Assertion Of Sovereignty Research Articles

Sovereignty: Myth and Reality

Certainly, the origins of the modern state lie in the assertions of sovereignty by or on behalf of Kings and Kingdoms in the middle ages. A law of your own required a sovereign of your own. The French and American revolutions re-asserted a doctrine familiar in Scotland, that the overthrow of monarchs restored sovereignty to the people, who constituted themselves into a state or union of states through adopting a constitution by common consent. The sovereign state or union asserted itself as a nation state, the property of its sovereign people.

Active euthanasia and forgoing life-sustaining treatment: Can we hold the line?

Public sentiment in favor of permitting voluntary active euthanasia creates a dilemma for a bioethics rooted in a libertarian notion of autonomy. At stake in the active euthanasia debate is actually a question of power—the individual's assertion of sovereignty over the timing and circumstances of his or her own death. Also at stake is society's unwillingness to impose a conception of the good—and a good dying—on individuals whose personal values and conceptions of the good may differ. In order both to reject voluntary active euthanasia and to affirm the patient's right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, some societal conception of the good must be developed and agreed upon to counter unbridled claims of individual self-sovereignty over dying. Pragmatic arguments alone, such as the need to maintain confidence in the doctor-patient relationship, will not be sufficient.

The Indo-Pakistan Western Boundary (Rann of Kutch) Case India v. Pakistan

State territory — Parts of — Boundaries — Land boundaries — No established historical boundary line — Concept of a boundary belt — Recognition and acquiescence by territorial sovereign or suzerain state — Relinquishment of potential sovereign rights — Effect on successor states — Evidential value of maps — Acts in assertion of sovereignty — Exercise of jurisdiction in remote and uninhabited region — Relevance of acts of private individuals — Considerations of equity — Relevance of contiguity

Irish-Americans and the Fight for Treaty Ratification

O N the morning of December 4, 1918, the George Washington sailed from New York. Aboard were President Wilson, the peace commissioners, and a staff of technical advisers. The task ahead was the settlement of Europe. At home, in the melting pot of America, the public would closely follow the Versailles negotiations. In particular, anxious minority groupsItalians, Germans, Yugoslavs, Poles-would watch over the partisan and nationalistic demands of their homelands. This paper describes how one of the most influential and articulate of these minority groups, the Irish-Americans, reacted to the proceedings at Versailles, and how they organized and manipulated public opinion in opposition to the President's program. Three factors were to provide the framework within which IrishAmerican opposition to the League of Nations was to emerge and grow. The first was the erection of states in eastern and central Europe out of the debris of the Russian, Austrian, and German Empires. The second was the restriction imposed on American policy by the demands of international diplomacy. The third was events in Ireland, which gave added impetus both to the example of the new and to the problems that an unsolved Irish question could raise for Anglo-American relations. The Irish-American press watched attentively as the ideal of selfdetermination was transformed into the reality of a Polish state, and as the rights of small nations were upheld in the assertion of sovereignty by the Austro-Hungarian nationalities.1 In both cases, the moral support and practical aid of the United States had been crucial. In each case, ethnic groups in America had been mobilized as pressure groups and to provide financial aid.2 Even the casual

Christian Thomasius: Enlightenment and Bureaucracy

The Thirty Years War, though essentially religious in origin, assumed towards its end a distinctly political complexion. It became a trial of strength between the major powers of Europe, resulting in the unquestioned supremacy of France and Austria, the establishment of Switzerland as a fully fledged sovereign state, and the extension of the dominion of Sweden and Denmark. Most, if not all, of these changes occurred at the expense of the territorial unity of the German Empire. At the same time the disruption of German Imperial unity brought in its wake the effective assertion of sovereignty on the part of some 360 German principalities. The political unity of ‘Germany’ became a legal fiction.Under these changed circumstances the generally prevalent Roman Law, based as it was on the idea of strong central administration, was no longer in accordance with the political realities of Germany.