernidade.
o paulo arantes acerta muito quando pega essa obra pra refletir o quanto não há horizonte de emancipação na periferia enquanto houver centro.

[Rodrigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so, brilliant realpolitik analysis of the history of Europe... But, BUT. maybe it's cause I've read all his important works (and if I hadn't I could give less context to this reading) but this is deffo the lamest one of them. (And the least controversial) It's just impregnated with a very bland and boring study of war and exploration. Aka basic as hell. Whoever is going to read this for pleasure avoid it, he has way more interesting books. Otherwise it's very good to get the corners of schmittian theory which are sometimes overshadowed by his big chunky claims

[Charles Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

An evil stench has accompanied the term “new world order” ever since George H. W. Bush used it in 1990, formally inaugurating the American Regime’s attempt to subjugate the globe to Left hegemony, dubbed liberal democracy to hide the poison. Nonetheless, it is certainly true, as a simple statement of fact, that we do indeed live in a new world order, different than the one proclaimed by Bush. We have since 1914, and this new order is characterized by disorder, by vastly increased chaos, violence, and uncertainty relative to the past. The hows and whys of this transition are the focus of Carl Schmitt’s 1950 The Nomos of the Earth. And as with all of Schmitt’s writings, it has many lessons for today’s time.

Schmitt wrote this book in a destroyed Europe, when the continent, and all the West, was trying to regain its footing. The feel of that time, which pervades this book, is very difficult for modern Americans to grasp, the result of decades of propaganda designed to artificially create and forcibly impose the now dying “postwar consensus,” exacerbated by the disappearance of objective historical analysis and its replacement by tendentious ideological dreck. When first published, The Nomos of the Earth was an obscure, uncelebrated work. Schmitt had been almost entirely sidelined because of his brief opportunistic embrace of National Socialism in the 1930s, and few had much interest in what he had to say, or in associating themselves with him by giving attention to his work. No doubt this is why Schmitt claims this is a book of jurisprudence, disclaiming any attempt to regain his influence over the political sphere. He is lying, though, because in his nature he was a tireless self-promoter eager to shape the world around him, and so he surely intended this book to inform the politics of the future.

The Nomos of the Earth is, therefore, explicitly a book which revolves around analysis of international law. Now, as many have pointed out, international law is today a total fiction, because it is not law at all, since there is no sovereign who both promulgates and enforces it. Rather, it is a dubious form of non-binding contract, from which emanates ever-evolving pseudo-law announced by nations which, at any given moment, hold power over other nations. They claim the sanction of this pseudo-law, typically on the basis of infinitely-flexible “values” and “norms,” in order to provide a pleasing sheen to the actions they take in their interest, thereby offering a propagandistic justification for their actions. At the same time, they completely ignore the same when it is not convenient, despite the protests and attempts by those lacking power to throw back this evanescent “law” at its proclaimers. All which makes it no law at all.

So, for example, in the Iran War ongoing at this moment, or as a military friend of mine calls it, “Mr. Trump’s War of Israeli Aggression,” both the United States, and even more Israel, every day breach international law they earlier proclaimed. Among these acts are the assassination of negotiators and other civilian political leaders (not only “illegal” but a classic example of Middle Eastern treachery long viewed as both dishonorable and stupid in the West); the mass killing of civilians by aerial bombing, both for terror purposes and as a byproduct of said assassinations; and the destruction of purely civilian infrastructure necessary for life. If one-hundredth of what we and our supposed ally Israel are doing in Iran were done to us, our rulers would endlessly shriek about violations of international law (alternating with claims of “terrorism!”). But what is sauce for the goose is, apparently, not sauce for the gander.

None of this would surprise Schmitt, however. His overarching point in this book is that a system of actual, effective international law, which largely prevented such barbarism within Europe for four hundred years, died around the turn of the twentieth century, and a new order had not replaced it. Nor, of course, has any new order replaced it since 1950, despite fictions such as the “rules-based international order,” meaning, again, the imposition of Left hegemony over the world.

But let’s get into the meat of the book; we will return to today. The Greek word nomos is usually translated as “law.” Schmitt, however, used the term in a broader sense, as can be seen immediately from his modifier, “of the Earth.” G. L. Ulmen, the translator who also wrote an excellent Introduction, summarizes Schmitt’s use as “the community of political entities united by common rules,” “the spatial, political, and juridical system considered to be mutually binding in the conduct of international affairs.” Schmitt, in an extended discourse on the history of the word from its earliest Homeric use, says “In its original sense, however, nomos is precisely the full immediacy of a legal power not mediated by laws; it is a constitutive historical event—an act of legitimacy, whereby the legality of a mere law is first made meaningful.” His aim is not merely to bore the reader with etymology, however (though he tries in a three-part Appendix); it is to ground the collection of rules under which a civilization governs conflict in the concrete, rather than the abstract.

Up until Schmitt’s youth (he was born in 1888), from the Age of Discovery four hundred years before, there was indeed considered to be a European-created “international law,” which was the order of the earth, at least as applied to relations among states. The Romans had, for themselves, the concept of the jus gentium, law which applied to foreigners, as distinct from domestic law. Europeans appropriated this idea, to apply to the whole world, rather than to one nation, a new jus gentium, international law, derived from European law.

This international law was not the law of a federative body, such as later generated by bodies including the League of Nations. Nor was it derived from—rather, it effectively superseded and replaced—the somewhat equivalent law that held sway prior to the Age of Discovery, that of the res publica Christiana, which had derived transnational law from Christian doctrine. Instead, it was a universal positive law, developed in a manner similar to English common law, through specific application in circumstances requiring joint decisions. But it was not positive law in the sense Schmitt despised, an ever-changing set of abstract, unrooted rules, subject to the whims of those in power at the moment. Instead, it was meant to reflect “the total concept of right that comprises a concrete order and community,” derived from European modes, orders, and experience. Most of all what drove its creation was the desire to “bracket” warfare among civilized, meaning European, states. Thus, the new nomos acted as a katechon, the restrainer of anarchy and chaos, the shadowy power mentioned by Saint Paul in Second Thessalonians, a frequent touchstone of Schmitt’s. This was not an entirely new thing; as Schmitt notes, Christians of the Middle Ages saw Christendom as the extension of the Roman Empire, and therefore as an extension of that empire’s role, seen clearly by the early Church Fathers, as the katechon which held back Antichrist.

Nothing lasts forever, and so it was with this new order. The common, confident vision of Europe and Europeans of themselves which made this nomos possible eroded towards the end of the nineteenth century, and was finally destroyed by World War I, by the war itself and by the resulting failure of confidence in Europe as the defining metric of civilization. The Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations abandoned much of the Eurocentric jus gentium, while trying, and failing, to create a new international order. No new form of law based on a claim of legitimacy arose, nor had one arisen by 1950, in part due to the rise of American power, which never fully entered into the European jus gentium, and in many ways arose in opposition to it.

As with all of Schmitt’s works, this book is extremely dense and complex, filled with detailed analysis and asides, and moreover containing innumerable references to other thinkers and works, and it is really only possible to offer a summary of Schmitt’s thought. The primary thread that runs throughout The Nomos of the Earth, however, is analysis of war and other conflicts between nations. One of Schmitt’s abiding preoccupations, in several of his works, was how desirable it was to bracket wars, to make them less than existential, not wars in the name of humanity but wars in the name of particular and identifiable national interests, which in their nature have limits and accept tradeoffs. His oft-repeated fear, borne out by later history, was that seeing wars as moral crusades for abstract ideas and ideologies, each seeing itself as pure and good and its enemies as unalloyed evil, would result in vastly greater destruction in war. Schmitt’s unfleshed-out response in this book was to retreat from the already-broken concept of state sovereignty as the basis for the nomos of the Earth, to what might be called a higher level of generality, Grossräume, larger political orders. His particular aim was to sweep America into a new system, not yet worked out in detail, that rejected both the relativism of universalism, the “world state,” as utopian and unworkable, but also rejected no broadly-recognized rules at all, as inherently unspeakably destructive.

Schmitt divides his book into four parts. The first covers “five introductory corollaries,” in essence a historical and legal backdrop. At the very beginning, he introduces his key concept of “land appropriation.” The initial appropriation of any land creates “the first order of all ownership and property relations,” and this “underlies all subsequent law.” It is the “constitutive historical event” that underlies a nomos, though what the nomos is may change over time. The Age of Discovery, because it was “when the earth first was encompassed and measured,” “by the global consciousness of European peoples,” created the first nomos of the Earth.

In connection with this, Schmitt makes a sharp division between land and the sea. On the latter, there can be no similarly absolute appropriation and therefore no real nomos. This division occurs frequently in Schmitt’s later work, including 1942’s Land and Sea. His claim is not that the sea is unimportant. Certainly the sea is an area of constant human interaction, and at points in this book Schmitt hints that under modern conditions both sea-appropriation and air-appropriation are relevant to the creation of a future nomos, though he never fully develops this, because he is unable to say with any precision what the future nomos will look like.

Before the Age of Discovery, a “jus gentium capable of encompassing the whole earth and all humanity was impossible.” Empires might have been aware of one another, but “their interconnections lacked a global character,” they were not “an encompassing spatial order.” Thus the Romans distinguished between the public enemy, hostis, and personal enemies or criminals. But they never developed the concept of justus hostis, just enemy, one against whom war had to be waged within the framework of an overarching order. “Consequently, wars between such empires were waged as wars of annihilation until another standard developed.”

The first version of such a standard, which allowed, if not universally over all the earth, the bracketing of wars and therefore their confinement, developed in the Christian Middle Ages. The key division was between the lands of Christians, within which the new nomos held sway, and lands of others, in which the old standard of free appropriation through war, or missionary activity, was still active, because there resided existential enemies—existential because they were not Christian. This idea, not merely religious particularism, underlay all Christian thought about the dividing line between Christians and enemies, and thus was the basis of the nomos. Nonetheless, this order was not global, because the globe was not yet truly conceived of as a unity, and eroded as Christendom faded into fracture, to be replaced not by some form of modern republicanism, but by various forms of Caesarism, “a typically non-Christian form of power.” The result was new and terrible wars, such as the Thirty Years’ War.

In the second part, Schmitt expands on his theory of land appropriation of the newly-encompassed world, resulting from the Age of Discovery, as a new nomos. The “new spatial consciousness” allowed, and in effect demanded, the creation of new lines of demarcation—not only on maps, but in what order applied where. These included “amity lines” drawn on the globe, dividing spheres of European civilization from spheres of potentially unbridled war, and rayas, lines dividing areas between Christian princes. Amity lines were of prime importance on the sea, where beyond the line piracy and freebooting was permitted, even if the target was shipping of a Christian prince. As the new nomos developed, on the European side of the amity line which ran through the Canaries or the Azores, war was bracketed, subject to generally-accepted rules; on the non-European side there was no bracketing, “meaning that here the struggle for land appropriations knew no bounds.” Brutal conflict, whether against natives or other Europeans, was expected and accepted on the other side of the amity line. “The ‘free’ spaces created thereby may appear in the favorable light of zones designated for agonal tests of strength; however, they may also become a desolate chaos of mutual destruction.”

Here, as almost always throughout this book, Schmitt makes no moral judgments; his is merely a descriptive exercise, not a prescriptive one, though he does discuss moral angles at some length through the examination of various thinkers, notably the relatively obscure Francisco de Vitoria. Vitoria’s thought reconciled Christianity with wars outside of Christendom, in the Americas, but he wrote at the end of the res publica Christiana, when increasingly theological arguments were viewed as properly circumscribed and subordinated to political arguments. The new focus of such arguments was the state, which Schmitt distinguishes as a new thing—“spatially self-contained, impermeable, unburdened with the problem of estate, ecclesiastical, and creedal civil wars. It became the representative of a new order in international law, whose spatial structure was determined by and referred to the state.”

Thus Schmitt rolls into part three, “The State as the Agency of a New, Interstate, Eurocentric Spatial Order of the Earth.” Here he explicates, at length, the jus publicum Europeaeum, the prior nomos of the Earth, which died in World War I. This order arose from the land appropriations of the Age of Discovery and the principles which derived from those events. “This made possible a common, non-religious and non-feudal international law among states that lasted 300 years.” War in Europe became limited to conflicts among sovereign European states, authorized by those states, bracketing war to avoid the earlier creedal wars. This was not a wholly new thing; the Church and its teachings had bracketed European war, mostly successfully, before the time of the so-called Reformation. In a way, rather, it was a restoration of order through a new nomos, but now of the entire Earth. The success of this new order was not due to treaties, though those certainly existed. “That would be a problematic and highly precarious form of law.” Rather, it was due to the spatial order that had been created as a result of land appropriation outside Europe and the creation of European states with defined borders.

In this frame, every European opponent was a justus hostis, just opponent. But war itself was not just or unjust; it simply was (despite continued theological discussion of just wars). This further limited war in Europe, because importing the concept of justice makes war far more terrible. A combatant convinced of its justice, its moral superiority, ignores all limits on the violence it is willing to inflict. Such wars “by nature are wars of annihilation wherein the enemy is treated as a criminal and pirate.” Crucially, the new nomos also allowed for a formal, unremarkable status of neutrality for third parties, further assisting limited war.

Schmitt examines the jus publicum Europeaeum, which as a form of common law was not statutory and therefore had uncertain parameters, through the lens of several different thinkers, most obscure. These include the sixteenth-century Balthazar Ayala and Alberico Gentili; the seventeenth-century Richard Zouch; and the eighteenth-century Immanuel Kant (whom Schmitt attacks for excessive abstraction and for incoherency of thought on the question of war). He also addresses the question of sea war as opposed to land war, through the prism of England, who waged war primarily on the ocean, and thus occupied a unique position in the jus publicum Europeaeum, which almost exclusively addressed land war.

Wars are and were inevitable; Schmitt is not arguing against war. He is arguing that prior to the modern era, wars were fought under this “comprehensive spatial order,” which manifested itself in a system of law and regulation. Bracketed wars “are the opposite of disorder. They represent the highest form of order within the scope of human power. They are the only protection against a circle of increasing reprisals, i.e., against nihilistic hatreds and reactions whose meaningless goal lies in mutual destruction.” Territorial changes may result, but they are still within the existing spatial order, which is most evident in the constant striving for balance of power. Such territorial changes result in a change of sovereign; they result in no change in “the order of economy and property.” Likewise, military occupation that did not result in land appropriation within the framework of the jus publicum Europeaeum was also regulated; it, however, resulted in no change of sovereign.

Unsurprisingly, Schmitt views this order through his constant prism of decisionism . . . [Review continues as first comment.]

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating alternate view of international order. Schmitt was a fascist and joined the Nazi party, but he did have some interesting ideas.

[John Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic world-historical narrative of the development of international law and order.

[A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic

[Random User · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far his most pivotal book insofar as synthesising all his components and theories.

It’s always important to acknowledge the achievement of any theorist who attempts to make a meta-historical analysis of any kind, and Schmitt in doing so provides a very strong argument in terms of how history is made through: Appropriation -> Distribution -> Production - and how this fundamental doctrine circumscribes all ideologies.

It is particularly interesting in how he sees this through quite a Hegelian lense over how the recognition of the ‘I’ which transforms to something material, and how its first moment acts as a mirror of oneself (medieval order), which then sees the second moment of the actualisation of itself in the universal (the second nomos), but through its possession of something it is constrained and what is true sees itself grasped speculatively (conflict between theology and politics), which then sees the third is what is true and grasped speculatively as the individual will declares the inconceivable (the bracketing of war).

He also extends this quite effectively unlike most of his other books which stay concrete to its contextual enquiry. Which see him paint this fundamental order of friend-enemy separation through the entirety of time, and how the evolution of sovereign transformed itself to the unitary state. Whilst also tying his earlier critiques of liberalism to an international-legal critique of how it sees a lack of decisionistic quality transferred to neutrality and how liberalism sees its normative judgments of war regress to a medieval state of seeing a state as criminal - ultimately leading to total war. Lastly, in the closing chapters his adding to how this nomos between East and West sees them unable to tackle the new lines of air and space to a coherent form - sees an astute prediction to how the US unipolar collapsed in 30 or so years.

I could list much more things to what I enjoyed about Schmitt and how effectively he ties this all without any substantial contradictions. But nevertheless, just read it for yourself and take your time.

[Francesco Pio · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️
Un classico che non smette di stupire ogni volta che si rilegge una pagina. Il testo affronta quello che è il nomos, o nuovo nomos, della terra, atto costitutivo di un ordine spaziale. Basi di filosofia possono aiutare nella comprensione di espressioni più articolate. Schmitt affronta le tematiche rendendole concrete, dal riconoscimento di uno stato secondo il diritto internazionale europeo al mutamento del teatro bellico con la guerra aerea autonoma.

Per chi vuole approfondire come le grandi potenze nel XVIII e XIX secolo abbiamo trasformato il diritto internazionale- da europeo a globale-questo libro sarà una grande scoperta.

Ps: qui parlo di Schmitt in merito alla sua opera e non di certo alle sue idee o affiliazioni politiche di quegli anni.

[Yeast · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dense genealogy and critique of the Eurocentric juridical-political order in early and classical modernity (1500-1900).

Schmitt's critique is nostalgic, conservative, romantic and fascist, while strangely anticolonial and deconstructive (which explains his popularity since 2000s). As such, this is a book inviting a myriad of use and misuse.

The Earth Schmitt inhabited in the height of Cold War seems to return uncannily in recent years, and the obsession with geopolitical/theological nomos haunts this world more than ever.

[David McGrogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are extremely interesting and thought-provoking elements of the Nomos of the Earth, but they are mostly contained in the first chapter or two and then the appendices. The middle portion is a largely unrewarding - if impressive in its scope - history of the development of international law which has little to recommend it to the lay reader.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting discussion of international law and just war. Not sure how it’s fascist outside of deriding whatever the wannabe left quotes as “popular” as if popular were a dirty word and then deliberately not discussing it further.

[Apatheia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough to rate. Written in an extremely dry and dull style but the content itself is excellent.

[Baldur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never enjoy reading a book from Schmitt, but I Always enjoy to have ready them.

[Carles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tengo tanto que decir, que no diré nada.

Me hace falta pensar y escribir mucho antes de que pueda resumir todas mis conclusiones del libro en 4 líneas, como requiere esta aplicación.

[Gabriele Coltorti · Rating 5 out of 5]

In questo memorabile lavoro di Carl Schmitt, oltre a una efficace descrizione dei rapporti tra i poteri pubblici mondiali nei diversi ordinamenti giuridici spaziali della terra e del mare, viene svolta un'acuta riflessione sul concetto di guerra nel diritto internazionale: dalla guerra "ex iusta causa" poggiante sui principi teologico dottrinari della res publica christiana medievale si passò progressivamente in età moderna (secoli XVI-XIX) al principio dello "iustus hostis"; tale nuova concezione del nemico fu resa possibile grazie all'affermarsi del capolavoro del pensiero giuridico occidentale: lo ius publicum europaeum basato sull'esistenza di Stati sovrani all'interno dei loro territori.
Un nuovo cambiamento nei rapporti di diritto internazionale ebbe luogo nel Novecento, a partire dai contraccolpi determinati dalla fine del primo conflitto mondiale: la guerra, ora mondiale nella disciplina giuridica internazionale, cessò di essere retta su un ordinamento rigorosamente impersonale poggiante sul principio dello "iustus hostis" e riprese in parte le categorie medievali della "iusta causa": tale mutamento nei rapporti tra gli Stati portò a un concetto di guerra cui non fu estranea la tendenza alla criminalizzazione del nemico da parte del vincitore.

[Isabel Lobo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it for my Erasmus course, “Critical Histories of International Order”. Sometimes very pleasant to read, especially the part of the rayas and amity lines, and the evolution between the international consciousness of spatial order in the medieval, and then the modern epoch. My teacher is brilliant and really pushed me to do a in depth analysis, so bonus points :). Paradoxically, schmitt was a nazi legalist, but this book has a kinda correct analysis of the eurocentric perspective of international law… 🤔

[Simindi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second read-through, this time more attentively for a dissertation. It's a shame that Schmitt gets discredited in popular circles due to his affiliations (even though in academic circles he's engaged with from all sides). His work is very insightful and relevant to the modern day, and I wish people would engage with him critically the way they do with Heidegger.