Lecture 7-National Sovereignty
• Sovereignty is the enabling concept of world
politics whereby states assert not only ultimate
authority within a distinct territorial entity but also
asserts membership of the International
community.
• Internal sovereignty thus refers to a supreme
decision-making and enforcement authority with
regard to a particular territory and population.
Lecture 15.1
• External sovereignty on the other hand refers to its
anti-thesis and absence of a supreme international
authority and hence independence of sovereign
state.
• The Doctrine of state sovereignty necessarily leads
to the concept of international anarchy: The idea
of supreme authority with the state logically leads
to denial of the existence of supra sovereign above
the state.
Lecture 15.2
• The development of the state system is
usually synonymous with the right to
exercise unrestrained power. On this view
international law cannot circumscribe or set
limits on state behaviour. Thus sovereign
states are judges in their own cause, to
pursue their conceived interests and can
treat those who fall within their domestic
jurisdiction in their own way.
Lecture 15.3
• However in practice, the denial of supra-sovereign
authority beyond the state has never meant that
sovereign states are free to do as they please
• The history of modern state system has been a
conscious attempt to move away from the
apparent rigidity of early formulations of the
doctrine while retaining its more useful
characteristics especially the idea of formal
equality that it implies.
Lecture 15.4
• The notion of absolute unlimited
sovereignty while being useful and indeed
an indispensable instrument to employ
against the claims –by the pope emperor
was never more than a convenient fiction in
the development of modern state system.
Lecture 15.5
• Increasing interdependence, the reciprocal
nature of international law and membership
of international organisations have thus led
to the acceptance of the doctrine of
“divided” sovereignty where supremacy is
qualified either through consent or auto
limitation e.g. UN Charter Article 2 par 1
Lecture 15.6
• recognizes that sovereign equality of member
states yet exports them to settle their disputes by
peaceful means.
• Many scholars today regard the doctrine of
sovereignty as not only dangerous (it can lead to
unrestrained pursuit of national interest and is
inimical to the development of international law.)
but also as misleading (few, if any states are as
impenetrable or as impermeable as it implies.)
Lecture 15.7
• Arguments are often raised to the effect that
integrative developments and complex
interdependence on all fronts have rendered
it, and the state centric bias it encourages
obsolete.
• But centrality of state has to be recognised.s