Limits Of Sovereignty Research Articles

By law or by justice: Deputies in the Spanish Congress of Deputies around the bill on dictatorship of 1848

In the article, the author analyses the discussions that took place in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid between 1 and 4 March 1848 regarding a bill that would transfer extraordinary powers to the government of General Narváez. He situates them within the broader context of the events that transpired in Spain during the spring of 1848, subsequently analysing the principal arguments advanced by the various parties. Those of the progressive persuasion who assailed the bill called for action in strict accordance with the law, but in essence sought to deny the government the right to resist what it regarded as the revolutionary threat. The Moderados, who represented the party in power, defended the government’s right, among other things, to take preventive measures to protect against the revolution. The author underscores that in Spain, there were merely two remaining parties, with varying specifics but similar overarching tenets. Both the Moderados and the progressives represented a central position within the political spectrum, aligning with the principles of liberalism. Some of them were of the opinion that large-scale reforms were necessary, while others preferred a gradual approach to innovation. However, neither of these perspectives envisioned Spain without a constitutional monarchy, particularly without the monarchy established by Isabella II. Radicals on both sides, both right and left, were expelled from the country with the assistance of French and British military forces. Consequently, the author characterises Spain under Isabella II as a state with limited sovereignty.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SOVEREIGNTY AND NON-INTERFERENCE IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS IN THE EVENT OF KOSOVO'S SECESSION FROM YUGOSLAVIA

The sovereignty of the state is not only important for the states, but it is also of considerable importance in international law. The absolute sovereignty of the state would be weakened because the domestic state policies were becoming aggressive against their citizens, but it should be noted that this weakening was also influenced by the development of international law based on universal rights. The concept of absolute sovereignty of the state was already very outdated in international law and would be replaced by the terms 'limited sovereignty' from universal human rights and freedoms.

CONTEMPORARY MIGRANT CRISIS WITH THE SPECIAL OVERVIEW OF THE PROTECTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF THE CITIZENS OF IMMIGRATION COUNTRIES

The contemporary migrant (refugee) crisis that began in 2010 in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East is by no means accidental, but a very well-planned and executed migration of people. This plan slowly leads to the formation of a completely new world order in such a way as to destroy the previous national one, and create a completely new limited sovereignty. The de-sovereignation of nation-states has become a scourge of the modern age. A typical example is the European Union, which, in the era of the contemporary migrant crisis, has set itself a great challenge and task, to preserve the national identity of its member states. In the paper, the authors presented the legal and institutional framework for the protection of basic human rights of migrants. The paper contains a special reference to respect for the constitutional rights of citizens of the countries of immigration in the age of the migrant crisis. The contemporary migrant crisis has led to an enormous increase in people smuggling, but also influenced the increase in human trafficking. In the paper, the authors point to the distinction between human smuggling as a criminal offense against public order and peace and human trafficking as a criminal offense against humanity and other goods protected by international law. In the final deliberations, it was pointed out the necessity of respecting international documents, encouraging national, regional and global cooperation, as well as public condemnation of discrimination and hate speech.

New Information Technologies and Data Security

The paper provides a review of the research workshop “New Information Technologies and Data Security” took place on 23 May 2023 at the Institute of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law (ILCL). The authors reflect the keynotes of the reports made by representatives of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law, Kutafin Moscow State Law University, National Research University–Higher School of Economics (NRU-HSE), Moscow State Lomonosov University (MGU), Plekhanov State University of Economics, Moscow State City Pedagogical University, etc. The paper provides an insight into the legal issues under discussion: concept and meaning of data security in the current environment; development vectors of the data security institution in the context of digitization; limits of sovereignty in the information domain; international legal regulators of data security; sustainable security mechanisms in the face of contemporary challenges and threats; impact of advanced information technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, machine-sensible right to data security; personal data security; state control and liability for violation of information law, etc.

Sovereignty, freedom, and the problem of blackness in Jamaica

ABSTRACT Within the pursuit of black freedom, this article is concerned with the everyday experiences of the black poor in 21st Century Jamaica. I refer to both this experience and its potential politics as organic blackness. I locate this notion in relation to the coloniality of power in the postcolonial state and to creole nationalism which brought Jamaica to independence. I argue that colonial power norms worked alongside creole nationalism to produce limited sovereignty, particularly concerning the conditions of the black majority on the island. In thinking about what ‘black freedom’ could look like from an ‘organic blackness’ perspective, I question what is demanded by those who live blackness as a lack of resources, space, and power. My interrogation is mainly concerned with the intersection of blackness with poverty and how thinking about sovereignty from below or as ‘people’s sovereignty’ versus ‘state sovereignty’ would construct black spaces as sites of upliftment.

Civilizational Self-Identification as a Response to the Neoliberal Crisis

The article discusses issues related to overcoming the crisis situation of non-Western countries, including Russia, caused by the uncritical acceptance of the neoliberal universalistic paradigm of development at the turn of the century. The intellectual response to the crisis led the initiative of civilizational self-identification of these countries based on the formation of a new principle of supranational organization in the form of a “civilizationstate,” which is perceived by Western analysts as a fundamental global challenge of modernity requiring a comprehensive theoretical understanding. As of the present time, in their opinion, China, India, and Russia can be classified as “civilization states.” It is asserted that the civilizational turn emerged as a result of the opposition of the “core” states (in the terminology of S. Huntington) of unipolar hegemony, which initiates the conflict potential for the development of the world community, threatening the integrity of the existing Euro-American order. Russian researchers, for their part, note the negative consequences of the universalistic aspiration to spread the model of the “nation-state” to the whole world, which occurs within the logic of limited sovereignty and is destructive for Russia. Actions to overcome the internal crisis discussed in the article include a transition to a national-civilizational form of identity and the implementation of the idea of a “Russian-centric world.” This corresponds to the global trend of forming macro-regional “civilization-worlds” based on common cultural and social values developed during a long period of coexistence. The article demonstrates that the revival of “civilizationalism” is taking place against the background of the worldwide trend of the split of modernity. There is an actualization of the project of the “East-Westphalian system,” called the “Eastphalian” world order, which rejects European universalism and opens the way to a new multipolar world order.

The foreign policy strategy of Russia towards the Baltic states is the implementation of the “new doctrine of limited sovereignty”

The foreign policy strategy of Russia towards the Baltic states is the implementation of the “new doctrine of limited sovereignty”

International legal status of the Free City of Danzig (1920-1939)

The article is devoted to a little-studied page of the history of international law and international legal personality - the status of the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk) in 1920-1939. The topic of such state entities with a special international regime of territory and subjectivity is a veryinteresting page of the international experience of settling territorial disputes between states. Unfortunately, their research in the Ukrainian international law (in particular, the international legal status of the Neutral Moresnet and the Free City of Krakow) began to appear only in recent years.
 The article examines the history of Danzig and the circumstances that actualized the issue of its statehood after the end of the First World War. It was emphasized that the decision to create the Free City was a compromise between the interests of Poland and the residents of Danzig on the one hand, and the interests of various victorious states on the other.
 The main sources of the international legal status of the Free City of Danzig are highlighted. The peculiarities of the international legal personality of Danzig in the context of relations between the Free City and Poland and the League of Nations are analyzed. Special attention is paid to various aspects of legal personality, in particular: external relations and membership in international organizations; economic issue; guarantees of the security of the Free City. It is substantiated that, despite the special regime of the territory and the limitation of sovereignty, Danzig was an independent state in the international context.
 The reasons that led to the end of the history of the Free City of Danzig are singled out, in particular: permanent conflicts with Poland; the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations as a key guarantor of the security of the Free City; the coming to power of the Nazis in Danzig and their policy of rapprochement with Nazi Germany. It is shown that in the future the use of such formats for the resolution of international disputes is impractical due to the impossibility of considering the entire set of circumstances.

COVID-19 in Palestine: Nationalism and Sovereignty

The article examines the early spread of COVID-19 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) in light of nationalism and sovereignty. For Palestinians, the spread of COVID-19 has been challenging due to domestic and regional interactions and limited sovereignty, undermining their ability to combat the virus. Israel, often without coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA), determined who could enter and exit the OPTs, including tens of thousands of Palestinians working in Israel, leading to an increased number of infections in the West Bank. The pandemic awakened Palestinian national sentiment, serving as a reminder of disunity and lack of sovereignty. Despite these challenges, we show that the Palestinian health system unsuccessfully attempted to overcome the crisis. The combination of economic [inter]dependence on Israel, lack of sovereignty, and nationalist resurgence help explain why the Palestinian health sector recorded thousands of cases following the second wave of the virus. COVID-19 has only further revealed how Palestinians could not practically operate independently from Israel.

The Background to the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942: The Problem of Compromise Solutions for Lithuania (The Baltic States)

In 1942, when drafting a strategic cooperation treaty between the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, the foreign secretary Anthony Eden was responsible for preparing projects to solve the Balts’ problems, based on which the Baltic States could preserve limited sovereignty. This aspect has received little attention in historiography, seemingly because it is treated as an ephemeral, insignificant episode. It cannot be dismissed that the provision of a compromise with the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, which was in principle impossible, did apply. However, historical material suggests a different conclusion. This article was also inspired by Henry Kissinger’s opinion that it was the idealism of the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt that prevented Western states from reaching a compromise with Stalin. This article reveals what went on ‘behind the scenes’ in big politics: how the Baltic States factor, in itself rather insignificant to the big states, allows for identifying the prime goal of those big states, to seek power and dominance.

Military presence of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Belarus

A military presence on the territory of the Republic of Belarus is highly significant for the Russian Federation geopolitically. Russia is very particular about having buffer zones, client and neighbouring states with limited sovereignty on its borders. The aim of this article is to analyse the specificity of the Russian Federation’s military presence in Belarus. In the following article, two hypotheses have been verified using factor analysis. Firstly, sustaining control over the territory of Belarus is of particular importance for the military safety of Russia, while at the same time, it detrimentally affects the stability of the Central and Eastern Europe countries. Secondly, the Russian Federation does not have a permanent military base within Belarusian territory and its military presence is solely confined to the use of military and transport infrastructure, which is indispensable for rapid accommodation and deployment of the Armed Force formations as well as for the rotation of strike forces. Due to political reasons, a permanent military presence enables Russia to keep Belarus within its area of influence. Nevertheless, in military terms, the utilisation of military and transport infrastructure in order to rapidly deploy strike forces within the territory of the Republic is far more important.

From “limited sovereignty” to decolonization in Ukraine

This article takes up the loaded topic of “Russia in the world of Ukraine.” Now an object of official Russia’s aggressive attention, contemporary Ukraine presents a pressing case for reconsidering colonialism which, I propose, requires reconceptualizing sovereignty. I compare descriptions of sovereignty resting on two different genealogies, “limited sovereignty” as described by Russian expert Igor Gretskiy and “creative sovereignty” from Ukrainian scholar Oleksandr Merezhko, and bring them into conversation with Ukrainian Semyon Gluzman’s argument that thinking about colonialism in Ukraine implicates temporality, reflexivity, and subjectivity. Beyond “center” and “periphery,” beyond mapping control, suffering, production, and exploitation onto topographies of sovereign power and rural subjectivity, can we imagine sovereignty beyond territoriality? Can we decolonize the present from the past? The essay concludes with a suggestion to expand consideration of colonialism from a spatial to a temporal frame, the lexicon of colonialism beyond spatial deictics, and the project of decolonization to ourselves.

Economic Sovereignty in the Context of Modern Economic Models

The paper is devoted to the problem of sovereignty. In its original meaning, this word denoted the property of power. After a certain time, they started to interpreted sovereignty more as an element of the state. This approach has developed in the general theory of law and the state and in political studies in general. Sovereignty is usually understood as the independence of the state in internal affairs and in connection to international relations. An attempt is made to explain the reasons for the formation and development of the so-called concept of «limited sovereignty». The deep grounds of criticism of the national state as an independent political player as a product of the «Westphalian system», allegedly outdated in the modern period, are revealed. The illustration of different approaches to the problem of sovereignty is linked to the contradictory processes of globalization-deglobalization, which have become obvious. The paper focuses on the political, legal, and mainly economic component of sovereignty. The degree of political independence of the state is shown, which is largely determined by the economic potential of the country. A narrow understanding of economic sovereignty is criticized, which is often reduced exclusively to the problem of import substitution. The paper proves that economic sovereignty is predetermined by the economic model that the state chooses for itself. In turn, economic models are understood as appropriate economic goal-setting, and not just a dilemma: the market vs. a plan. Thus, some states prefer to produce the maximum amount of goods on the domestic market, while others focus on the international «division» of labor. This factor is ultimately decisive in ensuring economic sovereignty.

К. И. Костенков о правах калмыков на землю, предоставленную им в Астраханской губернии: источниковедческий обзор

Introduction. Capiton I. Kostenkov was the first researcher of Tsarist Russia to have explored legal regulations dealing with land rights of Kalmyks in Kalmyk Steppe of Astrakhan Governorate. The article reviews sources mentioned in Chapter Four (‘About Land Rights of Kalmyks in Astrakhan Governorate’) of his work titled ‘Kalmyk Nomads of Astrakhan Governorate: Historical and Statistical Accounts’ (St. Petersburg, 1870). Goals. The paper aims at analyzing the mentioned chapter as a work examining land rights regulations for Kalmyks in Astrakhan Governorate prior to the 1860s. Results. The article outlines most essential provisions of the chapter and some related comments, determines key messages, lists the regulatory enactments included therein, analyzes C. Kostenkov’s viewpoints — both of a scholar and a government official — on the issues under consideration. Conclusions. The chapter contains virtually all documents contained in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire and dealing with the pre-1860s land rights of Kalmyks in Astrakhan Governorate. It is noteworthy the former ignores the Regulations of 1825 and Statute of 1834 about the Kalmyk People’s Administration Office, which may result from those pay little attention to land issues. C. Kostenkov’s work shows a semantic evolution of the concept ‘ethnos-inhabited area’, territorial borders — towards lands rights proper. That could be explained by that the Kalmyk Khanate had tended to lose its limited sovereignty, and after the exodus of 1771 the remaining Kalmyks were being increasingly integrated into Russia’s administrative system. So, the issues of land use and tenure shifted from public (a territory) to private law (land as an economic and natural resource). The attitudes and opinions about Kalmyk history and social structure described are characteristic not only of C. Kostenkov as such but also of Russian authorities at large, e.g., the to be initiated sedentarization and economic development of Kalmyk Steppe.

Benjamin Constant, political power, and democracy

ABSTRACT For several decades now, a steady flow of scholarly contributions from both intellectual history and political theory has been reasserting Benjamin Constant as a theorist of liberal democracy. Constant’s visionary understanding of liberal democracy is usually conflated with his understanding of limited popular sovereignty. In this article, I reconstruct Constant’s positive conception of popular sovereignty, i.e. his conception of what popular sovereignty means within its limits and take it as the starting point of an analysis of Constant’s understanding of democracy. I argue that Constant’s understanding of popular sovereignty as ‘the assent of all’ leads to a distinction between ‘governmental authority’ and ‘sovereign power’. The latter is exercised by the individual members of the political community and has features that align with contemporary aggregative and contestatory approaches to democracy. Even though according to this analysis, Constant’s conception of democracy allows for both pluralism and dynamism, those are operative against the background of a more fundamental conservatism: Constant’s understanding of sovereign power is predicated on an institutional status quo.

The Long Shadow of Jean Bodin

Neither the historiographical focus on sovereignty nor the concept of sovereignty is new. What is new is the stress on it as a negotiated concept, as a field for claims, and as a gray zone between the public and the private, the state and the individual. This new approach locates sovereignty not only with the sovereign, but also with the people over whom the sovereign rules; more precisely, it locates it in a field of force betwixt and between the two. Sovereignty is less a thing to be measured than it is a dynamic to be followed, a question to be asked, even a rhetorical device. Focusing on different kinds of actors, from colonial profiteers to NGO officials, this new lens allows one to see sovereign power from above as only one locus of sovereignty. Another is the individual. For her, protracted negotiations and staking of claims often define the general contours and limits of sovereignty.

Savremena migrantska kriza

The paper points out, first of all, the fact that the contemporary migrant crisis represents a projected migration of peoples and that everything that is happening in the world today (the so-called Arab Spring - a wave of demonstrations, protests and rebellions, started in December 2010 in Tunisia and continued in other countries of North Africa and the Middle East, wars in certain countries, millions of homeless people, refugees and migrants, etc.) is not accidental at all. International law and its theoretical principles have never been more developed, on the one hand, but they have never been violated or compromised in practice, applied by naked political force and political power, on the other hand. Namely, all this is an integral part of the realization of the idea of the New World Order, which is by no means new. The destruction of "national sovereignty" and the creation of "limited sovereignty", the de-sovereignation of national states is the harsh reality of the modern world. This is done through the creation of supranational regional organizations (for example, the European Union) and institutions of global financial power (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and others).

ПАМЯТЬ О СТОЛИЧНОМ ПЕРИОДЕ В ГОРОДСКОМ ПРОСТРАНСТВЕ СОВРЕМЕННОГО СЕМЕЯ (РЕСПУБЛИКА КАЗАХСТАН)

The article deals with the memory of the capital period in the urban space of modern Semey (Semipalatinsk). Based on the concept of Aleida Assman about the unity of remembrance and oblivion as equivalent components of memory, the author turns to the places of memory of Semey and, analyzing its history, tries to answer a number of key questions: how did Semipalatinsk become the capital of Alash autonomy and what led to the loss of that status; how the status of the “capital” influenced the urban space and what material evidence of “metropolitanity” remained in the space at the end of the capital period; what images of “metropolitanity” are offered to citizens (“memory consumers”) by the authorities of the country and city (as official “memory makers”) and how those images are embodied in specific places of memory (mnemonic places)? The author emphasizes that the main meaning-forming element of memory in that case is the Alash movement, with which Semipalatinsk is associated as the capital of the Alash Autonomy, and the city’s toponymy (urbanonymy) is the most common place to remember it. In general, according to the author, at the level of the real and symbolic landscape of modern Semey, the memory of Alash autonomy and, therefore, of the capital period in the history of the city is carried out quite actively. However, at the republican level, the image of Semey as a former capital is rather blurred, which is most likely due to the short duration of the Alash project and the limited sovereignty of Alash autonomy

The United Nations International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on Transboundary Aquifers

Despite being an important source of supply for basic human needs and development, groundwater has been largely out of sight and out of mind. Activities worldwide are rapidly increasing the pressure on this important but invisible resource, causing quantity depletion and quality degradation. A significant development in the process of helping to make groundwater governance visible was the development in 2008 of the United Nations International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on Transboundary Aquifers. This article considers the implications of the Draft Articles from the perspective of international law, reflecting in particular on the overlap with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non- Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, the principle of limited sovereignty in the context of shared groundwater resources and the possible future form of the Draft Articles. It also considers the work of other international institutions which have supported the Commission’s work. This article concludes that the Draft Articles have struck the right balance and have provided an important step forward in helping to make this invisible resource visible in international law. This article has been prepared in anticipation of the 2022 UN World Water Day on ‘Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible’ and the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre Groundwater Summit on 22–23 March 2022.

Вишкіл історією: доба втрачених шансів

The article analyzes the problem of Ukraine's independence. Independence is viewed in two ways: as a formal legal act and as the real sovereignty of the people. The acquisition of real sovereignty is seen as a process of achieving social maturity (education) of the people in the course of its history. Shows the genealogy of the idea of an independent state and its connection with the era of modernity. The idea of state independence is not inherent in either the political consciousness or the practice of most of the era of civilization until the beginning of modernity. The thesis is substantiated that independence is an important social task of modern Ukrainian society, and not a fact of its life. The political and legal basis of independence is the sovereignty of the people. It is declared by the constitution, but did not take place de facto. The limited sovereignty of the people is associated with the usurpation of power and property in Ukraine by a closed ruling corporation. The article analyzes three main social forces that determined the development of the country during the period of independence. They are: the selfish interest of the new ruling class, the state aspiration of the protest movement (it is usually called national democratic) and the inertia of Soviet life of the bulk of the population. There is a meaningful connection between the way of governing in the Soviet system and the regime of the dominant corporation in contemporary Ukrainian history. The key feature of the ruling corporation is the implicit, hidden nature of its dominance. This destroys productive social dynamics, creates the preconditions for social collapse. Recently, after the second Maidan, there has been a lawsuit between the people – civil society – and the corporation of rulers and its social satellites for the organization of public life. It is concluded that only the elimination of the privileged position of the ruling corporation opens up the prospect of real democracy and the productive development of Ukraine in a globalized world.