All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed
with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.

--Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1

The logic of Westphalia suggests that the nation-state is principally what
determines whether or not human beings live in dignity and justice. Since
the state is by far the most important locus of political power in the
world, it must provide security from without and security--in all its im-
plications for the realization of human values beyond the basic one of
mere survival--to the members of the society within it. If civilized life re-
quires the protections afforded by the state, then the state must help hu-
manity realize its higher needs and aspirations. Nation-states can have no
other justification for their existence.

But this fundamental premise has always been built on a disturbing
foundation of wishful thinking. Although it assumes that the state ought
to enhance the rights of human beings in its jurisdiction, it does not en-
sure that the state will do so. Worse, it fails entirely to address the possi-
bility (indeed, the likelihood, as modern history has shown) that govern-
ments may become the greatest violators of the rights of individuals
within their control, even to the point of denying many of them the right
to life itself. What is justified for its presumed ability to advance human
welfare can become the most dangerous enemy of humanity's well-being.

Yet throughout much of the Westphalian period, this wishful thinking
could be largely overlooked, for more often than not, people were less re-
pressed by their own governments than they were protected by them.

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