The modern state system is an
association among sovereign and equal powers. It was born with the peace treaty
of Westphalia in 1648 which ended the thirty years war in Europe. Scholars commonly designate 1648 as the time
the state system began to take on its modern form. Thereafter, European rulers refused to
recognize the authority of the Roman
Catholic Church, replacing the previous system of papal government with
geographically and politically separate state which recognized to authority
above them. The treaty of Westphalia
came with notable changes-England France, Sweden,
Holland and Spain became independent and national states.1
The newly independent states were all given the same legal rights:
territorial indivisibility; freedom to conduct foreign relations and negotiate treaties with other states; the authority to re-established whatever form of government they thought best to
rule their own population.
In 1861, the
state of Italy was proclaimed, while the Germans achieved unification in 1871.
In the Balkans,
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire gave way to independence among slaves in the
19th and 20th centuries. In the Western hemisphere, America had gained independence
in 1776. In 1822, Brazil declared here independence of Portugal.
In the Far East,
Japan emerged from feudalism 1867-68 with the collapse of the Shogunate. When
World War 1 fell outside the European continent. After the war and the peace treaties with
those defeated, only USA and Britain could be described as major powers,
(Wittkpof 1978:74 )