Sovereignty

I believe that the greatest issue in world politics relates to the concept of national sovereignty. It is a generally accepted concept in the field of international relations that each nation has a right to control its own internal affairs as well as to wage its own agenda of foreign policy. According to The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations by Graham Evans and Jeffrey Newnham (pg. 504), nations have “a supreme decision-making and enforcement authority with regard to a particular territory and population.” This implies that the boundaries of a nation’s rule are fluid, extending over a particular geographic region and a demographic population, which do not always coincide with each other particularly in this age of rapid globalization when people can easily travel throughout the world.

Furthermore the implication that a nation has the right to do with its own citizens as it pleases directly undermines the effectiveness of international law and international organizations such as the UN. As for international law the notion of sovereignty undermines the international legal system’s ability to function properly because a nation can claim that it has the right to try its own citizens and that the international community as no place while giving notorious criminals who commit international atrocities a free pass. Also according to The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations, sovereignty contains a nation’s right to participate as a legitimate member of the international community. Therefore a nation has the right to participate in the international community but also to do whatever it wants that fulfills its own policy objectives. Subsequently we have grave hypocrisy in the international community in which leaders stand in front of the UN and rail against violations of human rights in other countries while denying the existence of such violations in their own country. The recent debate over the reorganization of the UN Human Rights Council directly relates to this topic. Some people insisted that nations like China which atrocious records in human rights should not be allowed to assist in making policy related to human rights. Others asserted that China has a right to participate in such negotiations and that in fact with China present the international community could more effectively convince China to ameliorate its human rights problems.

Furthermore, the situation in which the foreign policy aims and even domestic aims of one nation conflict with those of another nation causes the majority if not all conflict in the international community. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait he could claim that it was in an effort to enhance the policy interests of his nation and yet it inherently violated the national sovereignty of Kuwait. Subsequently the United States intervened because it saw the expanding power of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a threat to its national interests particularly its oil interests while claiming that it was protecting the interest of the Kuwaitis. This could also be said to be an invasion of the Kuwaiti national sovereignty though Kuwait seemed to prefer the protection of the United States to that of Iraq. Therefore are all parties involved right? Do they all have the right to invade another country if it serves their interest and what if that inherent right interferes with the right of another nation to national sovereignty? Furthermore does the United States have the right to use its military against a national government that is oppressing its own people such as Iraq, Rwanda, or Darfur? Can the rights of an ethnic group being oppress supersede the right of the national government to enact the policies that it sees fit? These are the issues that national leaders, policymakers, and the international community at large struggle to reconcile with their logic and morality as well as their aspirations and the aspirations of their countrymen each and every day.

Many of my thoughts came after I examined the definition of "sovereignty" as defined by The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations b y Graham Evans and Jeffrey Newnham (pg. 504).

Erica Peterson