| From Utopia ... |
| Abbé
de Saint Pierre, Charles Irenne de Castel (1658-1743) |
In Projet
pour rendre perpétuelle la paix en Europe (1713), he
described his plan for an international court and league of states.
His main point was that by agreeing to organize themselves into a
permanent league or union, and by agreeing to settle their
differences by peaceful negotiations rather than
by war, the sovereigns of Europe could become secure in
their power and could gain mutual protection against invasions from
without and uprisings from within. Such advantages, the Abbé makes
clear, could only come through some measures of restraint: obligatory
mediation of conflicts, any sovereign who either attacked the union
or refused to accept its judgments or held back from joining it once
it had been established by fourteen other states would be forced to
do so by an army maintained by contributions from each member state.
He planned as well to set up a standing congress or senate, on the
basis of an equal representation of all Member States. This assembly
would be sovereign for foreign policy. |
