The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
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A terrifying world without an exterior 215<br />
Heraclitus’ word, by this source’ (ibid.: 48). 12 According to <strong>Schmitt</strong>, the very<br />
possibility <strong>of</strong> juridical relations is dependent upon this original event and determined<br />
by this original measure. <strong>The</strong>refore, land appropriation precedes all fundamental<br />
distinctions <strong>of</strong> law, such as the distinction between public and private<br />
law and even the distinction between public power (imperium) and private<br />
property (dominium). But land appropriation does not create the historical condition<br />
<strong>of</strong> possibility <strong>of</strong> law only within the community. In <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s view, it<br />
establishes the law beyond communal borders as well, that is, with respect to<br />
other peoples. It establishes the historical condition <strong>of</strong> possibility for the law <strong>of</strong><br />
nations. It is a ‘constitutive event [grundlegende Ereignis] <strong>of</strong> international law’<br />
(ibid.: 80).<br />
On the level <strong>of</strong> international order, the real possibility <strong>of</strong> appropriation is, in<br />
the same sense as the concept <strong>of</strong> enemy, a guarantee that globalization will not<br />
reach the worldwide enclosure <strong>of</strong> absolute immanence, the Babylonian unity <strong>of</strong><br />
the world. To be sure, <strong>Schmitt</strong> admits that the stakes today do not consist primarily<br />
<strong>of</strong> land appropriation, given the fact that it is rarely land which is appropriated.<br />
As a matter <strong>of</strong> fact, the sea replaced land as the principal target <strong>of</strong><br />
appropriation as early as the sixteenth century. And although the sea has also<br />
ceased to be an object <strong>of</strong> appropriations, appropriation continue to exist today:<br />
there are industry appropriations, even air and space appropriations (cf. <strong>Schmitt</strong><br />
2003b: 347). Of importance here, however, is that the real possibility <strong>of</strong> appropriation<br />
exists, which means that universal history is not concluded and the<br />
world united, as <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s friend Alexandre Kojève had proposed (cf. Kojève<br />
1980: 158–159), but remains ‘open and fluid’. Conditions are not yet ‘fixed and<br />
ossified’, which means that human beings and peoples have ‘not only a past but<br />
also a future’ (<strong>Schmitt</strong> 2003a: 78). Admittedly, <strong>Schmitt</strong>, like Kojève, thought<br />
that the end <strong>of</strong> history was a real possibility but, unlike Kojève, he did not perceive<br />
this end in the satisfaction <strong>of</strong> the human desire for recognition. He perceived<br />
it in the real possibility <strong>of</strong> humanity to commit suicide by means <strong>of</strong><br />
developed techniques <strong>of</strong> total annihilation: ‘This death would be the culmination<br />
<strong>of</strong> universal history, a collective reality analogous to the Stoic conception<br />
according to which the suicide <strong>of</strong> an individual represents the culmination <strong>of</strong> his<br />
liberty’ (<strong>Schmitt</strong> 1990b: 246). For <strong>Schmitt</strong>, liberty signifies something completely<br />
different from the liberty to commit suicide. Liberty signifies a state <strong>of</strong><br />
affairs in which things are not yet set in stone. It signifies a free space <strong>of</strong> action:<br />
‘Freedom is freedom <strong>of</strong> movement, nothing else. What would be terrifying is a<br />
world in which there no longer existed an exterior [Ausland] but only a homeland<br />
[Inland], no longer space [Spielraum] for measuring and testing one’s<br />
strength freely’ (<strong>Schmitt</strong> 1988: 37).<br />
In <strong>The</strong> Nomos <strong>of</strong> the Earth, the concept <strong>of</strong> appropriation represents this<br />
freedom, freedom <strong>of</strong> movement. Appropriation is a new decisionist moment,<br />
that is, a rupture in the old international order, but it is simultaneously the constitutive<br />
act <strong>of</strong> a new spatial order. It is the counter-concept to the unity <strong>of</strong> the<br />
world, but it is also the fundamental concept. Appropriation designates the<br />
exceptional event on the grounds <strong>of</strong> which a concrete international order is