Abstract
For three or four centuries, and certainly by the Peace of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years War, state sovereignty has been the guiding principle of international relations. The state has been the way people have organized themselves, and has been seen as the natural or inevitable end product in the evolution of international society. F.H. Hinsley characterizes sovereignty as ‘final and absolute authority in the political community’,3 and notes that it has been intimately associated with the state: ‘the origin and history of the concept of sovereignty are closely linked with the nature, the origin and the history of the state.’4 He talks about the ‘inexorable’ consolidation of the state and the ‘victory of the concept of sovereignty’.5 Harold Laski notes, however, that ‘there is historically no limit to the variety of ways in which the use of power may be organized’.6 Mary Catherine Bateson, too, sees more room for human agency and change: ‘The state is not a fact of nature, however, but the solution to a problem7 — a modern and Western solution, recently generalizable to the rest of the world, which is, in turn, itself a source of problems.’8
[T]he further history of the concept [of
sovereignty] will be a history of its use and
misuse in varying political conditions and not
restatement of it in different or novel terms. F. H. Hinsley1
It may be that the contemporary period is one
of considerable fluidity, when the most
fundamental questions regarding the exercise
of power and authority have been thrown
back into the crucible of history. Joseph A. Camilleri2
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Notes
F.H. Hinsley, Sovereignty, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986): p. 125.
Joseph A. Camilleri, ‘Rethinking Sovereignty in a Shrinking, Fragmented World’, in R.B.J. Walker and Saul Mendlovitz, eds, Contending Sovereignties: Redefining Political Community, (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers, 1990): p. 39.
Harold J. Laski, A Grammar of Politics, (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1941): p. 41.
Walter B. Wriston, ‘Technology and Sovereignty’, Foreign Affairs, 67 (Winter 1988–9): p. 63.
Joseph A. Camilleri and Jim Falk, The End of Sovereignty?: The Politics of a Shrinking and Fragmenting World, (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1992): p. 11.
The following is a very brief overview of the development of the concept of sovereignty. For more in-depth analyses see Hinsley, Sovereignty; Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, ‘Sovereignty: Outline of a Conceptual History’, Alternatives, 16 (4 1991): pp. 425–46
Jens Bartelson, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
Camilleri and Falk, pp. 14–15; Hinsley, 8–22. Both Grotius and Vattel, two of the first theorists to put forward comprehensive statements of international law also saw the state as a natural entity. See Peter F. Butler, ‘The Individual and International Relations’, in James Mayall, ed., The Community of States: A Study in International Political Theory, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982): p. 117.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Richard Tuck, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991): p. 93.
See Jean Bodin, On Sovereignty: Four Chapters from the Six Books of the Commonwealth, Julian H. Franklin, trans., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
However, some political philosophers wrote about the importance of nonintervention in the 19th century. See, for example, John Stuart Mill, ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’, in John Stuart Mill, Essays on Equality, Law, and Education, John M. Robson, ed., (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984): pp. 111–24.
See Alan James, Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986): Chapter 2.
Robert Keohane, Sovereignty, Interdependence and International Institutions, Working Paper no. 1 (Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, Spring 1991): pp. 1–4.
Ruth Lapidoth, ‘Sovereignty in Transition’, Journal of International Affairs, 45 (Winter 1992): p. 325.
Richard Falk, Explorations at the Edge of Time, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992): p. 30 (italics in original).
Philip Allott, Eunomia: New Order for a New World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990): pp. 4–13.
Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990): p. 2.
Thomas J. Biersteker and Cynthia Weber, eds, State Sovereignty as Social Construct, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, 46 (Spring 1992): p. 413.
Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-to-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990): p. 39.
James Der Derian, ‘The Boundaries of Knowledge and Power in International Relations’, in James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro, eds, International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989): p. 4.
Richard K. Ashley, ‘Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17 (Summer 1988): p. 230.
For further discussions and critiques of postmodernism and international relations see: Ashley; Camilleri and Falk, Chapter 3; Der Derian and Shapiro; Falk, Explorations at the Edge of Time; Pauline Rosenau, ‘Once Again Into the Fray: International Relations Confronts the Humanities’, Millennium, 19 (1 1990): pp. 83–110
Pauline Rosenau, Postmodernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)
Roger D. Spegele, ‘Richard Ashley’s Discourse for International Relations’, Millennium, 21 (2 1992): pp. 147–82. For an overview of how the postmodern condition is evident in numerous aspects of contemporary life see Truett, Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be. Anthony Giddens, in The Consequences of Modernity, argues that rather than experiencing postmodernity we are, instead, in a period of ‘high modernity’ in which modern thought is going through a phase of ‘self-clarification’ and ‘radicalisation’. He also places the globalizing tendencies which the world experiences within a modern framework. Yet, this focus on globalization ignores the concomitant localizing or fragmenting processes which have also taken hold. See Giddens, especially pp. 45–52, 177. Finally, my discussion will not be in a ‘traditional’ postmodern mode, for to do so would be to engage in, as Pauline Rosenau puts it, the ‘intentional stylistic ambiguity (some would say obscurantism) that characterizes poststructural, post-modernist writing’ (p. 84).
Mark W. Zacher, ‘The Decaying Pillars of the Westphalian Temple: Implications for International Order and Governance’, in James N. Rosenau and Ernest-Otto Czempiel, eds, Governance without Government, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992): p. 60 (italics in original). L. Ali Khan makes a distinction between institutional and normative enmeshment. Institutional enmeshment involves the type of activity Zacher cites, whereby ‘nation-states and state coalitions relinquish their wilful independence in exchange for the benefits of cooperative enmeshment at the regional and global levels’. Normative enmeshment involves ‘networks of common values at both regional and global levels’, and encompasses not only human rights norms, but also many other interests, particularly in the economic realm.
L. Ali Khan, The Extinction of Nation-States: AWorld without Borders, (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1996): p. 134. More generally, see pp. 133–62.
James N. Rosenau, ‘Subtle Sources of Global Interdependence: Changing Criteria of Evidence, Legitimacy, and Patriotism’, in James N. Rosenau and Hylke Tromp, eds, Interdependence and Conflict in World Politics, (Brookfield, VT: Glower Publishing Company, 1989): p. 32.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews, ‘Redefining Security’, Foreign Affairs, 68 (Spring 1989): p. 168.
Ibid., pp. 168–70; Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown, Global Environmental Politics, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991): pp. 92–7.
Marlise Simons, ‘Winds Toss Africa’s Soil, Feeding Lands Far Away’, The New York Times, (29 October 1992): p. 1, 6.
Marlise Simons, ‘Massive Ozone and Smog Defile South Atlantic Sky’, The New York Times, (12 October 1992): p. 1, 6.
Gamani Corea, ‘Global Stakes Require a New Consensus’, ifda Dossier, 78 (July/September 1990): p. 77.
On the role the Internet is playing in the human rights movement, see Jamie F. Metzl, ‘Information Technology and Human Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly, 18 (November 1996): pp. 705–46.
Walter B. Wriston, The Twilight of Sovereignty: How the Information Revolution Is Transforming Our World, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992): p. xii.
As Jessica T. Mathews points out: ‘By drastically reducing the importance of proximity, the new technologies change people’s perceptions of community. Fax machines, satellite hookups, and the Internet connect people across borders with exceptionally growing ease while separating them from natural and historical associations within nations.’ Jessica T. Mathews, ‘Power Shift’, Foreign Affairs, 76 (January/February 1997): pp. 51–2.
Thierry Breton, The Pentecost Project, Mark Howson, trans., (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1987): p. 58.
Robert Reich talks in terms of ‘global webs’ of production where ‘products are international composites’ and points to ‘the coming irrelevance of corporate nationality’. Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism, (New York: Vintage Books, 1992): pp. 110–53.
Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990): p. 178.
See Keohane, p. 11; Alexander Motyl, ‘The Modernity of Nationalism: Nations, States and Nation-States in the Contemporary World’, Journal of International Affairs, 45 (Winter 1992): pp. 318–9.
For an overview of natural law and its relationship to international relations, see Joseph Boyle, ‘Natural Law and International Ethics’, in Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel, eds, Traditions of International Ethics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992): pp. 112–35.
However, Eric Heinze notes that human rights law can, at a certain point, go beyond state’s wishes: ‘Unlike most other traditional branches of law, international human rights law is not intended merely to recapitulate the wishes and practices of States. It arises from the positive consent of nations; yet, once born, it is not necessarily constrained by those nations’ individual objectives. It does, so to speak, take on a life of its own.’ Eric Heinze, ‘Beyond Parapraxes: Right and Wrong Approaches to the Universality of Human Rights Law’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 12 (4 1994): p. 381. Even though I argue that positive international law cannot provide an overall basis for grounding human rights restrictions on state behaviour, this does not mean that human rights law is not crucial in delineating current practice, future aspirations and bases for action on human rights grounds. The role of human rights law and the extent to which it may have ‘taken on a life of its own’ will be discussed below.
Ingrid Delupis, International Law and the Independent State, (New York: Crane, Russak, 1974): p. 5.
Thomas G. Weiss and Jarat Chopra, ‘Sovereignty Is No Longer Sacrosanct: Codifying Humanitarian Intervention’, Ethics & International Affairs, 6 (1992): p. 106.
Stanley Hoffman, ‘A New World and its Troubles’, Foreign Affairs, 69 (Fall 1990): pp. 120–1.
See Gerhard von Glahn, Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public International Law, 5th edn, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986): pp. 356–9, 384–408.
Jeffrey D. Myhre, The Antarctic Treaty System: Politics, Law, and Diplomacy, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986): pp. 14, 15
Malcom W. Browne, ‘France and Australia Kill Pact on Limited Antarctic Mining and Oil Drilling’, The New York Times, (25 September 1989): p. 10
Sudhir K. Chopra, ‘Antarctica as a Commons Regime: A Conceptual Framework for Cooperation and Coexistence,’ in Christopher C. Joyner and Sudhir K. Chopra, eds, The Antarctic Legal Regime, (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988): p. 172.
United Nations, The United Nations Treaties on Outer Space, (New York: United Nations, 1984).
Almost all US states have trade offices in other countries, whereas only four had them in 1970. Mathews, ‘Power Shift’, p. 61. See also James O. Goldsborough, ‘California’s Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, 72 (Spring 1993): pp. 88–96.
Ivo D. Duchacek, ‘Perforated Sovereignties: Towards a Typology of New Actors in International Relations’, in Hans J. Michelmann and Panayotis Soldatos, eds, Federalism and International Relations: The Role of Subnational Units, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990): pp. 1–33.
Herbert Kitschelt, ‘New Social Movements in West Germany and the United States’, Political Power and Social Theory, 5 (1985): pp. 273–324.
Ibid., pp. 35–6. See also Alberto Melucci, ‘The New Social Movements: A Theoretical Approach’, Social Science Information, 19 (2 1980): pp. 199–226
Hanspeter Kriesi, ‘The Interdependence of Structure and Action: Some Reflections on the State of the Art’, International Social Movement Research, 1 (1988): pp. 349–368
Claus Offe, ‘New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics’, Social Research, 52 (Winter 1985): pp. 817–868.
On transnational social movements see Jackie Smith, Charles Chatfield, and Ron Pagnucco, eds, Transnational Social Movements and World Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997).
James N. Rosenau, ‘The Relocation of Authority in a Shrinking World’, Comparative Politics, 24 (April 1992): p. 262
Thom Kuehls, Beyond Sovereign Territory: The Space of Ecopolitics, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996): p. 54. On Greenpeace more generally, see pp. 49–55.
Robin Wright, ‘The Outer Limits?’ The Los Angeles Times, (25 August 1992): p. 1.
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983): pp. 44–5.
Lawrence T. Farley, Plebiscites and Sovereignty: The Crisis of Political Illegitimacy, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986): p. 7.
On the changing importance of territory for national security see Timothy Luke, ‘The Discipline of Security Studies and the Codes of Containment: Learning From Kuwait’, Alternatives, 16 (Summer 1991): pp. 315–44.
James N. Rosenau, ‘The State in an Era of Cascading Politics: Wavering Concept, Widening Competence, Withering Colossus, or Weathering Change?’ Comparative Political Studies, 21 (April 1988): p. 13.
James N. Rosenau, ‘Normative Challenges in a Turbulent World’, Ethics & International Affairs, 6 (1992): p. 9.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, New York: Basic Books, 1977, pp. 53–8.
Claude Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, John B. Thompson, ed., (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1986): p. 243.
W. Michael Reisman, ‘Sovereignty and Human Rights in Contemporary International Law’, American Journal of International Law, 84 (October 1990): 867.
World Conference on Human Rights, The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, (United Nations Department of Public Information, June, 1993): 30.
Jarat Chopra, ‘The New Subjects of International Law’, Brown Foreign Affairs Journal, (Spring 1991): p. 30. Chopra also points out that national liberation movements also have a degree of legal personality (29).
Michael Walzer, ‘The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 9 (Spring 1980): p. 223.
This does not, however, necessarily mean Western-style democracy. For example, one could argue that various ‘traditional’ societies, such as in Africa, are ‘democratic’ even though they do not take the forms associated with democracy in the West, such as elected parliaments and presidents. See, for example, George B.N. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).
For example, the UN prevented the secession of Katanga from the Congo while, at the same time, supporting Congo’s liberation from Belgium. See Allen Buchanan, ‘Self-Determination and the Right to Secede’, Journal of International Affairs, 45 (Winter 1992): p. 349.
Hurst Hannum, Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990): p. 47.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, (New York: Verso, 1991): p. 6.
Richard Falk, Revitalizing International Law, (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1989): p. 10.
Part of the debate with regard to universality and cultural contexts of human rights has revolved around the idea that human rights are somehow ‘Western’ ideas being hegemonically pushed on the rest of the world. That is, the Enlightenment basis for human rights is not applicable to other cultures which have different historical and cultural traditions. One particular argument can be made within the context of this book to address this. The ideas developed in the Enlightenment onwards with respect to human rights, freedom, and so on have been integrally entwined with the development of the modern state form and sovereignty. Thus, those who would use the state form and claim to act on the basis of sovereignty must also take into account the traditions which go with it. That is, if one accepts the state form and wants to play the sovereignty game, one must also accept the limits which go along with participation. A second argument is to simply repeat the truism that all major religions, cultures and ethical systems have some notion of the sanctity and rights of the person. Most of these systems have evolved outside of the rather recent era of Western hegemony, and thus could not be considered to have been the result of North-South power relations which the leaders of many human rights abusing states claim they are a victim of today. That is, the idea of human rights exists beyond particular cultural contexts, and what is occurring today is the attempt to reconcile various ideas into a globally relevant one as cultures become more globally entwined. On the universality of human rights see also: Heinze, ‘Beyond Para-praxes: Right and Wrong Approaches to the University of Human Rights Law’, and Pieter van Dijk, ‘A Common Standard of Achievement: About Universal Validity and Uniform Interpretation of International Human Rights Norms’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 13 (2 1995): pp. 105–21.
James N. Rosenau, ‘Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Toward a Postinternational Politics for the 1990s’, in Ernst-Otto Czempiel and James N. Rosenau, eds, Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges: Approaches to World Politics for the 1990s, (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989): pp. 2–3.
Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History?’ The National Interest, 16 (Summer 1989): pp. 3–18.
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Mills, K. (1998). Reconstructing Sovereignty. In: Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373556_2
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