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Essays on the concept of sovereignty
Essays on the concept of sovereignty
Sovereignty today
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Sovereign states are the basic and indispensable building blocks of the international system. However in modern politics, there are many times where sovereignty is seen to be crumbling. This essay, aims to examine evidence to see if sovereignty as the cornerstone of modern politics, is actually crumbling. It will examine and analyze vital organisations, phenomenon’s, and situations such as globalization, the United Nations, the European Union and wars. It will show that they most certainly do compromise a state’s sovereignty, but there are also positive aspects to these compromises. It will prove that even though certain aspects of traditional sovereignty are being compromised, those compromises are positive ones and will also show that sovereignty is still a vital aspect in modern politics.
Contemporary pundits often cite the 1648 Peace of Westphalia as the political big bang that created the modern system of autonomous states. Westphalia-, which ended the thirty years’ war against the hegemonic power of the Holy Roman Empire-, delegitimized the already waning transnational role of the Catholic Church and validated the idea that international relations should be driven by balance – of power considerations rather than ideals of Christendom (Krasner, 2001). The international state system, organizations and multinational corporations that are flourishing today are said to have originated from the Peace of Westphalia. Therefore the sovereignty we have today is also known as Westphalian sovereignty. The three basic principles of this sovereignty are the equality between states, a policy of non-intervention of a state by another state and the right to political self-determination of a state. Therefore sovereignty is defined as the ena...
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...mpact on the three principles of sovereignty. The United Nations still holds up the flag of sovereignty and condemns whoever infringes it, the European Union is emerging and reinforcing it by building a European super state and most importantly wars that are fought on an honest humanitarian approach in fact help reinforcing sovereignty between a state and its society. Therefore in modern day politics even if sovereignty is diminishing in certain areas it is mainly for the positive, where as in other areas it is still a vital concept to all nations as well as modern day politics.
Works Cited
Featherston, Scott (2004) ‘Review of Stephen C. Schlesinger Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations’ SAIS Review, 24 (1): 201-203.
Annan, Kofi (2005) In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All (New York: United Nations).
All the legal transformations identified in this paper, I argue, point into one direction: a less salient principle of sovereign equality and ever-increasing important transnational regimes. Today, the absolute authority of a state over its territory and population is under more limitations than it was seventy years ago.
Origins for the cooperation amongst powers necessary to tackle international disputes can be traced back to the 19th century, however the formation of the League of Nations was eagerly prompted by the First World War. After the horrors in which the world observed, leaders merged together and rejoiced in the potential for a new international system. The League of Nations foremost objective was to secure peace through collective efforts of ‘peace-loving’ powers (Steans, Pettiford, & Diez, 2005, p. 31). President Woodrow Wilson was a lead proponent in the creation of such a body, suggesting it- within his message on the Conditions of Peace- as a means of ‘affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike’ (Wilson, 1918). The following year a detailed scheme was presented at the Versailles Peace Conference and the league was swiftly established with the addition of a permanent secretariat in Geneva. (Catterall, 1999, p. 50). The League was very much considered the ‘most daring and innovative proposal’ (Wilkinson, 2007, p. 85)
The traditional nation state is what gives society and its’ citizens their sense of cohesiveness. It is then the duty of the nation state to protect its’ citizens and their interests, whilst providing health and social services to its members. The question then becomes, without a state, who is to protect your rights? When fleeing...
The factors mentioned above are affecting the world’s countries and there is not much they can do to prevent the loss of sovereignty. This can influence countries to willingly give up a part of their sovereignty, which in fact is being nibbled away regardless, to integrate and at least benefit from their loss. There are several benefits which derive from integration.
Sovereignty should be clearly differentiated and distinguished. It is divided into legal sovereignty as well as political sovereignty. Legal sovereignty is concerned with the legal relationship between the courts and Parliament.
(2) Second raises questions about whether sovereignty requires the acquisition of full statehood with complete authority over domestic and international affairs, or whether something less than statehood suffices. Although sovereignty is often taken to mean full statehood, some possible exceptions have been recognized. Some authors even
The belief of a nation running their own state is a right for most of us. However, this is only a new conviction. The right for one to sovereign their own nation has come due with hard work. Illicit imperialism has stricken humanity for numerous years. Due to the aspiration of power certain nations today do not self-govern their own state. But why would there be a desire for this power? Some of the main items include natural resources, increased assets, and military expansion. Ideally this is great if this is voluntary external rule, but when it’s no longer voluntary this is when the boundary has been crossed. This is why every nation should have control over their own state if they desire.
When considering the concepts of human rights and state sovereignty, the potential for conflict between the two is evident. Any humanitarian intervention by other actors within the international system would effectively constitute a violation of the traditional sovereign rights of states to govern their own domestic affairs. Thus, the answer to this question lies in an examination of the legitimacy and morality of humanitarian intervention. While traditionally, the Westphalian concept of sovereignty and non-intervention has prevailed, in the period since the Cold War, the view of human rights as principles universally entitled to humanity, and the norm of enforcing them, has developed. This has led to the 1990’s being described as a ‘golden
For an obligation to be legally binding, the sovereign States must have either accepted it or taken part in the process of developing it. Except from the fundamental principles of the international legal order, inherent in the existence of the State, and the norms of jus cogens, no legal rule is universal in scope. Most rules of international law are only authoritative for those subjects that have accepted them. For instance, the principle of sovereign consent of States is the basis of the delegations of powers that occur in the international order, it is constructed on the idea that international laws that bind States “emanate from their own free will as expressed in conventions or by usages generally accepted as expressing principles of law.” This principle, though established in 1927, is still a central standard of international law today. Explicit consent is required in the international agreements that States enter when granting some powers to an international institution, though the specific requirements of ratification might be left to the decision of the domestic authorities. Beyond the required initial consent of international delegations, it is frequent for such delegations to be of conditional nature. States retain the power to revoke authority after it has been granted. Because they are subjected by the decisions of international bodies only so long as they agree to be, States remain free from external control. Since international transfers of authority exist only when national law-making entities say they do, they are not contrary to domestic sovereignty but are instead the expression of this
It is therefore no longer is it credible for a state to turn its back on international law, alleging a bias towards European values and influence. All that humankind now requires to bring about the elusive, but eternal, dream of perpetual peace is a global citizenship based on a strong commitment to principles of equity and democracy grounded in civil society.
This essay will describe the characteristics of the modern nation-state, explain how the United States fits the criteria of and functions as a modern nation-state, discuss the European Union as a transnational entity, analyze how nation-states and transnational entities engage on foreign policy to achieve their interests, and the consequences of this interaction for international politics.
The international system is an anarchical system which means that, unlike the states, there is no over ruling, governing body that enforces laws and regulations that all states must abide by. The International System in today’s society has become highly influential from a number of significant factors. Some of these factors that will be discussed are Power held by the state, major Wars that have been fought out in recent history and international organisations such as the U.N, NATO and the W.T.O. Each of these factors, have a great influence over the international system and as a result, the states abilities to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development”.
Globalization has effect the role of the state immensely; as the process of present’s challenges to state sovereignty and autonomy. In spite of borders becoming more ill-defined and fluid in as a result of the process of globalization (Weiss 2000, 2-3). The state will remain relevant and necessary because citizens need a place to cast their votes, taxes have to be paid to particular authorities, which can be held accountable for pub...
In order to answer the question concerning the formation of states, it is necessary to clarify what constitutes a state; the Oxford English Dictionary defines a state as ‘a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government’. There are a number of ways and processes in which to analyse what state formation is, why they have formed and the way in which this has occurred. State emergence can be traced back to the creation of territorial boundaries in medieval Europe, such as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and its transition to a modern state can be attributed to the introduction of gunpowder in war (Hague & Harrop, 2010: 64). The formations of states have also been influenced by the growth of bureaucracy, administration and organisations. There are different theories as to the reason why states form, a certain few of which can be divided into the categories of rationalist, culturalist and structuralist perspectives. In this essay, these perspectives shall enter the debate in trying to justify the reason for state formation and the way in which it occurs. The most prominent feature in the formation of states appears to be the prevention and engagement of a state in war and its following consequences.
Before we delve deeper into this topic, it is imperative to properly provide a definition of sovereignty and lay down some foundation on this topic. There are four different definitions of sovereignty – international legal sovereignty, Westphalia sovereignty, domestic sovereignty and interdependence sovereignty. International legal sovereignty deals with “the practices associated with mutual recognition, usually between territorial entities that have formal juridical independence” (Krasner 4). The main definition of sovereignty that this paper will use is the ...