Furthermore, tentative explanations for the shift will then be proffered before concluding. It will also chart sovereignty’s conceptual evolution in the post-Cold War period from notions of sovereignty as responsibility to the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). The final part of the essay will discuss instances of humanitarian intervention during the 1990s to demonstrate that its increased usage, and permissibility, was indicative of the changing nature of sovereignty. It will then proceed to highlight sovereignty’s conception during the Cold War, when the norm of non-intervention was preeminent, in order to contrast it with its contemporary reimagining. First of all, the essay will explore sovereignty as a concept, before outlining, and then debunking, the traditional, archetypal, ‘Westphalian’ conception. In order to demonstrate this change the essay will proceed in three stages.
The nature of sovereignty has seemingly changed from one that endows states with certain infallible rights, to one that grants them certain responsibilities. This perspective allows the increased incidence of intervention and its greater permissibility – to be viewed as a change in the nature and understanding of sovereignty, not a violation of it. This author favours a constructivist take on sovereignty which maintains that it is “constantly undergoing change and transformation” and can be defined “in terms of the interactions and practices of states” (Biersteker & Weber 1996:10). The rise of humanitarian intervention during the 1990s seemed to signal the beginning of this change. Although it is difficult to pinpoint when the nature of sovereignty changed, it certainly has undergone some sort of transformation. This essay will contend that the increased frequency of intervention and its increased permissibility in the post-Cold War world is a reflection of the changing and evolving nature of sovereignty.
PKHEX GEN 7 CHANGE NATURE SERIES
During the 1990s, a series of military interventions supported by humanitarian justifications took place (Welsh 2004:2) that arguably signalled the beginning of a more interventionist era in world politics. This essay will define intervention as an invasive, military interference in the affairs of another state, often underpinned by a humanitarian rationale. The relationship between human rights and sovereignty has often been viewed in zero-sum terms – “the stronger the principle of sovereignty, the weaker norms of human rights, and vice versa” (Reus-Smit 2001:519).įollowing the end of the Cold War a marked increase in the number of interventions occurred.
Krasner, for example, argues that human rights compromise conventional notions of sovereignty (1999:125), suggesting that the two ideas are opposed and irreconcilable. Human rights and sovereignty are often seen as juxtaposed, competing and contradictory regimes. For some, the greatest challenge (or perhaps threat) posed to sovereignty stems from international human rights obligations (Donnelly 2004:1). Some scholars have argued that certain aspects of the contemporary international system, like globalisation, have led to its erosion (Krasner 1999:1). The concept of sovereignty has long been seen as a “fundamental pillar of the international system” (Badescu 2011:20) and even a “grundnorm of international society” (Reus-Smit 2001:519). “The time of absolute sovereignty and exclusive sovereignty…has passed its theory was never matched by reality” -Boutros-Ghali 1992 ‘Does Greater Intervention Mean that Sovereignty is More Frequently Violated or Rather that the Nature of Sovereignty is Changing?’
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