2 Forms of Modern Imperialism in International Law: Carl Schmitt 1933, Trans. Matthew Hannah

1111
2 2 Forms of modern imperialism

3
4 in international law1
5
6 Carl Schmitt 1933, trans.
7
8 Matthew Hannah
9
1011
1
2
3111 The imperialism of the United States of America, above all, counts in current
4 thought and usage [in der heute üblichen Vorstellungs- und Redeweise] as the
5 most modern imperialism, because it is principally an economic imperialism,
6 and thus appears to distinguish itself from other forms, especially from every
7 military imperialism. The economic stands in the foreground to such a degree
8 that it is sometimes even used to deny the fact of imperialism at all, in that
9 economy and politics are opposed to one another on the basis of an inherited
20111 nineteenth-century antithesis, and the economic is situated as something
1 essentially non-political, the political as something essentially non-economic.
2 In this way a famous political economist and sociologist, Joseph Schumpeter,
3 could still express the view, in the year 1919, that what the Anglo-Saxons do,
4 in contrast to what the Prussians and other militarists have done, is ‘by
5 definition’ [‘begriffsnotwendig’] never imperialism but something essentially
6 different, because it signifies only economic and therefore peaceful expansion.
7 This highly political denial of the political character of economic processes
8 and concepts will be discussed further here. It belongs in any case to the
9 uniqueness of American imperialism that from the very beginning, from the
30111 first second of its existence, it has worked with the antithesis ‘economic versus
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1 political’. The formula of Washington’s famous farewell speech from the year
2 1796 has been quoted endlessly: as much trade as possible, as little politics
3 as possible. Trade and ‘economy’ appear again here as the eo ipso non-political.
4 Until near the end of the nineteenth century, that is, until around the time when
35 one begins, in America as well, to speak of imperialism and to describe the
6 massive extension of power of the United States as ‘imperialistic’, this opposi-
7 tion of trade and politics appears repeatedly in official statements. For example,
8 in the many statements on the Monroe Doctrine it is asserted that a European
9 state may engage in as much trade as it wishes in the Americas, but it may
40111 not do anything political. [Exactly] when the moment arrives at which the
1 pursuit of trade becomes political is naturally decided by the United States of
2 America. American imperialism is indeed an economic imperialism, but not
3 for that reason any less intensively imperialistic.
4 It is among the residues of the nineteenth century that one understands
45111 the contrast between ‘economic’ and ‘political’ as if economic expansion and
Spatiality, Sovereignty and Carl Schmitt : Geographies of the Nomos, edited by Stephen Legg, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011.
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30 Carl Schmitt 1933, trans. Matthew Hannah
exploitation were inherently ‘non-political’ and as a result also ‘peaceful’.
Yet it is furthermore characteristic of every extension of power – whether or
not it represents itself primarily as economic – that it produces a specific
justification. It requires a principle of legitimacy, an entire inventory of legal
concepts and formulae, of modes of speech, of slogans[. T]hese are not
merely ‘ideological’ pretences, and do not serve merely propagandistic ends,
but rather are just one instance of the simple truth that all human activities
have some intellectual character; politics, imperialistic as much as any other
historically significant politics, is likewise never non-intellectual ‘by nature’.
Never in the history of humankind have such justifications and principles
of legitimacy been lacking; there has also never been a law of nations
[Völkerrecht] in the absence of such justifications.
The international principles of legitimacy and legal forms of modern
imperialism – if we think of the modern age as beginning roughly with the
European sixteenth century – can be represented in their sequence at least with
a few sentences, so that what is characteristic of the American forms stands
out more clearly. The law of nations, [as presented] in schoolbooks and
popular accounts even into the nineteenth century, meant the law of nations
of Christian peoples. It was seen as an important novum when in 1856 at the
Paris Conference Turkey was taken up into the ‘family of nations’ although
it was a non-Christian state. From the Christian–non-Christian antithesis
emerged particular, quite precise and not merely ideological forms of inter-
national legal relations, for example the practice of ‘capitulations’ between
Christian and non-Christian states, exemptions from foreign jurisdiction,
extraterritoriality of Europeans in ‘exotic’ lands, etc.
In the course of the nineteenth century the distinction between Christian
and non-Christian peoples was secularized into the distinction between
civilized, half-civilized and uncivilized peoples. To this [latter] distinction
[. . .] [there then] correspond the international legal concepts and methods
of nineteenth-century European imperialism, notably the development of
protectorates and colonies[. W]ith respect to half-civilized peoples, for the

purposes of imperial rule, use is made of the form of the protectorate, while
uncivilized [peoples] are dealt with as colonies. On the basis of the distinction
between protectorate and colony, a series of additional forms of international
legal relations characteristic of the nineteenth century are constructed. One
still finds a highly typical relic [Rest] of this distinction between civilized,
uncivilized and half-civilized peoples in the Covenant of the Geneva League
of Nations from 1919, Article 22, in the rules governing mandates, that is,
where the victors [in the First World War] take as spoils previously Turkish
regions and the German colonies. There one reads, in a conspicuously pathetic
form otherwise unknown to the League of Nations Covenant, that there are
peoples not yet able – the ‘yet’ should be noted here – to govern [leiten]
themselves ‘under the strenuous conditions of the modern world’, and that it
is a ‘sacred trust’ of civilization to educate these peoples so that they may
govern themselves.2 This Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant is
Modern imperialism in international law 31
1111 perhaps the most compromised example of the legitimizing function of the
2 distinction between civilized and uncivilized peoples on the basis of which
3 the civilized peoples assign themselves the right to ‘educate’, that is, to rule,
4 the less civilized in the form of mandates, protectorates and colonies. The
5 Article is the last and, as often in history, at the same time the classic summary
6 expression of an entire epoch. On its basis rested what can be called the
7 imperialism of European peoples in the nineteenth century. Most would feel
8 today that this kind of justification of rule over other peoples has become very
9 problematic at the least.
1011 What is of concern here, in view of the imperialism of the United States,
1 is that the United States has long since [moved] beyond this stage. It naturally
2 also has colonies, such as the Philippines, and does not disdain to make use
3111 of the vocabulary and methods of ‘civilization’[. B]ut above and beyond that,
4 entirely different concepts and different methods have emerged. If I may bring
5 to a close this short overview, which began with the distinction between
6 Christian and non-Christian peoples and led to the distinction between civilized
7 and uncivilized peoples, it can be said that the new distinction at the root
8 of the American forms comes down to the distinction between creditors and
9 debtors. Whether this new division of peoples and states is more peaceful
20111 than those of previous centuries would be a question unto itself. In any case
1 the development of imperialistic argumentation tends toward the view that
2 now [it is] creditor- and debtor-peoples [who] confront one another. For this
3 division, which has a fateful currency for us Germans, the imperialism of the
4 United States has, over more than a generation, developed an entire world of
5 concepts, institutions, formulae and methods, of which we in Germany had
6 little idea before the war although they were already present in finished form
7 and [although] the specific idiom of this imperialism had already sounded often
8 from the lips of [im Munde . . . häufig ertönt ist] a man like Wilson before
9 the year 1918.
30111 At the core of all arguments brought forth defensively or offensively in
1 justification by the United States in international law or foreign policy for a

2 hundred years stands the Monroe Doctrine from the year 1823. It has been
3 treated many times. I must mention it here although in my opinion it has already
4 essentially fulfilled its function. It is characteristic of the first great stage of
35 development of American imperialism. The Monroe Doctrine has accompanied
6 the foreign policy of the United States since 1823, in fact already earlier, though
7 the customary date is that of the address of President Monroe. Alongside the
8 development of the American state itself [there] moves like a shadow the
9 ongoing development of the Monroe Doctrine. It begins, at least apparently,
40111 in a purely defensive manner. It is oriented in the year 1823 against the Europe
1 of that time and its contemporary ‘League of Nations’, that is, against the Holy
2 Alliance and its interventions in South America; also against Russia, which
3 had established itself on the North Coast of Alaska[. It] was in short the
4 defensive stance of a still very weak colonial state in a peripheral position.
45111 The Great Powers of the year 1823 did not take this Monroe Doctrine very
seriously. The English government took part in [its] proclamation because
England’s interests were in conflict with that European continental league
that called itself ‘Holy Alliance’. From this defensive pronunciamento of
a small colonial state in the year 1823 there subsequently emerged an
international legal instrument of hegemony of this state over the Americas
in their entirety.
In the meantime the United States has become far more than a hegemonic
power restricted to the Americas. Initially the famous sentence, ‘America for
the Americans’, and the rejection of any European ‘interference’, seemed to
suffice. The Monroe Doctrine at first sight says something quite modest: no
European state may interfere in [inter-]American relations, and in turn the
United States will not interfere in European relations; existing European
possessions [in the Americas] in 1823 are recognized but may not be extended.
These simple sentences then unfold into the basis for a great ‘doctrine’, whose
content changes and adapts continuously, and whose practical significance is
sometimes very great, sometimes recedes again [into the background].
There is a large literature about the Monroe Doctrine, [in which] the
development from a means of defence to an instrument of hegemony over the
American continent has also often been traced. [This development] began with
the inadmissibility in principle of any intervention, with the solemnly
emphasized ‘basic principle of non-intervention’, and ended up finding in
the very same doctrine the justification for interventions by the United States
in the affairs of other American states. A remarkable development into the
opposite. This dialectical unfolding of a political principle, however, runs
through the entire history of the Monroe Doctrine, and lies not only in the
development from defensive posture to imperialistic expansion, but also from
the principle of non-intervention to an instrument of an ongoing policy of
intervention, from protest against the legitimating principle of the Holy
Alliance to the current basic operating principle [gehandhabten Grundsatz]
by which the United States – Wilson, too, announced this – recognizes no
American government that has come to power by revolutionary means, and

tolerates only legal governments in the Americas.
A new international legal principle of legitimacy develops, beginning with
the struggle against the previous principle of legitimacy and with the political
self-isolation of the United States of America, and ending with the United States
exercising influence upon other powers that encompasses all of humanity. The
individual dates of this development will not be recounted here; this short
overview aims merely to emphasize one point [es kommt . . . auf eins an]: the
Monroe Doctrine, which served at first to secure the Americas for the United
States against the European Great Powers, then to submit all other states in
the Americas to the hegemony of the United States, then to justify the
interference, the control, the international policing of the United States in the
Americas, this Monroe Doctrine appears today to have completed its service.
It has in the meantime generated a series of special doctrines, for example the
so-called Caribbean Doctrine, which perform specific tasks.
1111 There are, as noted, apart from the many books and treatises, a large number
2 of official statements by the United States government referring to the Monroe
3 Doctrine. In all of this it becomes ever clearer that this Monroe Doctrine is a
4 very general, very broad ‘doctrine’, capable of justifying the most contradictory
5 forms of activity. The United States has, for example, invoked the Monroe
6 Doctrine in refusing to get involved in any [intra-] European issues; it
7 nevertheless entered the war in 1917 against Germany, but at the same time
8 signalled its special status in contrast to its European comrades-in-arms as a
9 merely ‘associated’ (not allied) power, through a peace with Germany separate
1011 from the Versailles Treaty.
1 Twenty-five years ago [the United States] permitted European states, in this
2 instance the creditor states that sought satisfaction of claims [ihre Recht
3111 suchten] from Venezuela and other South American states, to blockade an
4 American coast; in other cases, however, it has forbidden the same measures
5 by appealing to the same Monroe Doctrine. [The United States] has declared
6 that it is not a contravention of the Monroe Doctrine when a European state
7 pursues its rightful claims, and that the Monroe Doctrine does not stand in
8 the way of American states that have not paid their debts being forced to do
9 so[. B]ut on the other hand it takes the view that the question of whether an
20111 American state has committed an injustice, and whether the pursuit of justice
1 by the non-American state as injured party is permissible or not under
2 international law, is to be decided by the United States of America. In other
3 words, what exactly the concrete content of this ever more ambiguous, highly
4 changeable Monroe Doctrine is, is decided by the United States alone. It alone
5 determines what the Monroe Doctrine really means in any concrete case. On
6 some occasions interventions are rejected and justified; on others the United
7 States declares itself disinterested regarding some action of non-American states
8 against American states. Always, however, it holds fast to one [principle]: that
9 nobody is entitled to demand from the United States any action, interference,
30111 intervention, assistance, negotiation or anything else on the basis of the
1 Monroe Doctrine; while on the other hand the United States may, if it considers
2 it a proper application of the Monroe Doctrine to do so, interfere, intervene,
3 negotiate, coerce [oktroyieren], step in with weapons at the ready [mit
4 bewaffneter Hand einschreiten] at any time.
35 With these discussions I did not intend historically to narrate [schildern]
6 the development of a highly complicated principle with examples from the
7 foregoing century, but rather to highlight a particular principle of imperialism.
8 When we pose the question, what is the Monroe Doctrine actually, with its
9 many unclarities, contradictions, its peculiar entitlements and non-entitlements
40111 of the United States, it is first necessary to observe that the Monroe Doctrine
1 is a unilateral declaration of the United States, an address of the President from
2 the year 1823. It is not a treaty: it was not agreed with other states. The United
3 States, as Wilson emphasized in 1916, proclaimed it on the basis of its own
4 authority, and lays great value on the fact that it did so. For from this it follows
45111 that the definition and interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine is exclusively a
matter for the United States. The United States nevertheless signs no treaty
and commits to no international legal relations without the proviso, if not always
explicit, of the Monroe Doctrine. What the Monroe Doctrine then means in
concreto, this, as noted, [the United States] itself interprets, defines and
determines. The Monroe Doctrine is not a treaty, but rather a unilateral
declaration of the United States. It is in addition only an official statement;
value is laid upon the fact that the legislative bodies never expressly enacted
the Monroe Doctrine. It is possible then at any time to disavow it. It is crucial
properly to perceive and to interpret the elasticity of such a principle.
A further question arises: Is the Monroe Doctrine something that has
anything at all to do with international law? It figures in every textbook on
international law, there are numerous international legal dissertations, treatises
[and] essays about it, but is it really international law or ‘merely’ a political
maxim? In official statements of the American government and of the various
Secretaries of State one can find indications for the one as well as for the other
[view]. Here, too, there are open contradictions. Secretary of State Olney says
in 1895, for example [that] this Monroe Doctrine is a part of American public
law [‘public law’ in English in original], [that] it is soundly based upon general
legal principles (for example that of self-defence) and richly sanctioned by
innumerable precedents. Accordingly it would thus be law and not merely
politics. On the other hand Secretary of State Knox says in 1911 [that] the
Monroe Doctrine has nothing at all to do with law in the technical sense, [that]
it rests only upon politics and power. The primary conclusion that must be
drawn from this is that nobody may assert legal claims against the United States
on the basis of the Monroe Doctrine.
Yet the entire question, [namely], is the Monroe Doctrine a matter of
international law or rather a political matter, a legal principle or only a
principle of political action for the United States?, suffers from an alternative
between law and politics that cannot consistently be made to hold up [sich
. . . nicht . . . konsequent durchführen lässt] in international law. It would be
wrong to believe that it is simply a Machiavellian trick of the United States

if it holds to such an ambiguous and ‘elastic’ maxim. International law as
well as constitutional law is itself political law. It is not possible to say, the
Monroe Doctrine is ‘purely political’ and thus does not belong in international
law (thus, for example, K. Strupp in his ‘Dictionary of International Law’
[Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts]). Scholars of international law discuss it never-
theless, even if they come to the conclusion that it is ‘not law but politics’. It
is, despite all claims to the contrary [eben doch], an essential part of inter-
national law, for one thing, insofar as it purports concretely to apply certain
general principles such as the right of self-defence, for another, because it is
recognized at least as a proviso in all treaties of the United States.
With the growing power of the United States all states have silently
submitted themselves to the Monroe Doctrine. A very interesting symptom
of this recognition is Article 21 of the Geneva League of Nations Covenant.
There it is expressly stated that the Monroe Doctrine does not stand in
1111 contradiction to the Covenant of the League of Nations.3 More will be said
2 momentarily about this Article 21 of the Covenant. But if the League of Nations
3 Covenant itself labels the Monroe Doctrine an ‘understanding’ or, as Article
4 21 can also be interpreted, as an ‘entente’, it is already clear in these expres-
5 sions that one may not approach a unique phenomenon like the Monroe
6 Doctrine with the primitive alternative: not international law but politics. The
7 Monroe Doctrine is naturally a political instrument. But every legal concept
8 of international law is likewise such a political instrument. It is a prodigious
9 achievement of the United States that it succeeded in making such a ‘doctrine’
1011 stick and in forcing the rest of the world, all other states and peoples, to
1 recognize an extremely unclear, ambiguous, often contradictory principle that
2 in any case may only be interpreted and authentically construed by the United
3111 States[. T]he [end] result of this [achievement] is that nobody may demand
4 anything of the United States that is not in accord with the Monroe Doctrine,
5 while the United States may at any time demand respect for the Monroe
6 Doctrine, whereby it is simultaneously recognized that in case of doubt only
7 the United States may determine exactly what the content of the Monroe
8 Doctrine is.
9 This remarkable elasticity and extensibility, this holding open of all
20111 possibilities, this holding open above all of the alternative law or politics is
1
in my opinion typical of every true and great imperialism. It is unthinkable
2
that a Great Power, and still less, that an imperialistic world power, would
3
commit itself to a codex of firm norms and concepts that an externally situated
4
foreigner could turn against it. Hughes summarized the essential [point] thus
5
in the year 1923: the definition, interpretation and application of the Monroe
6
7 Doctrine is a matter for the United States. Every party that enters into
8 international relationships with it must know that the United States holds fast
9 to it; every party that concludes a treaty with the United States knows that the
30111 treaty involves this proviso.
Today, however, the United States hardly need appeal to the Monroe
1
2 Doctrine any longer. Once a debtor state, it has become a creditor state. The
3 Monroe Doctrine has done its duty, it has subordinated the Americas to the
4 hegemony of the United States. Now there emerges a divergence in two
35 directions: on the one hand the United States has to consolidate its hegemonic
6 position [sich . . . in ihrer Hegemonie einrichten] within the Americas,
7 naturally according to new principles. Here the old Monroe Doctrine is no
8 longer adequate; more intensive and more narrowly juridical forms are needed,
9 for the broad elasticity of the Monroe Doctrine is only useful so long as matters
40111 have not been decided in favour of the United States. On the other hand the
1 United States has relations outside the Americas with the entire rest of the
2 world, it is close to becoming the world’s arbiter. From both of these [develop-
3 ments] – from concentration within the Americas on the one hand and from
4 world expansion on the other – there emerge again a series of characteristic
45111 international legal practices [Vorgänge] and new constructions.
Concentration and consolidation of hegemony have led to new methods
of rule over Central American states, to new international legal forms of
imperialism. If constructions such as protectorates and colonies were char-
acteristic of the colonial imperialism of the European peoples in the
nineteenth century, so it is the achievement of the United States of America
to have invented the intervention treaty and related forms of legal title to
intervention. [This course of] development began with the principle of non-
intervention, with the purportedly sacred principle of non-intervention – that
was the basis of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823; it ended in a praxis that not
only justifies intervention but even generates a special and characteristic
category of intervention treaties. In truth intervention into the affairs of
dependent states belongs to every imperialism, because imperialism always
also means hegemony.
The forms and methods of intervention are, however, quite variable. The
intervention of France in the affairs of states of the Little Entente makes use
of other forms and means than the intervention of England in the affairs of
Egypt. Yet the intervention treaty per se, that is, a juristically formulated
agreement allowing a state, under specific preconditions [and] with specific
means, to intervene in the affairs of another state, was first established
[gefunden] by the United States. It extended the system of intervention treaties
especially to the states of Central America, to Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo,
Panama, Nicaragua, etc. All of these states are bound and subordinated to the
United States through a characteristic form of treaty, but they officially remain
‘sovereign’ states. Little remains of the old forms of protectorates and colonies.
These states have their own governments, their own representation in
international legal matters, their own emissaries, but they stand nevertheless
under a very effective ‘supervision’ [‘Kontrolle’] by the United States.
A very clear example of such an intervention treaty is the treaty Cuba was
forced to enter into as compensation for the fact that it had to accept its
independence from Spain from the hand of the United States. The United States
declared war on Spain in 1898 in order to free Cuba and to make it a sovereign,
independent and free state. The world was initially astounded at the generosity
with which a great people went to war for the freedom of another people and
solemnly guaranteed the freedom of the Cuban Republic. The new Cuban
Republic found itself immediately required, however, while American soldiers
were on the island, to conclude a treaty with the United States, the content of
which came directly from the so-called Platt Amendment[. Accordingly], Cuba
gave the United States the right to intervene – the expression ‘to intervene’
is [actually] used – for the preservation of Cuba’s independence; further, to
secure a Cuban government in a position to protect life, property and personal
freedom and to maintain public security and order in Cuba; and finally in order
to ensure the fulfilment [zur Sicherung] of certain financial requirements.
Above all it is a matter of protecting life, property and freedom.
This means that American capital invested in Cuba is under the protection
of the United States of America, and the United States decides on its own
1111 whether a Cuban government is able to provide adequate protection and to
2 maintain public security and order. Cuba explicitly concedes to the United
3 States the right, under these preconditions (upon whose satisfaction the
4 United States decides), to intervene in the domestic affairs of Cuba. The treaty
5 stipulates that particular naval bases, coal and oil stations on Cuba are left
6 under the control of the United States, so that any intervention can immediately
7 be carried out with the requisite military and naval firmness [Nachdrücklichkeit].
8 The United States has repeatedly landed troops on Cuba. Not only in 1900,
9 1901 and 1902 but also later, American troops have regularly appeared on
1011 Cuba[. A] landing of American Marines forced the resignation of a Cuban
1 president and the installation of a Cuban government prepared to offer
2 American corporations new concessions, or [was intended in another instance]
3111 to restore financial order. The landing of 1912 was expressly declared not to
4 be an intervention, on the grounds that the treaty gave the United States the
5 right to intervene. The year 1919 saw the interesting case of a landing to secure
6 independent elections.
7 This intervention treaty with Cuba – herein lies the new, and especially in
8 juristic terms the most interesting [aspect] – is founded in a double manner.
9 The treaty is namely on the one hand an international legal treaty between the
20111 new, sovereign Republic of Cuba and the United States. On the other hand,
1 however, in 1901 the United States forced the Cuban National Assembly
2 and government to incorporate the content of the intervention treaty into
3 the Cuban constitution, with the full force of a constitutional law, so that the
4 content of the intervention treaty is secured both in international law and
5 in domestic legal terms as part of the Cuban constitution. The Cuban
6 National Assembly charged with drafting the constitution [verfassungsgebende
7 Nationalversammlung], which attempted to resist this, was forced to yield to
8 the pressure of American warships and troops.
9 The consummation of this system consists then in the further stipulation
30111 that the sovereign state of Cuba obligates itself not to conclude any treaty that
1 could endanger its independence, that the United States has a monopoly on
2 protection of this independence and – without being obligated to take over
3 the international legal representation of Cuba externally – may nevertheless
4 supervise the entire [range of] foreign policy dealings and all international legal
35 arrangements of the Cubans[. This is purportedly justified] because [the
6 United States] must see to it that the Cubans do not bind themselves to a third
7 state, whether American or non-American, in a way such that the United States
8 perceives an endangerment of Cuban independence.
9 We recall the discussions of the summer of 1931 about the concept of
40111 ‘independence’ on the occasion of plans for a customs union between Austria
1 and Germany. At that time the question was raised whether such a customs
2 union between Austria and Germany would endanger the independence of
3 Austria. In the case of Cuba an analogous question would not even pose
4 a juristic problem, but rather would be decided in favour of imperialistic
45111 interests [im imperialistischen Sinne] juristically as well. A dialectical reversal
can take place that quickly in political relations, and the party that protects
the freedom and independence of another state is naturally and logically also the
party whose protection suspends [aufhebt] the freedom and independence
of the protected.
It is necessary, for a number of good reasons, some of which will be
discussed below, to keep in view the fact that [Es wird . . . daran festgehalten,
daß] the United States does not enjoy a ‘protectorate’ over Cuba in the
obsolete sense of the nineteenth century; that would be an international legal
form developed for relations between civilized and half-civilized peoples. Both
states are instead assumed to [sollen] be at the same stage in terms of
civilization. But the one [state] is unfortunately not always able to uphold public
security and order or to protect private property, to hold unbiased elections,
to elect the right president, etc., and so is supervised and corrected by the other
[state] with the best of intentions, without this officially constituting a form
of subordination. On the basis of formal international legal equality there
emerge here strange forms of rule, of supervision, of intervention, which are
perhaps too elastic for our continental European thinking, [but] which belong
to political reality and also have their international legal peculiarities.
There is an entire system of such intervention treaties between the United
States and other Latin American states. Particularly the military protection of
the Panama Canal and with it political rule over this canal are matters for the
United States. The Republic of Panama, which was founded especially for
this purpose and which had to conclude the typical intervention treaty, ceded
to the United States the land necessary for military and naval control, and
entered into additional treaties that likewise occasion the periodic landing of
troops[. A]mong [these], one treaty in particular stands out because it is
noteworthy in connection with the Kellogg-Briand Pact,4 namely, the treaty
of 28 July 1926. Through [this treaty] Panama has obligated itself, whenever
the United States goes to war, [and] regardless of which part of the world
is the scene of hostilities, to consider itself, Panama, a party at war on the
side of the United States. Independently, that is, of whether there has been an
attack on Panama, independently of whether the canal has been attacked, the
Republic of Panama is obligated to see itself as a warring party as soon as
the United States enters hostilities anywhere on Earth.
This method of intervention treaties leads to [what is] in effect an especially
intensive form of subordination of another state, but the juristic form is so
‘legal’ and based upon ‘coordination’, so inconspicuous and elastic, that, within
the room for manoeuvre available to them, the dependent states may conduct
their foreign policy intercourse, maintain their foreign relations like any other
sovereign state[. A]bove all, they are [able to be] members of the Geneva
League of Nations, although the Covenant of the League stipulates that only
free and self-governing states may be members. All of these states that stand
under intervention treaties and must put up with repeated troop landings, even
a state like Panama, which concluded the [aforementioned] treaty with the
United States in 1926, count [officially] as free, sovereign states, are fully
1111 entitled members of the League of Nations. Panama is presently (February
2 1932) even a member of the League of Nations Council.
3 The American method of intervention treaties has until now remained
4 essentially limited to the Americas. The United States has no interest, at least
5 for the moment, in extending such a practice to other continents. It has in
6 addition a second, very effective means of carrying through its hegemony in
7 the Americas: its practice of recognition of new governments. In the Latin
8 American states in which revolutions, coups and putsches are relatively
9 frequent, everything depends for the regime of the moment, financially and
1011 politically, upon being recognized by the United States. Here the United States
1 has a very simple principle: it does not recognize revolutionary governments
2 and allows only legal governments to count as legitimate. We in Germany
3111 unfortunately know from experience that it is in some circumstances extremely
4 difficult to distinguish precisely between legality and illegality, namely if
5 [matters have reached the point of] armed civil war. Such questions are in
6 large part decided for American states by the United States. It is thus today
7 in a position to determine the fate of the government of practically every
8 American state. In addition, many American states have concluded treaties
9 among themselves in which they obligate themselves to recognize only ‘legal’
20111 governments. Above all, in practice all of this means that in the ongoing
1 revolutions and putsches the United States determines which government is
2 legal or not.
3 Beyond the foregoing, general international legal principles, of which the
4 United States makes use, naturally also continue to be of great significance.
5 For example, the proposition has been put forward, not officially by the
6 United States but by theorists and practitioners of international law in the United
7 States, that private property is ‘sacred’[. According to this view,] a state, even
8 if it dispossesses its own citizens, may nevertheless not dispossess foreigners,
9 at least not without full compensation. It is understandable that such a theory
30111 finds its advocates in a state that is creditor of the entire world and whose
1 capitalists have invested gigantic sums in other states. For the past two years
2 or so, however, it has been advocated in Germany as well by numerous authors.
3 I do not consider it correct, but can understand that it is championed from an
4 American standpoint. It is a typical American theory, a theory belonging to a
35 state whose imperialistic expansion consists in the expansion of its possibilities
6 for capital investment and exploitation.
7 The distinctiveness with which the United States sets itself up as hegemonic
8 power in the Americas already stands out in the practice of intervention
9 treaties and the recognition of new governments. On the other hand, in relation
40111 to the non-American world, a series of other methods of securing influence
1 has emerged. For in fact the United States is to a great degree the arbiter of
2 the world. It alone decided the World War to the detriment of Germany through
3 its intervention in 1917; it in fact turned a war that until then was essentially
4 a European war into a world war; thereupon it pulled out again in a curious
45111 way directly after the war. This should not be understood as though the United
States preys upon the whole world [sich . . . auf die ganze Welt stürzten] out
of some imperialistic presumption; it is rather interesting to note how often it
is pressed, half against its will, to play a role where it does not wish to interfere.
Thus it entered the world war; thus it was actually [the United States] that
forced the European powers, especially France, to establish the Geneva League
of Nations; and thus it was the United States of all nations who then did not
join this selfsame League, while nevertheless allowing the American states
dependent upon it, controlled by it and bound to it, such as Cuba, Panama and
so on, to become members of the Geneva League of Nations.
Eighteen American states, a third of the membership of the League, now
take part in decisions on all European or Asian affairs[. B]ut the American
Monroe Doctrine, whose primacy is, as noted, recognized in Article 21 of the
Covenant of the League of Nations, has precedence over the League Covenant
and prevents the interference of the Geneva League in American affairs.
Panama and Guatemala are members of the League of Nations. If a difference
were to arise between Panama and Guatemala, the Geneva League would not
have the right to interfere, although both states are members. Or if American
troops land there with a major military or naval presence, and if they are active
in Nicaragua, Panama or Haiti, it is not a matter for Geneva, while in turn
these American states, all fully entitled members of the League of Nations,
take part in all decisions in Geneva regarding European affairs. The situation
is such that American states controlled by the United States participate in
deciding on European issues, whereas on the other hand any interference by
the Geneva League of Nations can be declared inadmissible on the basis of
the Monroe Doctrine.
The League of Nations is, then, if I may put it this way, lame in the
American leg, though the Americans enjoy full participation in European
affairs, for example in questions of minorities, the Memel conflict, Austrian-
German customs union, etc. This is a very interesting system. There is in
fact system in it, not deliberate planning [bewuste Planmäßigkeit] in the
Machiavellian sense; rather, what is characteristic of these unique methods of

American politics rests simply upon the fact that the United States, in European
matters, can be officially absent but effectively present. It is present, for neither
Cuba nor Panama can take significant political steps without the express or
tacit approval of the United States; nevertheless, [the latter] is officially
absent. Yet this unique and highly elastic connection of official absence with
effective presence functions beyond the affairs of the Geneva League of
Nations as well. Suffice it to mention the Dawes Plan of 1924: an American,
a ‘citizen of the United States’ [English in original] carries it out, makes the
essential decision, but it is officially not the government, rather merely a citizen
of the United States who decides.
Wilson, as noted, forced the French government to take part in the founding
of the League of Nations; when the League of Nations was established, the
United States pulled back. Wilson forced through Article 21 of the Covenant,
against which the French jurist Larnaude had expressed very sensible
1111 reservations. When Wilson demanded that the recognition of the Monroe
2 Doctrine be written into the text of the League of Nations Covenant, that the
3 Monroe Doctrine be given precedence over any such Covenant, Larnaude posed
4 a series of counter-questions, namely about the content of the Monroe
5 Doctrine, which, as discussed above, is not easy to determine but rather leaves
6 everything essential to the decision and interpretation of the United States. At
7 that point Wilson, after a few general phrases, simply demanded apodictically
8 that the recognition of the Monroe Doctrine be incorporated into the Covenant
9 of the League of Nations in the suggested form, because otherwise the United
1011 States would be forced to withhold its further cooperation. Thus the subordina-
1 tion was taken up and stands in Article 21 of the Covenant as a fully valid
2 constituent part, though the United States did not join the League and did not
3111 become a member. The Geneva League of Nations has thus subordinated itself
4 to the Monroe Doctrine and has even enshrined [manifestiert] the superior
5 [claims] of American principles and of American politics in the text of its
6 Covenant. The League of Nations Council avoids any clear interpretation of
7 or position regarding this Article 21.
8 In December of 1928, when the Council of the League met on the occasion
9 of a conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay, it in fact came to pass that the
20111 Council sent three telegrams to the governments of these states, in which it
1 admonished the parties to the conflict to settle their differences in a peaceful
2 manner. When the Council Chair Briand was asked a week later how the
3 situation had developed it turned out that both American members of the League
4 of Nations had come to an agreement in Washington. The Geneva League of
5 Nations Council was kept informed on the further course of the matter neither
6 by Washington nor by the Bolivian government nor by the government of
7 Paraguay, although it could have been, at least out of politeness. In the
8 Americas the Geneva League of Nations is only in a position to exert such
9 influence as is tolerated by the United States. The military occupation of
30111 American states by the troops of the United States is a regular occurrence.
1 Today [US troops] remain in Haiti, in 1921 they were in Paraguay, in 1924
2 in Panama, in 1926 in Nicaragua to restore order, etc. All of these states are
3 members of the Geneva League of Nations. Yet the Geneva League does not
4 perceive such activities and ignores them. In Geneva it would be considered
35 tactless even to steer conversation toward this question.
6 The United States is also the only power until now to have delivered
7 [herbeigeführt] a ratified treaty on the question of disarmament. From among
8 the many suggestions for disarmament that have been made, up to now only
9 the Washington Accord of 1921 has emerged as a finished disarmament
40111 treaty. It was concluded not in Geneva but in Washington.
1 The Kellogg-Briand Pact places the final seal upon this development, so to
2 speak. It was signed in Paris on 27 August 1928 and carries the name of the
3 American Secretary of State Kellogg. The solemn ‘renunciation of war’, as
4 well, emanated from Washington and not from Geneva. This important event
45111 deserves a brief discussion, for here it is a matter of the crucial question, who
establishes peace on Earth? We all wish for peace, but questions unfortunately
also arise [regarding] who decides what peace is, who [decides] what con-
stitutes order and security, who [decides] what is a tolerable and what is an
intolerable state of affairs. And this decision about peace on Earth has been
taken out of the hands of the Geneva société des nations [French in original]
by the United States through the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Kellogg-Briand
Pact contains, as is well known, a ‘renunciation of war’; almost all states on
Earth have joined this [renunciation], including Soviet Russia, Turkey and other
states who are not members of the League of Nations. War is, at least
‘formally’, renounced not by the Geneva League of Nations but by means of
the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
Let us look more carefully at what this means. It says in the very brief
Pact that war is ‘verdammt’ (to condemn) [English translation in original].
But it is never utterly ‘censured’ [‘verurteilt’] and in no way ‘abolished’
[‘abgeschafft’]. ‘Never again war’ is not found in the Kellogg-Briand Pact[,
b]ut rather war is condemned only as an ‘instrument of national politics’. Now
we would naturally need to pose the question, when are wars an instrument
of national politics and how are we to understand those that are not [was sind
die andern Kriege]? There are wars that are ‘renounced’ as an instrument of
national policy and may not ever occur again, and there are other wars of which
nothing is said, which, in other words, in juristic terms, are e contrario per-
mitted. Briand, in his correspondence with Kellogg, gave the following classic
commentary: a war is an instrument of national politics if it is prosecuted on
the basis of arbitrariness, self-interest and injustice. It is emphasized as well
that wars that are an instrument of international politics are eo ipso just. You
see here very typical forms of different imperialisms. Imperialism prosecutes
no national wars, these are renounced; it engages at most in wars that serve
an international politics; it engages in no unjust wars, only just wars[. I]ndeed
we will see that it does not go to war at all, even when it does things with
armed masses of troops, tanks and armoured vehicles, which would of course
be considered war if anyone else did them.

From the German standpoint one could now raise the further question of
which sort of war is in reality the more just, the imperialistic-international or
the national[. B]ut it would already be an error, according to the clear wording
of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, to believe that the Pact contains in its wording,
at least pro forma, a renunciation of all conceivable wars. After the experiences
of the post-war years we need to pose rather a different question: If war is
really renounced and condemned, even if only as [an] ‘instrument of national
politics’, then what exactly is war? I do not need to recall events in China in
order to make [the reader] aware that such a question is unfortunately quite
pressing [sehr nahe liegt]. We have lived through major landings of troops
year after year. We have experienced great battles, bombardments of coasts,
landings of Italian ships in Corfu, landings of American Marines in Panama,
Nicaragua, and so on, invasions of French and Belgians into the German
Ruhrgebiet, etc. All of this did not count as war and was thus not ‘renounced’.
1111 What then exactly is war? We receive a characteristic answer from an essay
2 by a well-known pacifist and professor in Geneva, Hans Wehberg, in the journal
3 ‘Peace Watch’ [‘Der Friedenswarte’] (January 1932). There one reads,
4
5 according to laws in force, one can speak in the case of the Chinese-
6 Japanese conflict only of a military occupation, not of a war. This
7 conclusion is in no way altered by the fact that the so-called ‘peaceful
8 occupation’ (occupatio pacifica), whether justified as a matter of the pro-
9 tection of life and property of Japanese citizens or as a reprisal for Chinese
1011 violations of international law, was accompanied by bombardments, even
1 by battles of greater or lesser scope.
2
3111 It is thus a matter only of peaceful occupation, not war.
4 How is a jurisprudence possible that in view of bloody struggles, in view
5 of tens of thousands of casualties, dares still to speak of ‘peaceful occupation’
6 and thereby delivers up the concept of ‘peace’ to scorn and ridicule? The
7 thought process runs as follows: either something is war or it is peace. What
8 is war? Whatever is not peaceful means. What are peaceful means? Whatever
9 is not war. There is no intermediate phenomenon [Zwischending]. Now,
20111 however, a peaceful occupation, even if accompanied by battles of greater or
1 lesser scope, is not war, ergo it is a peaceful means, ergo the affair also has
2
nothing to do with the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
3
The Geneva League of Nations apparently sees its function [Leistung] in
4
the juridification of international relations, that is, in effecting this kind
5
of conceptual construction. For [the League] the issue is juristically in good
6
order, and will always remain so. Thus atrocious reprisals are possible,
7
murderous shellings, even bloody struggles and battles: all of this is not war
8
9 in the juristic sense, and the peace, for which suffering humanity waits with
30111 yearning, has already long been granted to it; [humanity] has only, for lack
of juristic perspicacity, failed to notice. The objects of such peaceful measures
1
2 would thus do well to take note: first, war is only renounced as a means of
3 national politics, and second, it turns out that the popular perception whereby
4 ‘battles of greater or lesser scope’ have something to do with war is false.
35 There is something else to observe as well: the Kellogg-Briand Pact includes
6 numerous reservations, tacked on by the signing powers in various addenda,
7 for example the reservation of self-defence against an attack, according to which
8 every state decides for itself whether it is under attack[. F]or example, as
9 H. Wehberg reports, a resolution of the Japanese League of Nations Society
40111 [Völkerbundliga] of 16 November 1931 labelled steps presently being taken
1 by Japan against China as ‘self-defence measures’. England, alone among
2 states, interestingly registered a reservation for ‘national honour’. The others
3 did not find the courage to make this reservation openly; most content
4 themselves with reservations in the case of self-defence or the violation of
45111 existing treaties, and with excepting themselves from the renunciation of war.
As far as the reservation of the Monroe Doctrine goes, it can be assumed to
rise above any practically effective doubt.
As the Monroe Doctrine lies in the hand of the United States, the latter can
[Wie die Monroedoktrin in der Hand der Vereinigten Staaten liegt, so können
sie] take the standpoint, with respect to the Kellogg-Briand Pact as well, that
is only proper to a world power, namely, that it itself defines, interprets and
applies. It decides when something is war or rather a peaceful means of
international politics, a peaceful means of upholding order and security in a
state which itself is not able to do so, [a peaceful means] of protection of
life and private property, or in general of pacifying the Earth. If it really
comes to that, the Kellogg-Briand Pact could have a similar function for the
Earth to that which the Monroe Doctrine had for the Americas. All attempts
to incorporate the Kellogg-Briand Pact into the League of Nations Covenant
have not succeeded and cannot succeed. One reads in the commentary on the
League of Nations Covenant by Schücking-Wehberg (third edition 1931,
p. 180) that the incorporation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact in the Covenant is
difficult because the Kellogg-Briand Pact knows ‘no sanction, no organization
and no definition’. Exactly this is the point, and the great superiority, the
astounding political accomplishment of the United States reveals itself ever
anew in the fact that it makes use of general, open concepts.
I would like to caution against the opinion that what is at issue here is a
low form of craftiness and Machiavellianism. Such an elasticity, such an ability
to operate with broad terms and to force the peoples of the Earth to respect
them, is a phenomenon of world-historical significance. With those decisive
political concepts the issue is who interprets, defines and applies them; who
says, by means of concrete decision, what is peace, what [is] disarmament,
what intervention, what public order and security. It is one of the most
important phenomena in the entire legal and intellectual life of humanity that
whoever has real power is also able to appropriate and determine concepts
and words. Caesar dominus et supra grammaticam: the emperor is ruler over
grammar as well. Imperialism forges for itself its own concepts, and a false
normativism and formalism only leads to a situation in which in the end nobody
knows what is war and what is peace.
I would like once again to caution against the misunderstanding according
to which we are dealing with things here that [a people] can simply decide to
do [die man beliebig machen könne]. It is an expression of true political power
if a great people [can] determine on its own the forms of speech and even the
mode of thought of other peoples, the vocabulary, the terminology and the
concepts. We as Germans are obviously in a miserable political [state of]
powerlessness, not only in the world but also within Europe, and as a German
I can only feel in these discussions of American imperialism like a beggar in
rags [might feel] speaking of the riches and treasures of others.
We must, however, if we are permitted, finally, to consider our own German
fate, attend to one implication of knowledge of the essence of imperialistic
methods. For an historically significant imperialism, not only military and naval
1111 armament is essential, not only economic and financial wealth, but also this
2 capability to determine the content of political and legal concepts. This side
3 of imperialism – I speak here not specifically of the American [version] – is
4 very dangerous for a people, like the Germans, [who are] on the defensive,
5 perhaps even more dangerous than military repression and economic
6 exploitation. A people is only conquered when it subordinates itself to the
7 foreign vocabulary, the foreign construction [Vorstellung] of what law,
8 especially international law, is. Then in addition to the surrender of weapons
9 there is the surrender of one’s own law. In the situation in Germany today
1011 everything depends upon seeing through the veil of words and concepts, of
1 juridifications and moralizations, not in derisive critique but also not in
2 fawning [dienstfertiger] subordination to foreign terms and demands for
3111 ‘moral disarmament’ that are nothing other than instruments of foreign power.
4 This form of consciousness, this sensibility for the fact that concepts and forms
5 of thinking as well can be matters for political decision, is necessary and
6 must remain vigilant. For we subordinate ourselves to no imperialism, neither
7 to the American, which is not immediately proximate [benachbart] and
8 dangerous to us, nor to a far more dangerous and proximate imperialism,
9 and we will [wollen . . . uns] subordinate ourselves neither legally nor morally
20111 and intellectually.
1
2
Notes
3
4 1 [‘Völkerrechtliche Formen des modernen Imperialismus’, Könisberger Auslandsstudien
5 8 (1933) 117–42. Translation based upon version reprinted in C. Schmitt (1940),
Positionen und Begriffe: im Kampf mit Weimar–Genf–Versailles, 1923–1939,
6 Hamburg-Wandsbek: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 162–80. New printing (1988):
7 Berlin: Duncker und Humblot. Translator’s notes appear in square brackets in the
8 text (if brief) or in longer explanatory footnotes. Schmitt has no footnotes in
9 the version of the text on which this translation is based. (Trans.)]
30111 2 [Passages from the League of Nations Covenant are taken from the English text
rather than translated from Schmitt’s citation of the German. The version used is
1
that of Yale University Law School’s Avalon Project: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/
2 20th_century/leagcov.asp, accessed 10 April 2010. (Trans.)]
3 3 [The English text of Article 21 reads as follows: ‘Nothing in this Covenant shall
4 be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of
35 arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe doctrine, for securing the
6 maintenance of peace.’ (Yale University Law School, Avalon Project: Documents
in Law, History and Diplomacy, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.
7 asp#art21, accessed 6 August 2009) (Trans.)]
8 4 [The pact was known in Germany simply as the Kelloggpakt. Briand’s name has
9 been added throughout the translation to conform to English convention. (Trans.)]
40111
1
2
3
4
45111

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1111

2 2 Forms of modern imperialism

protectorates and colonies[. W]ith respect to half-civilized peoples, for the

1 justification by the United States in international law or foreign policy for a

American government that has come to power by revolutionary means, and

wrong to believe that it is simply a Machiavellian trick of the United States

Machiavellian sense; rather, what is characteristic of these unique methods of

be considered war if anyone else did them.

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