Sovereignty: concepts, history, and contemporary applications

Sovereignty

Jean Jacques Rousseau can be considered one of the most important thinkers of the political philosophy. He played a crucial role on the way in which the "social contract" as the basis of the society was drafted in theory. The 18th century represented from this point-of-view, indeed a period of Enlightenment in terms of political and social thought.

The issue of sovereignty is, to this day, one of the crucial aspects of state law. It not only offers legitimacy to the state inside the boarders, but it also ensures recognition outside them. Although the concept is rather hard to define, given its complexity, sovereignty was best described by Rousseau in the paragraph

"Each man alienates, I admit, by the social compact, only such part of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important for the community to control; but it must also be granted that the Sovereign is sole judge of what is important."

This paragraph can be interpreted as underlining some of the cornerstone elements of sovereignty from several points-of-view. However, the general idea of the paragraph focuses on the core nature of the social contract. In this sense, Rousseau points out that indeed, the individual, in order to be part of a community which is the society, it must give parts of his rights for the common good. However, Rousseau clearly underlines that it is that part of his rights that are considered important for the common good that the individual must share, and not anything else, such as freedom or life.

This point-of-view is important from a general perspective because it sets the boundaries for the actual powers of the state or the society. Thus, when giving up certain rights and liberties, the individual becomes a vulnerable social animal. At this point however, he must be entrusted with the belief that the common good serves him as well. This liberal line of thinking has represented an actual revolution in the political thought largely due to the historical background of the time. More precisely, the state was represented at the time by absolutist monarchs and a society in the true sense of the word did not exist (berstein and Milza, 1994). Therefore, it was important to underline the need for a society and for the power to entrust an entity, the state, with the judgment of the common good.

The other general idea of the paragraph which is important for setting the scene of the issue of sovereignty is that of community. In Rousseau's words, the community may imply the actual result of sharing the rights and giving up certain rights for the society. The community in this sense becomes a higher authority, one which is the result of free will, as mentioned in Rousseau's entire work on the subject. The individual in order to give up powers, goods, and liberties must consider himself a free man. Rousseau's belief is that "MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they." Therefore one of the prerequisites of the community and of such a social structure is for the man not to feel trapped or enslaved.

The issue of freedom and that of free will are important and fundamental for any social project. The first initiatives of the social contract were aimed at ensuring these two conditions were met. However, while the state, the society has power inside its borders, it must have power and recognition outside its borders as well. From this point-of-view, the issue of sovereignty is raised. Sovereignty is part of the attributes of a country or even society. In fact, it is the generalized view of the free man. More precisely, as a state is sovereign on his territory and benefits from every privilege sovereignty offers it, so too a man is free and the only master of his rights and possessions.

Sovereignty however, as pointed out by Rousseau has an internal component as well. It is primarily this component that enables the state to exercise sovereignty at the international level. Although Rousseau mentions sovereignty as internal, in the 20th century the issue of sovereignty was much debated in terms of attributes of state at the international level. In terms of Rousseau's beliefs, the sovereign, which was usually the head of state, monarch, prince, or emperor had the actual key of the common good. This implied a certain knowledge of what was necessary and important. Automatically, the issue of sovereign became more an aspect of power and submission of the society. However, even so, sovereignty implies freedom of choice at the level of the individual, society, and state. As presented in Rousseau's views, the will cannot be transmitted, it can be represented. Thus, the sovereign represents the common will of the individuals.

The 20th century marked some of the most important battles in terms of sovereignty and distress among communities and societies. The international law has tried, throughout decades, to legislate the international society in the spirit of the common good. In this sense, the rules of war were legislated in 1899 in The Hague, and subsequent conferences on the rights of civilians, war prisoners, and non-combatants were held precisely to establish on the one hand the human conditions for war participants and on the other to limit the sovereignty of the states which were engaged in this global society. (Russbach, 1994) It can be said that some aspects of Rousseau's beliefs were applied even at the dawn of the 20th century.

One of the most important moments in the history of sovereignty however was the period of the 1990s when the issue represented a heated subject for debate. The main argument which set the stage for such debates was given by the humanitarian crises of Somalia and Rwanda. While in Somalia the intervention teams were willing to participate but did not have the proper international context, the genocide in Rwanda represented one of the most important examples of sovereignty and its limitations.