The Westphalian system, also known as Westphalian sovereignty, is a principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. The principle developed in Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, based on the state theory of Jean Bodin and the natural law teachings of Hugo Grotius. It underlies the modern international system of sovereign states and is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which states that "nothing ... shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."
According to the principle, every state, no matter how large or small, has an equal right to sovereignty. Political scientists have traced the concept to the eponymous peace treaties which ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). The principle of non-interference was then further developed in the 18th century. The Westphalian system reached its peak in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it has faced recent challenges from advocates of humanitarian intervention. Efforts to curtail absolute sovereignty have met with substantial resistance by sovereigntist movements in multiple countries who seek to "take back control" from such transnational governance groups and agreements, restoring the world to pre-World War II norms of sovereignty.
A series of treaties made up the Peace of Westphalia, which has been considered by political scientists to be the beginning of the modern international system, in which external powers should avoid interfering in another country's domestic affairs. The backdrop of this was the previously held idea that Europe was supposed to be under the umbrella of a single Christian protectorate or empire; governed spiritually by the Pope, and temporally by one rightful emperor, such as that of the Holy Roman Empire. The then-emerging Reformation had undermined this as Protestant-controlled states were less willing to respect the "supra authority" of both the Catholic Church and the Catholic Habsburg-led Emperor.
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L'Occident ou la civilisation occidentale est une aire culturelle dont les définitions recouvrent généralement la majorité de l'Europe, l'Amérique septentrionale et l'Australasie dans sa définition la plus restrictive. Sa société contemporaine résulte de la civilisation gréco-romaine (philosophie, science et droit) et de la religion chrétienne (branches catholiques et protestantes). Son emploi actuel sous-entend également une distanciation avec soit le reste du monde, soit une ou plusieurs autres zones d'influences du monde comme le monde arabe, le monde chinois ou la sphère d'influence russe.
Le monopole de la violence légitime , plus précisément le monopole de la force physique légitime (), est une revendication par les États actuels permettant de les définir selon Max Weber dans Le Savant et le Politique, définition qui a été importante en sociologie, mais aussi dans la philosophie du droit et la philosophie politique. Cette expression définit selon lui la caractéristique essentielle de l'État en tant que groupement politique, défini comme légitime dès lors que sa revendication d'être le seul à avoir le droit de mettre en œuvre, lui-même ou par délégation, la violence physique sur son territoire, est acceptée même tacitement par sa population.
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognised as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for states across a broad range of domains, including war and diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights. International law differs from state-based domestic legal systems in that it is primarily, though not exclusively, applicable to states, rather than to individuals, and operates largely through consent, since there is no universally accepted authority to enforce it upon sovereign states.