Concluding Observations on the New Sovereignty

Abstract

The international scene has experienced vast and unprecedented change in recent decades. The declining salience of state power, the proliferation of NGOs, global telecommunications, widespread communal conflict, and large-scale environmental and humanitarian disasters have all contributed to a sense that some of the questions regarding the very basis of the international community which many had thought were settled, especially with respect to the loci of power and authority, are now much more up for grabs. The most fundamental of these questions has to do with the concept of state sovereignty which has been held to be the basic constitutive element of the international system. As I have demonstrated in this book, however, this concept is under significant challenge on a wide variety of fronts related to human rights and other humanitarian concerns.