Mutating Sovereignty and its impact on International dealings (original) (raw)
Sovereignty has been greatly changing in International Relations (I.R). It was coined through the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, however solid sovereignty is wading away in the post modern states hence the concept of 'shared sovereignty' is emerging. The concept is open to change across time and there is no universal meaning. The focal point of this paper is to decipher if the nation-state remains with the locus of power in the international system given the evolution of sovereignty. Factors that have caused sovereignty to go through revisionist review are globalisation, formation of supranational bodies, security, transnational practices and non-state actors in the international system. These have had unprecedented effects on the mutation of the concept of sovereignty in driving towards an ideal world order. However realists contest that the state remains the sovereign but uses non-state actors to pursue their interest although these speculations are overshadowed by the idealists. This paper shall unravel these changes in the case of Egypt. In 1618, tensions of the Roman Empire sparked 30 years of war. In 1648, the treaty of Osnabruck, Munster and Pyrenees composed the Westphalian myth. According to these treaties a nation state has two attributes territoriality and ruling structure with complete power without to yield to external agencies. Tituinau (2013: 44) argues that the Peace of Westphalia introduces the idea of multi-polarity in a pyramidal international system, with structures and hierarchy. , this reflects a more realist perspective The signicance of the Peace of Westphalia in international relations' history is that of equality between states, regardless of the place and role they held in the system. However many events such as the First world war, the formation of the league of nations and the post Second world war and Cold war from 1946-50s changed this concept as new issues arose. This therefore made serious changes to the concept. According to Griffiths (2002: 34) sovereignty entails 'a policy of non-interference within a claimed and defined territorial boundary' in this regard it can be pursued as the enabling concept of international relations whereby states assert a distinct territorial entity and membership of the international community. Evans & Newnham (1998: 42) argue that 'sovereignty implies a double claim: autonomy in foreign policy and exclusive competence in internal affairs' this concurs with Grotius as cited in Strauman (2015: 424) that sovereignty is 'power (potestas) is called sovereign and whose actions are not subject to legal control of another'. What emerges from these definitions is the Hobbesian (1651) conceptualisation where it appeared to be the exercise of unrestricted power. I.R was characterised as permanent state of war where sovereign authorities are not restrained by a common power. Therefore, the doctrine of state sovereignty was synonymous with international anarchy since there was no supra-sovereign above the state. However, from the seventeenth century onwards there has been attempt to drift from apparent rigidity. Increasing interdependence, reciprocal nature of international law and membership of international organisations have led to the acceptance of the doctrine of 'divided sovereignty' where supremacy is qualified either through consent or auto-limitation. The UN Charter Article
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