The Erosion of External Sovereignty?

Abstract

‘EXTERNAL SOVEREIGNTY’ IS THE CONCERN OF THIS PAPER, AND THE extent to which it has been eroded, in substance if not in form, by the pressures of the modern world. The formal distinction between external sovereignty and internal sovereignty needs to be emphasized at the outset. Externally, sovereignty connotes equality of status between the states – the distinct and separate entities – which make up our international society. Internally, it connotes the exercise of supreme authority by those states within their individual territorial boundaries. From Bodin who, in De La République (1577), saw souveraineté as the exclusive right ‘to give lawes unto all and everie one of its . . . subjects and to receive none from them’ to the Permanent Court of International Justice which, in the Wimbledon Case (1922), held that the sovereign state ‘is subject to no other state and has full and exclusive powers within its jurisdiction without prejudice to the limits set by applicable law’, the concept of the sovereign state has implied both supremacy within and equality of status without.