The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum

TL;DR — Schmitt’s history of the European order of international law, which he argues rested on the division of land and the bracketing of war among sovereign states.

Published in German in 1950 as Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum; this is the Telos Press English edition (translation copyright 2003, this printing 2006), translated and annotated by G. L. Ulmen.

Schmitt argues that every legal order begins with a “nomos” — an original act of land-appropriation and division. He traces the jus publicum Europaeum, the European interstate order that emerged after the discovery of the New World and the wars of religion, which he says “bracketed” war by treating it as a contest between sovereign states with equal standing rather than a crusade against criminals. He describes that order’s dissolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is critical of the post-1919 turn toward criminalising war and universal, discriminating concepts of the enemy.

Schmitt was a leading German jurist who joined the Nazi Party in 1933; the book is widely read in international law and political theory, often critically.

What it is: a major, contested work of twentieth-century legal and political theory, from an in-print English edition.

Where this came from

• A copy saved in October 2026.

373 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.