The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...

214 M. Ojakangas
earth’ (ibid.: 42). Law derives from land: ‘Every ontonomous and ontologically
just judgement derives from land’ (ibid.: 45). To this land-bound law Schmitt
gives the ancient Greek name nomos. For the Greeks, nomos signified written
law, but also custom and usage. Like Aristotle, however, Schmitt associates
nomos with the entire order (taxis) of the polis. 11 For Schmitt, nomos is a ‘total
concept’, consisting of ‘concrete order and the concrete organization of a
community’ (Schmitt 1993a: 55). Unlike the decision, nomos is not therefore an
exception. It is a rule, but not a rule imposed on an order. Rather it is the immediate
expression of an order: ‘Nomos is the immediate form in which the political
and social order of a people becomes spatially visible’ (Schmitt 2003a: 70).
It is the unity of a spatial order (Ordnung) and the orientation (Ortung) of a
particular community.
At first glance, this turn towards the philosophy of nomos would seem to
signify that Schmitt is abandoning the idea of the openness of order towards
transcendence and moving instead in the direction of a more or even completely
immanent approach. On the other hand, it should be remembered that although
institutionalism based on a philosophy of nomos emphasizes the historical continuity
of concrete institutions, Schmitt does not abandon the search for origins.
All continuity presupposes an origin – and in the case of nomos this origin is the
primeval act (Ur-Akt) of land appropriation (Landnahme). Thus, the order
closing upon itself finds a new opening in appropriation, which interrupts the
process of the closing up of immanence. Appropriation becomes a new decisionist
moment, that is, simultaneously a rupture in the previous order and the constitutive
event of a new spatial order (Raumordnungsakt): ‘The great primeval
acts of law’ (Ur-Akte des Rechts) are ‘terrestrial localizations’ (erdgebundene
Ortungen), that is, the appropriations of land and the founding of cities and
colonies (ibid.: 44).
According to Schmitt, land appropriation is thus the ‘primeval act in founding
law’ (ibid.: 45). It is the reproductive root for the meaningfulness of history
– the reproductive root of all orders and orientations. Land appropriation is
found at the beginning of the history of every settled people and every commonwealth:
The constitutive event [Vorgang] of land-appropriation is found at the
beginning of the history of every settled people, every commonwealth,
every empire. This is true as well for the beginning of every historical
epoch. Not only logically, but also historically, land-appropriation precedes
the order that follows from it. It constitutes the original spatial order, the
source of all further concrete order and all further law.
(ibid.: 48)
Hence, land appropriation is the first measure (Ur-Maß) from which all subsequent
measures derive. It is the primeval legal type (Ur-Typus), which founds
and legitimates all subsequent law: ‘All subsequent law and everything promulgated
and enacted thereafter as degrees and commands are nourished, to use