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This study examines the effects of the uti-possidetis principle on state sovereignty in post-African colonial situations. African leaders embraced the doctrine of the uti possidetis principle to avoid and prevent boundary disputes and safeguard territorial integrity in post-colonial Africa. Since its adoption and application of the uti possidetis principle, the doctrine has constrained the sovereignty and autonomy of African states. The study explores features of uti possidetis and evaluates how the preservation of colonial administrative borders conflicts with indigenous African legal norms. While the principle aimed to safeguard territorial integrity, it has increasingly been criticised for entrenching artificial boundaries that ignore the ethnic, cultural, and historical realities of Africans. Using a mixed-method approach combining qualitative case analysis and quantitative survey data, framed within a positivist methodological paradigm, the research investigates how this doctrine has constrained the sovereign autonomy of African states, especially in matters of self-determination and territorial reform. The findings suggest that although the uti possidetis principle contributed to initial regional stability, it has also institutionalised colonial legacies that hinder flexible governance and peaceful border reconfigurations. The study recommends a context-specific reinterpretation of the principle through regional legal instruments that respect both historical continuity and contemporary claims for sovereignty and inclusion.

The meaning of RtoP (responsibility to protect) is self-explanatory, it shows what the international community (or at least some part of it) considers unacceptable in today’s world: genocide, ethnic cleansing and barbarous acts against civilians. However, the same international community stood silent when Rwanda and Srebrenica happened. Yet precisely because of the guilt and shame associated with its previous failures, the same international community managed to launch an initiative, responsibility to protect (RtoP/R2P), in 2001. We insist on calling RtoP an initiative, not as a derogatory term, but as a counter-rhetoric argument to the so-called RtoP emerging norm. According to international law theory, a norm can be either customary (derogatory), either peremptory (jus cogens), there is no in-between option, particularly when interpreting the UN Charter provisions in relation with to the broad-spectrum of the principle of non-intervention as opposed to human rights (the area where RtoP tries to overstep the Charter’s authority). The main aspects of RtoP are, (1) on one count, the infringement on state-sovereignty (the functional sovereignty theory), particularly on the quality of the so-called Westphalia-style sovereignty, (2) the other being the clear purpose of the ICISS, above and beyond of ending mass-atrocities, which is the process of legalizing humanitarian intervention. After the 1999 Kosovo Intervention and during the early phases of the War on Terror, humanitarian intervention became seriously de-legitimised, this is why something novel was needed, which where RtoP stepped-in, riding on the hopes of many.

We live today in the first global system of sovereign states in history, encompassing all of the world's polities, peoples, religions and civilizations. Christian Reus-Smit presents a new account of how this system came to be, one in which struggles for individual rights play a central role. The international system expanded from its original European core in five great waves, each involving the fragmentation of one or more empires into a host of successor sovereign states. In the most important, associated with the Westphalian settlement, the independence of Latin America, and post-1945 decolonization, the mobilization of new ideas about individual rights challenged imperial legitimacy, and when empires failed to recognize these new rights, subject peoples sought sovereign independence. Combining theoretical innovation with detailed historical case studies, this book advances a new understanding of human rights and world politics, with individual rights deeply implicated in the making of the global sovereign order.

There is increasing agreement that states and other political actors on the world stage sometimes achieve international authority. However, there is less agreement about the nature and functioning of international authority relations. What determines whether an actor will be recognized as an authoritative actor? And what are the effects thereof? In this essay, we identify four distinct conceptions of authority in the study of international relations: authority as contract, authority as domination, authority as impression, and authority as consecration. Consideration of the typology leads to two important insights. First, the phenomenon of authority has an essentially experiential dimension. Subordinate actors’ emotional experience of authority determines their response to authority and thus also has a fundamental impact on the stability of authority. Second, the emergence of forms of international authority does not entail, at least not necessarily, the weakening of the sovereignty of states, but can equally be argued to strengthen it.

Governments across the globe find themselves in an exploratory phase as they probe the limits of their sovereignty in the cyber domain. Cyberspace is a singular environment that is forcing states to adjust their behavior to fit a new arena beyond the four traditional domains (air, sea, space, and land) to which the classic understanding of state sovereignty applies. According to Lucie Kadlecová, governments must implement a more adaptive approach to keep up with rapid developments and innovations in cyberspace in order to truly retain their sovereignty. This requires understanding the concept of sovereignty in a more creative and flexible manner. Kadlecová argues that the existence of sovereignty in cyberspace is the latest remarkable stage in the evolution of this concept. Through a close study of the most advanced transatlantic cases of state sovereignty in cyberspace—the Netherlands, the US, Estonia, and Turkey—Cyber Sovereignty reveals how states have pursued new methods and tactics to fuel the distribution of authority and control in the cyber field, imaginatively combining modern technologies with legal frameworks. In times of booming competition over cyber governance between democracies and authoritarian regimes worldwide, cyber sovereignty is a major topic of interest, and concern, for the international community.

Refinery explosions. Accounting scandals. Bank meltdowns. All of these catastrophes-and many more-might rightfully be blamed on corporations. In response, advocates have suggested reforms ranging from increased government regulation to corporate codes of conduct to stop corporate abuses. Joshua Barkan writes that these reactions, which view law as a limit on corporations, misunderstand the role of law in fostering corporate power. InCorporate Sovereignty, Barkan argues that corporate power should be rethought as a mode of political sovereignty. Rather than treating the economic power of corporations as a threat to the political sovereignty of states, Barkan shows that the two are ontologically linked. Situating analysis of U.S., British, and international corporate law alongside careful readings in political and social theory, he demonstrates that the Anglo-American corporation and modern political sovereignty are founded in and bound together through a principle of legally sanctioned immunity from law. The problems that corporate-led globalization present for governments result not from regulatory failures as much as from corporate immunity that is being exported across the globe. For Barkan, there is a paradox in that corporations, which are legal creations, are given such power that they undermine the sovereignty of states. He notes that while the relationship between states and corporations may appear adversarial, it is in fact a kind ofdoublingin which state sovereignty and corporate power are both conjoined and in conflict. Our refusal to grapple with the peculiar nature of this doubling means that some of our best efforts to control corporations unwittingly reinvest the sovereign powers they oppose.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1250-1267 | Article | (Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1250-1267 | Article | (Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1250-1267 | Article | (Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1250-1267 | Article | (Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2024 9(3), 1250-1266 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. – II. Reintroduction of Internal Border Controls in the Czech Republic in 2022 and 2023. – III. Czech reintroduction of border controls in light of relevant EU law. – IV. Sovereignty as a (mis)used and forgotten argument. – V. Conclusion and the way forward. | (Abstract) Since 2015, Western and Central European member states along the Balkan route have repeatedly responded to the increased number of arriving migrants by reintroducing internal border controls. They did so deliberately and at the cost of sacrificing one of the major achievements of the European integration process: the principle of free movement and the area without internal frontiers. The presented Article focuses on legal assessment of these responses. Using the example of the Czech reintroduction of border controls on the land border with Slovakia in 2022/23 and 2023/24, we demonstrate how legal responses of member states may intertwine with domestic politics and how states take a somewhat hesitant approach to law in the face of migratory pressure. The Czech example also illustrates how states, despite their international and EU obligations, adopt specific measures without properly considering adequate and more proportionate alternatives.

The concept of sovereignty is a crucial foundation of the current world order. Regardless of their political ideologies no states can operate without claiming and justifying their sovereign power. The People's Republic of China (PRC)—one of the most powerful states in contemporary global politics—has been resorting to the logic of sovereignty to respond to many external and internal challenges, from territorial rights disputes to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this book, Pang Laikwan analyzes the historical roots of Chinese sovereignty. Surveying the four different political structures of modern China—imperial, republican, socialist, and post-socialist—and the dramatic ruptures between them, Pang argues that the ruling regime's sovereign anxiety cuts across the long twentieth century in China, providing a strong throughline for the state–society relations during moments of intense political instability. Focusing on political theory and cultural history, the book demonstrates how concepts such as popular sovereignty, territorial sovereignty, and economic sovereignty were constructed, and how sovereign power in China was both legitimized and subverted at various times by intellectuals and the ordinary people through a variety of media from painting and literature to internet-based memes. With the possibility of a new Cold War looming large, globalization disintegrating, and populism on the rise, Pang provides a timely reevaluation of the logic of sovereignty in China as power, discourse, and a basis for governance.

The principle of non-intervention enshrined in Article 2(7) of the UN Charter has long been considered a cornerstone of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, recent conflicts and humanitarian crises have challenged the absolute application of this principle. This paper argues that while protecting state sovereignty remains crucial, there needs to be a recalibration of the nonintervention doctrine to allow for timely and effective international responses to gross human rights violations and humanitarian emergencies within states. Specifically, we contend that the United Nations Security Council should have more flexibility under Chapter VII to intervene in cases of mass atrocities, even if it means overriding Article 2(7) in certain extreme circumstances. Through an analysis of recent case law, international statutes, and notable interventions, this study demonstrates how the current strict interpretation of non-intervention can sometimes hinder the UN's ability to prevent or stop serious human rights abuses. The unavoidable conclusion is that there must be a fair balance between protecting territorial integrity and protecting citizens from oppressive regimes— a balance that requires rethinking the traditional interpretation of Article 2(7) in light of evolving international norms on human protection.