Sovereignty is generally defined as supreme, independent control and lawmaking authority over a territory. It is expressed through the power to rule and make law. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy, which refers to the ability of a state to act independently in international affairs. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate authority over its citizens and the power to modify existing laws. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimate authority over some polity.
Under the UN Charter, the Organization is based on the sovereign equality of its members, while Article 2(7) restricts UN intervention in matters essentially within a state's domestic jurisdiction but does not prejudice enforcement measures under Chapter VII. Under Article 42, the Security Council may take action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary when measures under Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved inadequate to maintain or restore international peace and security. The Responsibility to Protect, endorsed by UN member states at the 2005 World Summit, concerns genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; when peaceful means are inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations, member states expressed readiness for collective action through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter and on a case-by-case basis.
A state is generally considered to have sovereignty over a territory when it has consistently exercised state authority there without objection from other states. De jure sovereignty refers to the legal right to do so; de facto sovereignty refers to the factual ability to do so. This can become an issue 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 reside within the same organization.
Etymology The term arises from the unattested Vulgar Latin *superanus (itself a derived form of Latin super – "over") meaning "chief", "ruler". Its spelling, which has varied since the word's first appearance in English in the 14th century, was influenced by the English word "reign".
Concepts The concept of sovereignty has had multiple conflicting components, varying definitions, and diverse and inconsistent applications throughout history. The current notion of state sovereignty contains four aspects: territory, population, authority and recognition. According to Stephen D. Krasner, the term could also be understood in four different ways: Domestic sovereignty – actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state Interdependence sovereignty – actual control of movement across the state's borders International legal sovereignty – formal recognition by other sovereign states Westphalian sovereignty – there is no other authority in the state aside from the domestic sovereign (such other authorities might be e.g. a political organization or any other external agent).
Often, these four aspects all appear together, but this is not necessarily the case – they are not affected by one another, and there are historical examples of states that were non-sovereign in one aspect while at the same time being sovereign in another of these aspects. According to Immanuel Wallerstein, another fundamental feature of sovereignty is that it is a claim that must be recognized if it is to have any meaning: There are two additional components of sovereignty that should be discussed, empirical sovereignty and juridical sovereignty. Empirical sovereignty deals with the legitimacy of who is in control of a state and the legitimacy of how they exercise their power. Tilly references an example where nobles in parts of Europe were allowed to engage in private rights and Ustages, a constitution by Catalonia recognized that right which demonstrates empirical sovereignty. As David Samuel points out, this is an important aspect of a state because there has to be a designated individual or group of individuals that are acting on behalf of the people of the state. Juridical sovereignty emphasizes the importance of other states recognizing the rights of a state to exercise their control freely with little interference. For example, Jackson, Rosberg and Jones explain how the sovereignty and survival of African states were more largely influenced by legal recognition rather than material aid. Douglass North identifies that institutions want structure and these two forms of sovereignty can be a method for developing structure. Once institutions inhabit a structure, however, they cannot take action without the administrative machinery of the state, which the modern literature describes as administrative sovereignty (which may or may not include all the jurisprudential capability or stability of judicial sovereignty); hence, administrative sovereignty can be disputed or debated on the basis of a state's administrative capability.
According to The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration:
For a while, the United Nations highly valued juridical sovereignty and attempted to reinforce its principle often. More recently, the United Nations is shifting away and focusing on establishing empirical sovereignty and empirically-observable mechanisms or features, like the Oxford Handbook's examples of administrative sovereignty above. Michael Barnett notes that this is largely due to the effects of the post Cold War era because the United Nations believed that to have peaceful relations states should establish peace within their territory. As a matter of fact, theorists found that during the post Cold War era many people focused on how stronger internal structures promote inter-state peace. For instance, Zaum argues that many weak and impoverished countries that were affected by the Cold War were given assistance to develop their lacking sovereignty through this sub-concept of "empirical statehood".
Sovereignty is the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. The concept is also seen in ancient civilizational perspectives to modern nation-state frameworks. Discussions at the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Ki Oar Conclave highlighted the importance of economic sovereignty and cultural autonomy in a globalized world, reflecting on how these principles shape governance models today. The conclave featured a session specifically dedicated to examining sovereignty, which included prominent speakers such as His Holiness Jainacharya Yugbhushansuri Maharaj Saheb and S. Gurumurthy, who explored these themes in depth.
History Classical The Roman jurist Ulpian observed that: The people transferred all their imperium and power to the Emperor. Cum lege regia, quae de imperio eius lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat (Digest I.4.1) The laws do not bind the emperor. Princeps legibus solutus est (Digest I.3.31) A decision by the emperor has the force of law. Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem. (Digest I.4.1)
Ulpian was expressing the idea that the emperor exercised a rather absolute form of sovereignty that originated in the people, although he did not use the term expressly.
Medieval Ulpian's statements were known in medieval Europe, but sovereignty was an important concept in medieval times. Medieval monarchs were not absolute, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudal aristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom. Sovereignty existed during the Medieval period as the de jure rights of nobility and royalty.
Reformation Sovereignty reemerged as a concept in the late 16th century, a time when civil wars had created a craving for a stronger central authority when monarchs had begun to gather power onto their own hands at the expense of the nobility, and the modern nation state was emerging. Jean Bodin, partly in reaction to the chaos of the French wars of religion, presented theories of sovereignty calling for a strong central authority in the form of absolute monarchy. In his 1576 treatise Les Six Livres de la République ("Six Books of the Republic") Bodin argued that it is inherent in the nature of the state that sovereignty must be: Absolute: On this point, he said that the sovereign must not be hedged in with obligations and conditions, must be able to legislate without his (or its) subjects' consent, must not be bound by the laws of his predecessors, and could not, because it is illogical, be bound by his own laws. Perpetual: Not temporarily delegated as to a strong leader in an emergency or a state employee such as a magistrate. He held that sovereignty must be perpetual because anyone with the power to enforce a time limit on the governing power must be above the governing power, which would be impossible if the governing power is absolute.
The treatise is frequently viewed as the first European text theorizing state sovereignty.
Bodin held that sovereignty could reside in a monarch, an aristocratic minority or the people, although he preferred monarchy. The sovereign is not above divine law or natural law. He is above (i.e. not bound by) only positive law, that is, laws made by humans. He emphasized that a sovereign is bound to observe certain basic rules derived from the divine law, the law of nature or reason, and the law that is common to all nations (jus gentium), as well as the fundamental laws of the state that determine who is the sovereign, who succeeds to sovereignty, and what limits the sovereign power. Thus, Bodin's sovereign was restricted by the constitutional law of the state and by the higher law that was considered as binding upon every human being. The fact that the sovereign must obey divine and natural law imposes ethical constraints on him. Bodin also held that the lois royales, the fundamental laws of the French monarchy which regulated matters such as succession, are natural laws and are binding on the French sovereign.
Despite his commitment to absolutism, Bodin held some moderate opinions on how government should in practice be carried out. He held that although the sovereign is not obliged to, it is advisable for him, as a practical expedient, to convene a senate from whom he can obtain advice, to delegate some power to magistrates for the practical administration of the law, and to use the Estates as a means of communicating with the people. Bodin believed that "the most divine, most excellent, and the state form most proper to royalty is governed partly aristocratically and partly democratically".Bodin, Six livres, 6:254 (VI:vi).
Age of Enlightenment During the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of sovereignty gained both legal and moral force as the main Western description of the meaning and power of a State. In particular, the "Social contract" as a mechanism for establishing sovereignty was suggested and, by 1800, widely accepted, especially in the new United States and France, though also in Great Britain to a lesser extent.
Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan (1651), put forward a conception of sovereignty similar to Bodin's, but for different reasons. He argued that to overcome the "nasty, brutish and short" quality of life without the cooperation of other human beings, people must join in a "commonwealth" and submit to a "Soveraigne Power" that can compel them to act in the common good. His expediency argument attracted many of the early proponents of sovereignty. For Hobbes, sovereignty had to be: Absolute: because conditions could only be imposed on a sovereign if there were some outside arbitrator to determine when he had violated them, in which case the sovereign would not be the final authority.