Sovereignty
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Word history
The word has been documented in English since circa 1340, meaning preeminence, and as rule (since 1378). It derives from Anglo-French sovereynetee, from Old French souveraineté, from souverain (, itself from medieval latin superanus which derives from classical Latin superus "superior" or "overness").Notion
The source or origins of sovereignty (God or the people) must be distinguished from its exercise by branches of government. In democracies, sovereignty is held by the people. This is known as popular sovereignty; it may be exercised directly, as in a popular assembly, or, more commonly, indirectly through the election of representatives to government. This is known as a representative democracy, a system of government currently used in most western nations and former colonies. Popular sovereignty also exists in other forms, such as in constitutional monarchies, usually identical in political reality as in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms. Systems of representative democracy can also be mixed with other methods of government, for instance the use of referendums in many countries.In another model, sovereignty is of an eternal origin, such as nature, or God, legitimating the divine right of kings in absolute monarchies or a theocracy.
A more formal distinction is whether the law is held to be sovereign, which constitutes a true state of law: the letter of the law (if constitutionally correct) is applicable and enforceable, even when against the political will of the nation, as long as not formally changed following the constitutional procedure. Strictly speaking, any deviation from this principle constitutes a revolution or a coup d'état, regardless of the intentions.
In constitutional and international law, the concept of sovereignty also pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit, and in certain context to various organs (such as courts of law) possessing legal jurisdiction in their own chief, rather than by mandate or under supervision. Determining whether a specific entity is sovereign is not an exact science, but often a matter of diplomatic dispute.
A brief history of the concept of sovereignty
Basileus is the Greek concept for "Sovereign", which designs who has the auctoritas, which is to be distinguished from simple imperium, retained by archons (or "magistrates").Jean Bodin (1530-1596) is considered to be the modern initiator of the concept of sovereignty, with his 1576 treatise Six Books on the Republic which described the sovereign as a ruler beyond human law and subject only to the divine or natural law. He thus predefined the scope of the divine right of kings, stating "Sovereignty is a Republic's absolute and perpetual power". Sovereignty is absolute, thus indivisible, but not without any limits: it exercises itself only in the public sphere, not in the private sphere. It is perpetual, because it does not expire with its holder (as auctoritas does). In other words, sovereignty is no one's property: by essence, it is inalienable.
These characteristics would decisively shape the concept of sovereignty, which we can find again in the social contract theories, for example, in Rousseau's (1712-1778) definition of popular sovereignty, which only differs in that he consider the people to be the legitimate sovereign. Likewise, it is inalienable - Rousseau condemned the distinction between the origin and the exercise of sovereignty, a distinction upon which constitutional monarchy or representative democracy are founded. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu are also key figures in the unfolding of the concept of sovereignty.
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) defined sovereignty as "the power to decide the state of exception", in an attempt, argues Giorgio Agamben, to counter Walter Benjamin's theory of violence as radically disjoint from law. Georges Bataille's heterodox conception of sovereignty, which may be said an "anti-sovereignty", also inspired many thinkers, such as Jacques Derrida, Agamben or Jean-Luc Nancy.
Different views of sovereignties
There exist vastly differing views on the moral bases of sovereignty. These views translate into various bases for legal systems:- Partisans of the divine right of kings argue that the monarch is sovereign by divine right, and not by the agreement of the people. Taken to its conclusion, this may translate into a system of absolute monarchy.
- The second book of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du droit politique (1762) deals with sovereignty and its rights. Sovereignty, or the general will, is inalienable, for the will cannot be transmitted; it is indivisible, since it is essentially general; it is infallible and always right, determined and limited in its power by the common interest; it acts through laws. Law is the decision of the general will in regard to some object of common interest, but though the general will is always right and desires only good, its judgment is not always enlightened, and consequently does not always see wherein the common good lies; hence the necessity of the legislator. But the legislator has, of himself, no authority; he is only a guide who drafts and proposes laws, but the people alone (that is, the sovereign or general will) has authority to make and impose them.
- Democracy is based on the concept of popular sovereignty. Representative democracies permit (against Rousseau's thought) a transfer of the exercise of sovereignty from the people to the parliament or the government. Parliamentary sovereignty refers to a representative democracy where the Parliament is, ultimately, the source of sovereignty, and not the executive power.
- Anarchists and some libertarians deny the sovereignty of states and governments. Anarchists often argue for a specific individual kind of sovereignty, such as the Anarch as a sovereign individual. Salvador Dali, for instance, talked of "anarcho-monarchist"; Antonin Artaud of Heliogabalus : Or, The Crowned Anarchist; Max Stirner of The Ego and Its Own; Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida of a kind of "antisovereignty". Therefore, anarchists join a classical conception of the individual as sovereign of himself, which forms the basis of consciousness. The unified consciousness is sovereignty over one's own body, as Nietzsche demonstrated (see also Pierre Klossowski's book on Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle). See also self-ownership and Sovereignty of the individual.
- Some supporters of democratic globalization consider that nation-states should yield some of their power to a world government controlled by world citizens instead of being organized as now in an intergovernmental basis.
Specifically, when a decision is made by a sovereign entity, it cannot generally be overruled by a higher authority. Further, it is generally held that another legal element of sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. ("No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty.") In other words, neither claiming/being proclaimed Sovereign, nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements.
Territorial sovereignty
Following the Thirty Years' War, a European religious conflict that embroiled much of the continent, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 established the notion of territorial sovereignty as a doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of other nations. The 1789 French Revolution shifted the possession of sovereignty from the sovereign ruler to the nation and its people.Sovereignty in international law
In international law, sovereignty is the legitimate exercise of power by a state. De jure sovereignty is the legal right to do so; de facto sovereignty is the ability in fact to do so (which becomes of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that de jure and de facto sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and rest in the same organization). Foreign governments recognize the sovereignty of a state over a territory, or refuse to do so.For instance, in theory, both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China considered themselves sovereign governments over the whole territory of mainland China and Taiwan. Though some foreign governments recognize the Republic of China as the valid state, most now recognize the People's Republic of China. However, de facto, the People's Republic of China exercises sovereign power over mainland China but not Taiwan, while the Republic of China exercises its effective administration only over Taiwan and some outlying islands but not mainland China. Since ambassadors are only exchanged between sovereign high parties, the countries recognizing the People's Republic often entertain de facto but not de jure diplomatic relationships with Taiwan by maintaining 'offices of representation', such as the American Institute in Taiwan, rather than embassies there.
The autonomous province of Kosovo in Serbia provides a somewhat similar example, where the government of Serbia remains the de jure sovereign power but the United Nations has exercised de facto control since 1999. The province is still recognized as part of Serbia, though the Serbian government has no practical authority on the ground.
The same principle applies to internationally unrecognized separatist states such as Abkhazia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova and Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. All are treated in international law as territory subject to the authority of the internationally recognized national government, even where that government has no de facto control of the territory.
Sovereignty may be recognized even when the sovereign body possesses no territory or its territory is under partial or total occupation by another power. The Holy See was in this position between the annexation in 1870 of the Papal States by Italy and the signing of the Lateran Treaties in 1929, when it was recognised as sovereign by many (mostly Catholic) states as sovereign despite possessing no territory – a situation resolved when the Lateran Treaties granted the Holy See sovereignty over the Vatican City. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is likewise a non-territorial body that claims to be a sovereign entity, though it is not universally recognized as such.
Similarly, the governments-in-exile of many European states (for instance, Norway and the Netherlands) during the Second World War were regarded as sovereign despite their territories being under foreign occupation; their governance resumed as soon as the occupation had ended. The government of Kuwait was in a similar situation vis-á-vis the Iraqi occupation of its country during 1990-1991.
Sovereignty and federalism
In federal systems of government, such as that of the United States, sovereignty also refers to powers which a state government possesses independently of the federal government.The question whether the individual states, particularly the so-called 'Confederate States' of the American Union remained sovereign became a matter of debate in the USA, especially in its first century of existence:
- According to the theory of John C. Calhoun, the states had entered into an agreement from which they might withdraw if other parties broke the terms of agreement, and they remained sovereign. Calhoun contributed to the theoretical basis for acts of secession, as occurred just before the American Civil War. However, Calhoun propounded this as part of a general theory of "nullification," in which a state had the right to refuse to accept any Federal law that it found to be unconstitutional. These self-same southern states refused to accept that non-slave states had any such nullificatory right and insisted that the Federal government enforce the Fugitive Slave Act over any state's attempt to nullify it. However the premises of the Act was explicit in the Constitution, which required that all prisoners or slaves who escaped into other states, must be returned to their state of origin.
- According to the theory expounded in the Federalist Papers, "each State, in ratifying the Constitution, was to be considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution [was to be] a federal, and not a national constitution." The author then goes on to examine other aspects of the Constitution, some of which elevate the national government above the constituent states, and concludes that, "The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both." (Federalist No. 39)
Miscellaneous
- Tribal sovereignty refers to the right of tribes or of federally recognized Native American nations to exercise limited jurisdiction within and sometimes beyond reservation boundaries.
- In some regions of the world, such as Quebec and Indian Kashmir, the word "sovereignty" has become the preferred synonym for national independence (referring in this case to "national sovereignty" or the right of national self-determination, as explicited by example in US President Wilson's Fourteen Points - 1918). Compare the Māori term rangatiratanga, and the concept of self-determination.
- The Holy See is recognized as sovereign subject under international law (separate entity in international law vis-à-vis Vatican City, which has a very small amount of territory enclaved in the Italian capital Rome).
- A case sui generis, though often contested, is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the third sovereign mini-state based in an enclave in the Italian capital (since in 1869 the Palazzo di Malta and the Villa Malta receive extraterritorial rights, in this way becoming the only "sovereign" territorial possessions of the modern Order), which is the last existing heir to one of several once militarily significant, crusader states of sovereign military orders; in 1607 its Grand masters were also made by the Holy Roman Emperor Reichsfürst ('prince of the Holy Roman Empire', granting a seat in the Reichstag or Imperial Diet, at the time the closest permanent equivalent to a UN-type general assembly; confirmed 1620), the sovereign rights never deposed, only the territories lost; several modern states still maintain full diplomatic relations (94) with the order (now de facto 'the most prestigious service club'), and the UN awarded it observer status.
- Just like the office of Head of state (whether sovereignty is vested in it or not) can be vested jointly in several persons within a state, the sovereign jurisdiction over a single political territory can be shared jointly by two or more consenting powers, notably in the forms of a condominium or of (as still in Andorra) a co-principality
Sovereign as a title
In rare cases, the title sovereign is not just a generic term, but an actual (part of the) formal style of a Head of state.Thus from 22 June 1934 to 29 May 1953 (the title "Emperor of India" was dropped as of 15 August 1947 by retroactive proclamation dated 22 June 1948), the British Monarch was styled in the dominion of South Africa: "By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India and Sovereign in and over the Union of South Africa", only thereafter (to 31 May 1961) "Queen of South Africa and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth" parallel to the style in most commonwealth realms.
The adjective form can also be used in a Monarch's full style, as in pre-imperial Russia, 16 January 1547 - 22 November 1721: Bozhiyeyu Milostiyu Velikiy/Velikaya Gosudar'/Gosudarynya Tsar'/Tsaritsa i Velikiy/Velikaya Knyaz'/Knyaginya N.N. vseya Rossiy Samodyerzhets "By the Grace of God Great Sovereign Tsar/Tsarina and Grand Prince/Princess, N.N., of All Russia, Autocrat"
Trivia
Sovereignty is the only word in the English language with the letters g, n, and t appearing consecutively in that order, if proper nouns such as Paignton are disregarded.See also
- Basileus, the Greek concept of sovereignty
- Rousseau's classic theory of popular sovereignty
- Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of the state of exception (according to Giorgio Agamben, a response to Walter Benjamin's theorization of a "pure violence" unrelated with law)
- Colonization
- Constitutive theory of statehood
- Declarative theory of statehood
- Dictatorship
- Divine right of kings (Bodin, Hobbes, etc.)
- Leadership
- Montevideo Convention
- non-intervention
- Plenary authority
- Self-determination
- Self-ownership
- Social contract theories (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau)
- State
- Suzerainty
- Parliamentary sovereignty
- Sovereigntist
Sources and external links
- [Etymology OnLine]
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia.
- [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry]
- [Protection of national sovereign rights under international law] - by Dr Faisal Al-Rfouh, associate professor, political science, University of Jordan, President of the Gandhi Center for Strategic Studies (GCSS), NGO
- [WorldStatesmen]
- redirect
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