Writings on War

Written between 1937 and 1945, these works articulate Schmitt'sconcerns throughout this period of war and crisis, addressing themajor failings of the League of Nations, and presenting Schmitt'sown conceptual history of these years of disaster for internationaljurisprudence. For Schmitt, the jurisprudence of Versailles andNuremberg both fail to provide for a stable international system,insofar as they attempt to impose universal standards of‘humanity' on a heterogeneous world, and treat efforts torevise the status quo as ‘criminal' acts of war. In place ofthese flawed systems, Schmitt argues for a new planetary order inwhich neither collective security organizations nor 19th centuryempires, but Schmittian ‘Reichs' will be the leading subjectof international law.

Writings on War will be essential reading for those seeking tounderstand the work of Carl Schmitt, the history of internationallaw and the international system, and interwar European history.Not only do these writings offer an erudite point of entry into thedynamic and charged world of interwar European jurisprudence; theyalso speak with prescience to a 21st century world struggling withsimilar issues of global governance and international law.