Sovereignty

Changing Norms through Actions: The Evolution

of Sovereignty
Jennifer M. Ramos

Print publication date: 2013

Print ISBN-13: 9780199924844
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199924844.001.0001

Sovereignty
History, Development, and Implications

Jennifer M. Ramos

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199924844.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter presents an overview of the history and development of the norm of
sovereignty, in order to give context to the book’s key question: how do
understandings of norms–particularly long-held norms such as absolute
sovereignty–change? It begins by highlighting the importance of norms in the
international system, and in particular, why changes in these norms matter.
Following this, the chapter discusses the emergence of the norm of sovereignty
and its influence over the centuries. It then discusses the continued relevance of
the norm of sovereignty, as seen in current debates, driven by pressing
international issues that challenge the traditional understandings of sovereignty.
The chapter concludes with an outline of the book.

Keywords: sovereignty, norms

La Souverainete, c’est quelque chose.

—CHARLES DE GAULLE

STATE SOVEREIGNTY HAS BEEN a central and enduring feature of

international relations since the consolidation of the nation-state system. Yet, the
content of sovereignty is changing as a result of the international policies of
states that express the underlying beliefs about legitimate state behavior. These
policies are often influenced by evolving international norms concerning states’
rights and responsibilities in the global community, and their corresponding

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Sovereignty

actions have important implications for the future of these norms and interstate
behavior.1 For example, although the norm of sovereignty and nonintervention
are codified in the United Nations’ Charter, under Article 2, recent history
demonstrates that traditional sovereignty norms are continuously challenged by
military actions taken to address major international issues. Thus, it is at the
intersection of these policy domains and state sovereignty that we begin to
unpack the complexities of this intensely debated, controversial concept called
“sovereignty.”

Scholars and politicians worldwide have much invested in how sovereignty is

defined. State sovereignty is one of the most important norms, if not the most
important norm, of international relations, encompassing states’ external and
internal rights and responsibilities. The norm determines, at any point in time,
what policy domains lie within the purview of a state, and that of the
international community. Traditionally, as long as a “state” was recognized as
such by other states, it was accorded sovereign (p.2) rights, including the right
to conduct its internal and external affairs as it saw fit, without outside
interference. For many years, states have coexisted on the basis of a norm of
“absolute” sovereignty, according the state supreme authority over its people
and territory, relative to the international community.

Currently, however, the concept of sovereignty is moving toward one in which

states that cannot fulfill certain obligations to their citizens, and to the
international community, forfeit the right to act autonomously in these domains,
ceding that responsibility to the international community (see Deng et al. 1996).
Today, states have obligations to fulfill in order to maintain their sovereign
prerogatives, and others increasingly have the right to intervene in their affairs
if these obligations are not met. We see this very clearly with regard to human
rights. In the past, governments had wide reign over their citizens and were not
subject to outside scrutiny. If humanitarian intervention did occur, it was focused
on saving people who were part of the in-group, which during the nineteenth
century meant European Christians, since potential interveners were Western
states (Finnemore 2003). Now, for the first time in its history, the UN Security
Council has deemed intervention legitimate in cases in which a state is guilty of
gross human rights abuses, especially if they represent a threat to international
peace and security. A case in point is the 2011 multilateral military intervention
in Libya authorized by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973,
which was designed to help protect civilians caught in the bloody civil war
between the Libyan government and anti-Ghaddafi forces. If the international
community has the right to intervene in a state not fulfilling its commitment to
human rights, this implies a “contingent” norm of sovereignty; sovereignty is
contingent upon certain levels of government performance.

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Sovereignty

What is perhaps most striking is the changing notion of sovereignty in Africa,

which under the Organization of African Unity (OAU) held strictly to absolute
sovereignty norms largely because of the legacy of colonialism. Despite
atrocities in Uganda under Idi Amin, to genocides in Rwanda and Burundi, the
OAU continued to prioritize the norm of absolute state sovereignty. However, in
the newly formed African Union (2002), the OAU’s successor, the founding
charter embodies the “responsibility to protect” principle, which obligates states
to respond to gross human rights abuses in other states. While the Union
struggles to put this into practice, in cases such as genocide in Sudan or to
protect civilians in the Libyan civil war2, the fact remains that the absolute
sovereignty of a state is no longer assumed.3

(p.3) But how do understandings of norms—particularly long-held norms such

as absolute sovereignty—change? In this book, I contend that the concept of
sovereignty is moving toward one in which states that are unable or unwilling to
fulfill their domestic and international obligations are forced to relinquish
certain sovereign responsibilities to the international community. That is, states
risk intervention by other states if they do not comply with generally accepted
norms. I examine this proposition with regard to three of the most pressing
international issues: counterterrorism, human rights, and the development of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Since military intervention is a clear
violation of the sovereignty norm, the intervention itself may imply that action
taken on behalf of these other norms weakens the norm of sovereignty. However,
I argue that it depends on the outcome of the intervention as to the extent to
which sovereignty evolves. One would generally expect an arduous military
intervention to exhibit less commitment by the intervener to the norms that it is
based on. But the opposite may be true. Scholarship in social psychology on
cognitive dissonance leads us to expect that such a situation would actually yield
more commitment by the intervener to the norms that were used to justify the
intervention. Thus, leading states are able to pursue their material agenda, but
with norm evolution as the by-product of military intervention.

Not only do international norms change because of the evolution of ideas about
the proper behavior of states but also as a result of state action. State actors
justify their actions by relying on the norms accepted by other states in the
international system. For example, the United States justified the recent
intervention in Libya through appeals to human rights norms. However, one
could argue that it was also in the self-interest of the United States to support a
change in leadership in Libya. I assert that even when a major power acts
primarily out of self-interest, with the normative argument being secondary, the
action may have the unintended consequence of modifying the normative
environment within which other states act.

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Sovereignty

Contribution of the Book

Understanding the process of norm change, and of the norm of sovereignty in
particular, is important for several reasons. First, there is little theoretical
understanding of how political action shapes norms, and more specifically, how
they are influenced by military intervention (Kowert and Legro 1996). Although
a growing literature recognizes the impact of norms on (p.4) state action, there
is a deficiency in the literature on the ways by which such norms are shaped and
maintained (Feldman 2003), including the role of state action in this process.

Military intervention offers an important avenue for understanding how the

sovereignty norm evolves because intervention dramatically violates a state’s
sovereignty. This calls the sovereignty norm as currently defined into question
and presents an opportunity for states to reconsider its contours. Since military
intervention continues to be a tool of statecraft (Levite et al. 1994), often
justified via self-defense broadly defined, it offers an interesting intersection of
values by which to study sovereignty.

Second, while substantial research has investigated how norms and ideas shape
military interventions (Jervis 1976; Van Evera 1984), and despite the fact that
social interaction is inherently dynamic, no work has explicitly explored the
reverse direction of causality: how intervention affects norms. In studying
political phenomena, most scholars interested in the role of norms think of them
as causes, rather than consequences (Goldstein and Keohane 1993; Hopf 2002;
Jervis 1976; Van Evera 1984). This book seeks to address this shortcoming by
accounting, theoretically and empirically, for norm evolution as a product of
political action.

Finally, this research has practical implications for policymakers. If action taken
by states may reinforce an existing norm or alter existing understandings of the
norm, states must consider how their actions may change the rules of the game
for the future. Shifting understandings of sovereignty (and how states relate to
one another) have profound implications for the workings of the international
system. How states and the international community understand their rights and
obligations to one another is directly related to the possibility of international
conflict and cooperation.

Changes in conceptions of sovereignty also are related to changes in other

norms of state behavior and responsibility. For example, an emerging norm
urges new democracies to accept international election monitoring to ensure
free and fair elections (Santa-Cruz 2005). Before 1960, international election
observation in sovereign states was unheard of. However, today almost 80
percent of all elections in developing democracies have international observers
(Hyde 2006). Beyond satisfying domestic constituents, election monitoring
signals to the international community that the state is serious about democracy
and is worthy of the international aid and consideration it receives. Election

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Sovereignty

monitoring became a more common practice after World War II, with the
movement toward decolonization and the creation of the United Nations as a
neutral party to oversee elections. (p.5) The international monitoring of the
presidential elections in Iraq (2010), Nigeria (2011), Cote d’Ivoire (2011), Russia
(2011), Libya (2012) and Egypt (2012) are some of the most recent examples of
this norm in practice.

There is also an international norm concerning legitimate and representative

government, reflected in the global norm of racial equality (see Klotz 1995). In
South Africa, international pressure against the apartheid regime led to its
eventual collapse. For years, the white minority government had enforced
discriminatory policies of ethnic separation in almost all areas of life, including
voting, education, health care, travel, and employment. The international
movement against the government slowly spread, through isolation policies, like
banning South Africa from competing in international sports events,
implementing state laws making it illegal to invest in or do business in South
Africa, and condemning South Africa at international conferences.

In sum, the evolution of the sovereignty norm is intertwined with changes in

other norms as well, including norms governing human rights and democratic
representation. Because state sovereignty is so central to the conduct of
international relations, it is difficult to think of an international norm it does not
interact with. As the normative fabric of the international system evolves, so too
does the meaning of state sovereignty and vice versa. One might visualize this as
a web of interconnecting norms, with state sovereignty at the center. These
norms push and pull on one another, with profound implications for the conduct
of international relations.

Why Norms Matter

Changes in ideas about sovereignty matter because this norm guides both
internal and external behavior. Within a state, norms structure decision-making
by providing a “road map,” narrowing (and clarifying) decision possibilities, and
a way to make policy choices without perfect information (Goldstein and
Keohane 1993). In this sense, ideas about the appropriate options for action limit
which interests are pursued. Power and interests are only effective explanations
of state behavior because of the norms and ideas with which they are
constituted (Wendt 1999). While some argue that norms help states define their
interests (Axelrod and Keohane 1985; Black 1999; Hopf 2002; Legro 1997; Risse,
Ropp, and Sikkink 1999), others assert a more direct link between norms and
state behavior (Kier 1995; Van Evera 1984). For example, Price and Tannenwald
(1996) examine norms regarding the non-use of nuclear and chemical weapons
to show how (p.6) norms, not just material interests, guide state behavior. They
demonstrate that chemical weapons taboos evolved at the international level and
trickled down to the state level, while nuclear deterrence norms developed
within a state (the US) and then spread to the international level. Both the

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Sovereignty

nuclear and chemical weapons taboos became institutionalized as international

norms, despite the obvious advantage of first use.

Just as norms serve as guides to actors, or “agents,” they are also a structural
feature of international relations. As part of the interactive process between
structure and agency, states as agents not only draw upon the normative
structure in their decision-making but also influence the content of the
normative structure through political action. Normative structure is extremely
important to the maintenance of the international order. Normative structure
establishes “rules” for state conduct, creating expectations that facilitate
international relations and reducing uncertainty, which breeds mistrust and
misperception. With no consensus on appropriate state behavior, establishing a
stable order in a world of anarchy becomes much more difficult, if not
impossible. Moreover, without norms, an international community that pursued
goals justified by the common good could not exist. For example, protecting the
environment or regulating trade would pose insurmountable problems of
coordination without common understandings to inform state behavior. We tend
to take many of these norms for granted; indeed, it is difficult to imagine the
world without them. This especially applies to the norm of sovereignty. And yet,
in the span of human history, state sovereignty is a relatively recent concept.

Emergence of Sovereignty
Although the norm of sovereignty can be dated to at least the thirteenth century,
most discussions begin with the emergence of the modern state system in 1648,
with the Peace of Westphalia.4 Since that time, understandings of state
sovereignty have evolved as the political context has changed, often via
significant political events that challenge its current conception.

The initial understanding of state sovereignty emerged from the conclusion of

the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), which marked a clash between the traditional
and the modern political orders, as well as between religion and secularism,
with the underlying goal of settling the question of political authority. As one
legal scholar notes, the Peace of Westphalia “represents the majestic portal
which leads from the old into the new world” (Gross 1948, 28). The break from
medieval traditions of rule to modern (p.7) conceptions of authority reflect a
progression toward a more effective and efficient political system, with
sovereign states as the primary actors. Unlike the modern state system, the
feudal system of the medieval era resembled more of a web, than a hierarchy, of
power relations. Political jurisdictions overlapped, power was decentralized and
subjects often owed allegiances, and thereby taxes, to multiple authority figures.
Rather than territory, authority derived from personal ties, inspired by the
religious fervor of the time. The Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire
struggled for dominance, though they also entertained a mutually dependent

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Sovereignty

relationship, with kings acting as “Defenders of the Faith” and popes relying on
royal support to stay in power (Philpott 1996).

As the struggle for power continued in the seventeenth century, a clear

conceptual development occurred with the consolidation of statehood: the
concept of sovereignty and authority became intertwined (Nincic 1970, 2). This
resulted primarily from the legal wrangling between rulers and their lawyers
over their legitimate political domains, underscoring the idea that sovereignty
could not exist without authority as its primary attribute. Jean Bodin, the
founder of the modern theory of sovereignty, asserted that it is the “absolute and
perpetual authority of a state.”5 That is, sovereignty is the ultimate authority of a
ruler over a given territory, which could not be compromised by outside
influences (even the Church). According to Bodin, there was nothing above the
state to set limitations on state behavior, not even a higher moral law.6
Moreover, Bodin argued that state sovereignty continued beyond the life of its
leaders. It remained an attribute of state power, regardless of changes in
leadership.

The emergence of state sovereignty produced new legal and moral principles to
guide international relations. In addition to Bodin, Thomas Hobbes was one of
several great philosophers to direct his attention to state sovereignty in his
classic work, Leviathan. He proposed answers to what sovereignty is and how it
should function. In Hobbes’s view, the state should wield its power over its
citizens via a ruler (or assembly) and “direct their actions to the Common
Benefit” (Hobbes 1914/1651). By “common benefit,” Hobbes had in mind actions
that benefited the state, not necessarily the international community. This was in
direct contrast to another philosopher, Hugo Grotius, who advanced the idea of
what we now know as international law.

Years earlier, Grotius had offered his views on a system of more humane
international relations in De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), a society of states acting
together for the common good. In contrast to Hobbes’s focus on self-interested
states with unrestrained authority, Grotius imagined an (p.8) international
community guided by common ideas about legitimate state behavior. He
believed that laws infused with religious notions of morality, which states were
obliged to respect through “mutual consent,” would restrict them from
provoking international conflict, which had so devastated Europe at the time of
his writing (Grotius 1625/2001).

This version of sovereignty continued until the late eighteenth century, when
events, in particular the French Revolution, gave voice to the idea that the state
should be governed by the popular will of the people, not by whims of a ruler;
the locus of authority, and thereby, sovereignty, was transferred from the ruler to
the ruled. Demands for citizen equality and freedom within the state and its
recognized legitimacy spilled over into states’ external relations as well (Nincic

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Sovereignty

1970, 4). The changes in state-society power relations mirrored trends in

interstate relations, as articulated in the Draft Declaration on the Rights of
Nations (1795). In the eyes of international law, states had the right to
independence from, and equality with, other states (Nincic 1970, 4). This implied
the right of nonintervention of states, which Immanuel Kant articulated in his
Perpetual Peace (1795). No state had the right to intervene in the internal affairs
of another state (Kant, sect. 1, art. 5). In this view, if all leaders respected this
tenet, there would be peaceful relations among states.

Influence of Sovereignty over the Centuries

As the idea of a sovereign state spread, and more states appeared on the global
scene, sovereignty became the dominant guiding principle of international
relations. States jealously guarded their absolute right to conduct their internal
and external affairs independently and sought recognition from other states of
this prerogative. Sovereignty became associated with the right to wage war, and
in this sense, states held an absolute and unlimited idea of sovereignty.
Essentially, state behavior was based on this version of sovereignty, rather than
guided by natural, moral, or religious tenets. As Politis writes, “The dogma of
illimited sovereignty killed the theory of the just war” (Politis 1935, 19). The only
requirement for waging war was that of being a sovereign state, and each state
thereby had the right to decide whether it was in a state of war or a state of
peace (Nincic 1970, 52). The bounds of sovereignty were such that almost any
activity (internal/external) conducted by a sovereign state was viewed as
legitimate, even under international law, though quiet debates about “just war”
and “just cause” took place (Nincic 1970, 53). Virtually without (p.9)
constraint, war thus became a legitimate option for states to pursue their
political goals.

As military technology became more destructive and populations grew weary of

the consequences of war, states became concerned not only with their legal right
to wage war but also with their ability to justify it on moral and political grounds
(e.g., “self-defense,” “duty to protect country’s honor”) (Nincic 1970, 54).
Though the sovereign right to wage war remained a defining feature of
statehood, discourse regarding the reasoning of state action highlighted the
contradiction between an amoral legal right and moral justifications. States
attempted to modify international perceptions of their behavior through changes
in their discourse, but without any accompanying change in their behavior.

One of the dominant justifications for violating another state’s sovereignty was a
historical claim to territory. On this basis, France reclaimed Nice and Savoy from
Italy, and France and Germany battled for their right to the Alsace-Lorraine
region (Hill 1976, 41–43). Yet, because of the Peace of Westphalia, rather than
being subsumed into an empire when wars ended, defeated states were allowed
their existence as independent sovereign states (though some territory may have
been taken). In fact, when Napoleon tried to challenge this with the empire-

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Sovereignty

seeking Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), in which France fought Britain, the

Netherlands, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Russia, and Prussia, the end result was a
reinforcement of state sovereignty, emphasized in the political negotiations at
the Congress of Vienna (1815). Yet, somewhat paradoxically, the Congress also
provided legitimacy to the principle that historical claims justified the retaking
of territory (Hill 1976, 39). This loophole created an uneasy tension with
sovereignty, which the Concert of Europe attempted to moderate.

As European imperialism abroad expanded through the nineteenth century, it

became evident that state sovereignty was a concept of geographically limited
application. In practice, it seemingly applied only to European states, which
proved all too convenient for the colonization of Africa and Latin America. Power
brought the ability to set the rules. Because indigenous populations were not
considered as residing within a “state,” and to whom the political concept of
“state” was foreign, the colonizers could argue that the international rules of
sovereignty did not apply. Thus, countries like France and Great Britain could
take over these territories and still operate within the guidelines of the
international (European-centric) community. Few areas of the world were left
untouched by European power.7

(p.10) Ideas about minority rights and the right of self-determination would
periodically bubble to the surface of international relations, but theessence of
sovereignty as defined in Europe remained unchanged. For example, although
respect for minority rights was required in applications for statehood, exactly
how this would be enforced after the fact of statehood was never specified. With
no external accountability, states were unhindered in their treatment of
minorities; it was during this time that the Armenians were massacred by the
Turks (Philpott 1997, 36), and the international community took no action to
thwart the genocide.

In the early twentieth century, states came a step closer to a new vision of
sovereignty (Philpott 1997), as World War I compelled states to think about how
to prevent future wars. In his now famous Fourteen Points (1918) speech, US
President Woodrow Wilson advanced the idea of an international political body
that would mediate conflict among states so that states would never experience
the devastation of war again. In addition, he asserted the right to self-
determination, arguing that groups within a state should have the freedom to
govern themselves, if they chose. While the former objective gained support
among other states (though ironically not from Wilson’s own country), the latter
did not resonate with other major powers at the time, in part due to the ongoing,
though declining, practice of colonialism. At the conclusion of the war, the
League of Nations was established as an intergovernmental organization, but
without any mention of self-determination in its covenant.8

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Sovereignty

Another attempt at redefining sovereignty embodied in the League had to do

with minority rights. Among many of the League’s official duties was the task of
enforcing minority-protection treaties. At last, the international community had
a mechanism to hold states accountable; state responsibilities would not just be
required, they would also be enforced. Unfortunately, this idealism was short-
lived. Faced with an established tradition of absolute sovereignty in practice,
even the League proved too weak and timid to confront violating states, as
Hitler’s New Order made all too clear (Von Frentz 1999; Fink 2004). Thus, while
the movement toward limiting sovereignty had officially begun, it was not
carried out in practice. This discrepancy was soon overshadowed by the onset of
World War II (1939–1945).

In contrast to the era ending with WWI, the tragedies of World War II inspired
rethinking of the legitimate rights of states and their corresponding obligations.
The Second World War again brought devastation to people across the globe,
instigated by Hitler’s quest for German world domination. This war was like no
other in modern history because of (p.11) Hitler’s policy of systematically
exterminating the Jewish people. The atrocities of the Holocaust resounded
loudly in the human consciousness, and, upon the defeat of the Axis powers—
Germany, Italy, and Japan—the international community vowed that “never
again” would the world permit such inhumane treatment of a people, whether in
peacetime or war.

To guard against the reoccurrence of such horrors, there needed to be a body

outside of states that could hold states accountable and set standards for state
behavior. This was theoretically achieved through the intergovernmental
organization, the United Nations (UN), which arose out of the ashes of World
War II and reflected strong improvements over the League of Nations, in that it
included more countries and all of the major powers. Again, states committed to
collective security and created laws that reached into the jurisdiction of states to
protect minorities and human rights (Philpott 1997). Leaders would be held
accountable for their domestic actions. For example, the charge of “crimes
against humanity” signified to leaders that they could not hide behind the shield
of sovereignty and would risk prosecution for such actions, as demonstrated in
the Nuremburg trials of Nazi war crimes.

The UN, however, did face some of the same obstacles as the League of Nations.
By virtue of being an intergovernmental organization rather than a
supernational organization, the UN had no independent means by which to
enforce core principles of the UN Charter. To compound the problem, the UN
seemed to contradict itself by acknowledging the right to nonintervention of
states, while also declaring a set of universal human rights (Nincic 1970). This
ambiguity allowed states to justify their actions via absolute sovereignty, with
little incentive to comply with international law when it contradicted national
interests. At the same time, those states did risk international intervention since

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Sovereignty

the decision-making body of the UN had some grounds to act against them. If
the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
agreed that a threat to international peace and security existed, then it was
likely that the problem would be addressed.9 Thus, the UNSC could serve as the
enforcement mechanism and ultimate interpreter of the UN Charter.

The stage seemed set for a change in the norms of sovereignty in terms of what
constituted appropriate state behavior. Yet few at the San Francisco conference,
where the UN Charter was first drafted, foresaw the growing rivalry between
the United States and the Soviet Union that would render the UN ineffective.
The so-called Cold War essentially put a freeze on developments in state
sovereignty for the next several decades.

(p.12) Sovereignty During the Cold War

During the Cold War, evolution of the norm of sovereignty was suspended.
Despite strides made at the creation of the UN toward a norm of sovereignty
that reflected basic human values, geostrategic politics precluded the concept’s
application in practice. While a contingent norm of sovereignty based on human
rights existed in discourse, it failed to achieve the status that it has today. This
was, in part, due to the nuclear standoff between the two superpowers, the
Soviet Union and the United States.

Nuclear weapons raised the stakes in the political game between the Soviet
Union and the United States, as both countries possessed the power to destroy
each other’s population, economy, and political systems, and security was in the
foreground of interstate relations. In this period, the world was essentially
divided into two ideological camps, communism (the Soviet bloc) and democratic
capitalism (the West, led by the US). With various forms of aid, security
guarantees, and active support of compliant regimes, each side sought to “buy”
allies around the world. Whether in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, this meant
that human rights abuses were often overlooked.10 A few cases are illustrative:
the West supported Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(Zaire), despite his well-known human rights abuses, which included public
executions of his political rivals; the United States continued to give military aid
to the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship, infamous for its
corruption and human rights violations; and Chile also received support from the
United States, though it committed systematic rights abuses for which its
military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, was later brought to trial. As long as a
regime remained loyal to its donor, little importance was given to its internal
behavior. In fact, it was thought that intervening in a state would have signaled
aggressive intentions to the other side, where none was intended. Because
security trumped all other issues, there was no latitude to pursue “softer” issues,
such as human rights abuses.

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In this environment, neither side had much respect for the sovereignty of other
states. As in the previous centuries, powerful states conducted their external
relations as dictated by self-interest. Similarly, during the Cold War, sovereignty
did not impede the superpowers from intervening in states within their sphere of
influence and installing a more “friendly” government. For example, as a policy
to contain communism and in tandem with the decolonization movement, the US
took covert action to overthrow perceived pro-Soviet governments after
democratic elections in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), British Guiana (1953–
64), Indonesia (1957), (p.13) Ecuador (1963), Brazil (1964), Costa Rica
(mid-1950s), Chile (1970–73), and the Dominican Republic (1965) (Van Evera
1991). Similarly, the Soviet Union quelled the reform movement of the Prague
Spring (1968) in Czechoslovakia and a similar uprising in Hungary (1956) that
sought to remove the country from the Soviet Union’s grasp.11

Moreover, both sides were willing to use third-party states to conduct proxy
wars. Instead of fighting each other directly and risk escalation to nuclear war,
the Soviet Union and the United States would support different groups within a
state involved in conflict. This occurred in a number of countries, including
Korea (1950–1953), Vietnam (1964–1975), and Afghanistan (1979–1989). These
proxy wars wreaked havoc on the social, political, and economic well-being of
these states, and the effects can still be seen today.

As the Cold War thawed in the late 1980s and relations improved between the
two blocs, such tactics were no longer necessary. With the collapse of the Soviet
Union after 1990, the threat of World War III declined, and an opportunity for
genuine cooperation on global issues emerged. Having long ignored looming
international issues such as environmental degradation, global hunger, and
disease, the international community could finally begin to work together to
solve these problems without the impediments of a bipolar world. Under the
circumstances, international organizations, namely the UN, could begin to
function as intended. The end of the superpower rivalry meant that the deadlock
in the UNSC, in which each permanent member had veto power, might be
resolved. With all of these political changes, one significant, underlying question
remained—what would state sovereignty mean in this “New World Order”?12
Would sovereignty continue to be understood as it had during the Cold War, or
would it be revised in accordance with pressing international issues?

Current Political Debates on Sovereignty

The debate on sovereignty is not easily resolved or dispassionately argued. At its
core is the question about the “division of responsibility” between the state and
the international community; what falls to the international community, and
what is reserved for the state? The answer is extremely important to the future
of international relations, with implications for what is deemed legitimate
behavior. States require an agreed allocation of rights and obligations between

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Sovereignty

themselves and the international community, thus facilitating peaceful

international interactions and minimizing uncertainty in an anarchic world.

(p.14) Much of the political debate about these rights and obligations has
taken place among the permanent members of the UN Security Council because
of the UNSC’s power to intervene in the internal affairs of other states, as well
as the members’ individual capability to act. Each member has a stake in how
sovereignty is understood. The arguments on both sides are compelling. Those
on the side of absolute sovereignty in all circumstances argue that anything less
would open a Pandora’s box of hegemonic interventions, justified under the
cover of restoring international peace and security. In this view, violating
sovereignty cannot be objectively justified, and thereby an intervention could not
be legitimated.13 On the other side, states argue that the international
community cannot stand by while states fail to protect their citizens, as well as
the international community (in some cases), from genocide or terrorism.
Especially in the realm of human rights, with particular reference to the horrors
of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, the argument for contingent
sovereignty is quite persuasive.

As norm-setters, powerful states are especially interested in how the debate

plays out. China and Russia are often cited as the leading powers committed to
the absolute notion of national sovereignty. In their view, regardless of whether a
state is unduly repressive or guilty of gross human rights abuses, a state’s
sovereignty should be respected. Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin strongly
opposed the argument that human rights should rank higher than sovereignty;
he declared, “Dialogue and cooperation in the field of human rights must be
conducted on the basis of respect for state sovereignty.”14 In fact, when the
international community sought to remedy the grave human rights situation in
Kosovo, President Jiang, referring to the absolute sovereignty norm, stated: “I
hereby solemnly reiterate that the military actions against Kosovo and other
parts of Yugoslavia violate the norms governing international relations.”15

Moreover, from China’s perspective, “Without sovereignty, there will be no

human rights to speak of.”16 China’s position is not that human rights abuses by
a government are acceptable, but rather that it is an internal matter beyond the
scope of the international community’s reach. Even in the recent debate about a
multilateral intervention on behalf of human rights in Syria, China “maintains
that any attempt by the international community to help Syria solve its crisis
must respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the
country.”17 Sovereignty supersedes all other considerations.

These views are mirrored by Russia, which is not surprising given that the two
countries often support one another when it comes to the issue of (p.15)
sovereignty. Russia recognized China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, supporting the
one-China policy, while China supported Russia’s sovereignty with regard to

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Sovereignty

Chechnya. Like President Jiang, President Vladimir Putin questioned the motives
of the West, when suggesting intervention in the internal affairs of another
country. Russia’s foreign policy statement in 2000 declared, “Attempts to belittle
the role of a sovereign state as the fundamental element of international
relations generates a threat of arbitrary interference in internal affairs.”18
Moreover, “Attempts to introduce into the international parlance such concepts
as ‘humanitarian intervention’ and ‘limited sovereignty’ in order to justify
unilateral power actions bypassing the UN Security Council are not
acceptable.”19 President Putin argued within the context of the US-led
intervention in Iraq (2003–2011), “If we allow international law to be replaced
by the law of the first, in which the strong is always right, and has the right to do
anything, then one of the most basic principles of international law will come
into question: the inviolability of state sovereignty.”20 In light of recent debate
about UN support for intervention in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov declared: “Russia will seek respect for the sovereignty of states and non-
interference in their internal affairs.”21

There have been instances, however, when states traditionally opposed to

infringements on sovereignty have supported actions that suggest some
flexibility in their understanding of sovereignty. For example, China supported
the international intervention in East Timor (1999). Moreover, it contributed to
peacekeeping missions in several countries, such as Mozambique, the Western
Sahara, Cambodia, and Iraq-Kuwait. More recently, China implicitly supported
(through an absention) a UNSC resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya in
2011 amid mounting human rights abuses by its government forces. However,
Chinese President, Hu Jintao, maintains: “China advocates full respect for every
country’s independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity and does not
approve of the use of force in international affairs.”22

On the other side of the debate, major powers leaning toward a contingent norm
of sovereignty include the US and the United Kingdom (UK). As US Secretary
Rice in April 2007 pointed out:

The international system is experiencing a dramatic shift, one that we can

trace through a series of humanitarian and political crises arising within
nations, not necessarily between them; the failure of states from Somalia
to Haiti, Bosnia to Afghanistan; and culminating in the events of
September (p.16) the 11th. As a result, we have been compelled to revise
our old standard of sovereignty from mere state control to civil and global
responsibility.23

This reflects the emerging consensus in the US that the norm of sovereignty is
evolving. This movement began with the end of the Cold War and US
involvement in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti. With regard to the brutality
in Kosovo (1999), former President Bill Clinton argued for military intervention:

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Sovereignty

“Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative.”24 Freed from Cold War geopolitical
constraints, the US had the ability to engage these problems around the world.
When it did not, the decision was strongly regretted. Former President Bill
Clinton apologized to Rwandans for not intervening when genocide was
occurring there: “We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we in
the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have
and should have done to try to limit what occurred.”25 From this perspective, the
international community has a responsibility to protect citizens in states where
their governments either lack the capability to act or engage in purposeful
assault on their own people. In 2011, to prevent further human rights abuses
and possibly massacres, US President Barack Obama justified the US role in the
multilateral intervention in Libya: “To brush aside . . . our responsibilities to our
fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of
who we are.”26

The United Kingdom has similar views:

The U.N. needs new rules on when it can intervene to keep the peace
within a state rather than between states. This is a real dilemma for an
organization created to protect national sovereignty against threat. But it
cannot be acceptable for oppressive regimes to claim the protection of
sovereignty to carry out major violations of international law, such as
genocide in Rwanda or ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.27

As early as 1999, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair began articulating
potential criteria by which the international community could legitimately
intervene in the affairs of a country to protect that domestic population.28 While
these comments were given within the context of the NATO-led intervention in
Kosovo, Blair later expanded his “doctrine” from humanitarian considerations to
security-related issues, arguing that “international terrorism post-9/11 and the
spread of weapons of mass destruction require a further redefinition of the
rights of a nation-state.”29

Perhaps not willing to expand the concept of sovereignty that far, France is
certainly amenable to the idea that human rights norms trump the norm (p.17)
of sovereignty. Though France believes that the United Nations Security Council
has ultimate authority over decisions that would violate sovereignty, former
President Chirac declared, with regard to Kosovo, “any military action must be
requested and decided by the Security Council [but] the humanitarian situation
constitutes a ground that can justify an exception to the rule, however strong
and firm it is.”30 Reaffirming this view, perhaps more strongly, former President
Nicholas Sarkozy spearheaded the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and
President Francois Hollande has stated that an armed intervention in Syria is
certainly an option, especially considering the Houla massacre.31 For France,

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Sovereignty

protecting human rights is more important than protecting states’ rights to

sovereignty.

In sum, these leading powers’ perspectives reveal an emerging “sovereignty

divide.” Because sovereignty is at the very core of statehood, changes to it have
significant implications for all players in the international system. Being
recognized by other states as a sovereign member of the international system
means that a state can participate in the community of states, empowered with
the privileges and obligations that sovereignty brings. Yet, what it means to be a
sovereign state is not only debated in the empirical world of politics but also
among scholars of international relations. Having discussed the political debates
on sovereignty, I now turn to the theoretical debates in the academic literature.

Academic Debates on Sovereignty

During the Cold War, much of the literature in international relations rested on
the parsimonious explanations of realism (Morgenthau 1948), later refined by
neorealism (Waltz 1979). Realism and its variants have traditionally been used to
explain state military actions. This school makes two primary assumptions: (1)
anarchy dominates the international system; and (2) states are self-interested,
unitary actors (Waltz 1979). States, as rational actors, seek power and security
in order to survive in the international system (Jervis 1976; Oye 1985; Walt 1987;
Waltz 1979). Geostrategic interests and economic concerns are the primary
motivations for state behavior and in particular, the use of force.

Regardless of the motives they assign to states, whether to enhance power or

security, both realism and neorealism assume absolute state sovereignty, the
ability of a state to “decide for itself how it will cope with its internal and
external problems” (Waltz 1979, 96). As a consequence, sovereignty is “one
[principle] that will not be dislodged easily, regardless of (p.18) changed
circumstances in the material environment” (Krasner 1988, 90).32 However, the
theory implies that sovereignty is contingent on the power of a state. In a world
in which “the strong do what they can, the weak do what they
must” (Thucydides 1910), some states are more sovereign than others. While
realism and neorealism are useful to our understanding of the causes of conflict,
they do not allow for any mechanism by which change can occur in international
relations and thus offer little insight into how the rights and obligations of states
vary across contexts.

The other major strand of literature, neoliberalism and its variants, while
sharing some assumptions with realism/neorealism, acknowledge the possibility
of change, if only indirectly (Keohane and Nye 1977). Scholars of this school are
primarily interested in explaining cooperation among self-interested states,
which has led to a plethora of analyses focused on international regimes and
organizations. Cooperative developments in the international system, like the
evolution of the European Union, pose important questions concerning the

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Sovereignty

nature of sovereignty, since they challenge mechanistic, power-based models of

state interaction. However, the scholarship that does engage these questions
tends to consider sovereignty as a matter of state control, rather than state
authority (Thomson 1995). Moreover, even if this approach recognizes the
potential for change in the nature of sovereignty, it largely focuses on structure,
with little regard for agency.

The idea that humans, as agents, contribute to the maintenance and creation of
social reality, or social facts, is one of the core tenets of the constructivist school.
In this perspective, concepts like sovereignty are variables, not constants.
Constructivism takes seriously the logic of appropriateness, which refers to what
states ought to do, given social conventions or rules, procedures, and principles
for members within a particular group context (Finnemore 1998; March and
Olsen 1998). While not disregarding material interests, constructivists offer a
compelling explanation for state actions by emphasizing the role of identity,
norms, and ideas (Black 1999; Hopf 2002; Legro 1997; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink
1999).

In explaining varying conceptions of sovereignty, these scholars rely on the

ability of actors to shape intersubjective understandings of sovereignty
(Biersteker and Weber 1996). For example, some argue that the definition of
sovereignty fluctuates according to dominant ideas in the international system.
Barkin and Cronin (1994) argue that the post–World War II era stressed state
sovereignty, rather than the nation-based definition, inreaction to the extreme
nationalism of Nazis. This could be one reason that during this period
sovereignty trumped individual rights. Similarly, (p.19) others assert identity as
the engine of change, in that changes in collective identities drive changes in the
constitutive rules of sovereignty (Hall 1999). If the most salient identity of
citizens is that regarding the state (i.e., patriotism), then sovereignty will be
defined in terms of the state. In contrast, if the group identity becomes the most
important, it will be reflected in a sovereignty that focuses on the rights of the
group.

These contributions and other constructivist research offer important insights

for understanding state sovereignty and its evolution. They illuminate an
important part of the story by demonstrating the influence of ideas and identities
on conceptions of sovereignty. However, there is one missing link—action.
Without action taken on its behalf, we cannot know what sovereignty really
means at any given point in time. Leaders in the international community can
argue that states have certain obligations to fulfill, as in the area of protecting
human rights, but without actions to bolster these claims, this discourse remains
empty rhetoric. In other words, the concept of sovereignty (as with any concept)
is necessarily grounded in action. As argued in the following chapter, the
meaning of sovereignty is dependent on the actions taken on its behalf. Political
actions have the ability to shape ideas about sovereignty. We know that changes

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Sovereignty

to sovereignty have occurred when we see both changes in related actions and
their corresponding discourse.

Outline of the Book

In the next chapter, I develop the theoretical framework for the book, in which I
address change as a function of both structure and agency. In terms of structure,
I first discuss the conditions necessary for norm change to occur, which are
derived from an evolutionary perspective. These conditions are that the norm
must be prominent in the international system, it must be compatible with other
norms, and it must face structural conditions conducive to change (Florini 1996).
To address agency, I then draw on cognitive dissonance to specify the
mechanism by which change occurs. Clearly, states with a preponderance of
power have a disproportionate say in which norms get propagated within the
international community because they have the capability to act on behalf of a
norm, if they wish. However, I argue that even when a major power acts
primarily out of its own self-interest, with the normative argument being
secondary, the action may have the unintended consequence of modifying the
normative environment within which other (minor power) states act. The theory
proposed (p.20) in this book offers a counterintuitive explanation for these
phenomena. One would generally expect an arduous military intervention to
exhibit less commitment to the norms that it embodies. But the opposite may be
true. Insights from social psychology, and cognitive dissonance in particular, lead
us to expect that such a situation would actually yield more commitment to the
norms that were used to justify the intervention. Thus, leading states are able to
pursue their material agenda, but with norm evolution as the by-product of
military intervention. I conclude chapter 2 with a discussion of the empirical
approach taken to investigate my theoretical arguments. I rely on content
analysis of United Nations Security Council speeches and case studies of policy
responses (including inaction) by leading states (China, Russia, United States,
United Kingdom, and France) in issue areas at the top of the international
agenda in the post–Cold War era: global terrorism, human rights, and weapons
of mass destruction.

The next three chapters focus on the empirical examination of the theory
presented, each taking on a different policy domain. Chapter 3 examines state
sovereignty in the context of global terrorism. The war in Afghanistan was the
first time a global coalition intervened in a state on behalf of counterterrorism.
In reaction to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
in 2001, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1373, which
“obliges all States to criminalize assistance for terrorist activities, deny financial
support and safe haven to terrorists and share information about groups
planning terrorist attacks.” In other words, in the interest of international peace
and security, states have the responsibility to the international community to
uphold certain standards of internal behavior in the realm of counterterrorism.
As demonstrated by the military intervention in Afghanistan shortly after the
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Sovereignty

resolution, states that fail to comply risk the possibility of external interference
and at its most extreme, foreign military intervention. The chapter investigates
how the rights and obligations of states have changed (or not) in this regard by
focusing on leading states that intervened militarily in Afghanistan, the United
States and the United Kingdom, and then contrasting them with two major
powers that did not intervene, China and Russia.

In sum, the chapter finds support for its expectations. First, the extent to which
a contingent norm of sovereignty is accepted by a state depends, at least in part,
on the process and outcome of the military intervention, including the domestic
political costs and benefits, for the intervener. Second, leading states that are
not directly involved in the military intervention will moderately change their
views toward contingent sovereignty, as the cases of Russia and China
demonstrated, due to their nonculpability and (p.21) self-interest in this issue
area. What seems clear, regarding the states examined, is that an event like 9/11
acts as a contributing condition for norm evolution, but an action such as
military intervention provides the actual mechanism by which changes in states’
understandings of sovereignty occur.

Chapter 4 is concerned with the intersection of human rights and sovereignty

norms. With the establishment of the International Bill of Human Rights in the
second half of the twentieth century, the “responsibility to protect” individuals
from threats to their existence and dignity creates a tension with the principle of
sovereignty (Deng et al.1996; Evans and Sahnoun 2002). The chapter explores
the humanitarian crisis in Somalia and the extent to which military intervention
(1992–1993) on behalf of human rights affected the norm of sovereignty. Though
the mission was initially successful, it later encountered significant difficulties
from Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The chapter examines the extent to
which understandings of sovereignty in this issue domain changed before and
after the intervention by focusing on the United States and France as
interveners, and China and Russia as noninterveners. The examination
demonstrates that France and the United States placed greater emphasis on
sovereignty as contingent on compliance with human rights norms after the
intervention than before, even though the mission was ultimately a failure. For
the two nonintervening states, their culpability in this area largely explained
why they held to a strict code of absolute sovereignty.

The issue area of chapter 5 is weapons of mass destruction. Chapter 5 explores

the policy domain of weapons of mass destruction within the context of Iraq.
Conceptually distinct, though related to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction
are another controversial matter for sovereignty. Some states argue that it is
their sovereign right to produce weapons of mass destruction, but, at the same
time, they are pressed by international obligations not to. For example, former
French president Nicolas Sarkozy asserted in his first major foreign policy
speech: “Iran could be attacked militarily if it did not live up to its international

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Sovereignty

obligations to curb its nuclear program.”33 Althought the US-led intervention in

Iraq was conducted without the backing of the UN Security Council, it certainly
demonstrates the plausibility of this claim. The United States had argued that
the international community had a right to intervene to prevent Iraq’s further
development of weapons of mass destruction. Although such weapons were
never found, the chapter investigates how the US-led war in Iraq has shaped
understandings of state sovereignty by analyzing the cases of the (p.22)
primary interveners, the United States and the United Kingdom, and comparing
them with the cases of France and Russia as noninterveners. The chapter
asserts that the military intervention in Iraq provided a potential impetus for
change toward contingent sovereignty. However, because of the false premises
of the intervention (i.e., the failure to find WMD), the predictions were not borne
out. Rather, the evidence showed that the action reinforced absolute sovereignty
in the cases of the interveners. As for the noninterveners, state culpability and
self-interest were found to be important predictors of attitudes toward
sovereignty, providing support for the desire of a state to maintain cognitive
consistency.

To conclude the book, I first consider the theoretical contribution of this study,
which rests on two ideas: first, the usefulness of a social psychological approach
in explaining phenomena in international relations, and second, the role of
action in shaping ideas. Next, I synthesize the results of the empirical chapters
and draw out the major themes throughout the investigation. I compare and
contrast the changes in conceptions of sovereignty across the cases and discuss
the implications of this research for norm change more broadly, as well as how
the findings might be extended to lesser powers. Following this, I consider the
extent to which contingent soverignty is desirable for international peace and
security in the international system. I then explore current events in light of the
evolving concept of sovereignty, and offer some thoughts on some possible
limitations in its evolution. I end with some thoughts for foreign policymakers to
consider.

Notes:
(1) Norms are social rules that govern what behavior is appropriate for a
particular actor in a given social environment. Thus, norms that govern state
behavior reflect internationally recognized rules about appropriate behavior for
a state in the international arena.

(2) In the case of the recent international intervention in Libya (2011), all three
African states on the UNSC voted for intervention (South Africa, Gabon, and
Nigeria), though the African Union could not come to an agreement.

(3) For example, regarding the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, the UN
representative from Ghana went so far to question the UN Security Council’s
decision to “invite” Sudan to consent to the deployment of UN troops, because

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Sovereignty

the UNSC already has the right to send military troops. William O’Neill. 2006.
“The Responsibility to Protect Darfur.” Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 28.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0928/p09s01-coop.html (Oct. 24, 2006). The
African Union did send a peacekeeping force to Sudan in 2004, which lasted
until they encountered numerous attacks and ran out of funding in 2007. Colum
Lynch. 2007. “African Union Force Low on Money, Supplies and Morale.” The
Washington Post, May 13. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/05/12/AR2007051201567.html?hpid=moreheadlines

(4) The Peace of Westphalia refers to the Treaties of Peace between Sweden and
the Holy Roman Empire and between France and the Holy Roman Empire, Oct.
14, 1648.

(5) Jean Bodin, 1955 [1576]. Other great thinkers at the time, such as Hugo
Grotius (1625) held similar views.

(6) This clearly is a European-centric notion of sovereignty, given that Islamic

states, for example, theoretically operate under a higher moral law.

(7) . When decolonization began to take hold, this is one reason that once the
colonies gained independence as states, they have been so protective of absolute
sovereignty.

(8) Despite Wilson’s advocacy, the United States was not a member of the
League of Nations.

(9) The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are China, Russia
(the former Soviet Union), the United States, France, and Britain.

(10) . Interesting to note is the fact that though humanitarian intervention could
be justified in at least three cases during the Cold War, alternative claims were
used, for example, India in East Pakistan 1971; Tanzania in Uganda, 1979; and
Vietnam in Cambodia, 1979 (Finnemore 2003).

(11) Interestingly, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev compromised with Polish

reformers, allowing Poland to follow its own socialist path. However, these
reforms were short-lived and Poland continued to labor under Soviet domination.

(12) President George Herbert Walker Bush used the term “New World Order” in
an address to a joint session of Congress and the nation, Sept. 11, 1990, to
discuss his vision for a post–Cold War world.

(13) Also underlying this debate are concerns of material emancipation, as

reflected in events in Kosovo (1999).

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Sovereignty

(14) Chinese President Jiang Zemin. 2000. “Statement by President Jiang Zemin
of the People’s Republic of China at the Millennium Summit of the United
Nations Sept. 6, 2000.” Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to
the UN. Sept. 6. http://www.china-un.org/eng/zt/qiannianfenghui/t39519.htm
(Jan. 23, 2006).

(15) Chinese President Jiang Zemin. 1999. “Security.” Permanent Mission of the
People’s Republic of China to the UN. March 26. http://www.china-un.ch/eng/
cjjk/cjjblc/jhhwx/t85322.htm (Jan. 23, 2006).

(16) Chinese President Jiang Zemin. See footnote 14.

(17) 2012. “Avoiding Civil War in Syria.” China Daily. Feb. 6. http://
www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-2002/06/content_14540573.htm.

(18) Russian President Putin. 2000. “The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russia
Federation.” Federation of American Scientists. June 28. http://www.fas.org/
nuke/guide/russia/doctrine/econcept.htm (Jan. 24, 2006).

(19) Ibid.

(20) John Tagliabue. 2003. “A Nation at War: World Reaction; Wave of Protests,
from Europe to New York.” March 21. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/
2003/03/21/world/a-nation-at-war-world-reaction-wave-of-protests-from-europe-
to-new-york.html?scp=3&sq=putin%20sovereignty&st=nyt&pagewanted=2.

(21) Voice of Russia. 2012. “In Syria, Russia Defends Justice and Sovereignty.”
The Voice of Russia. March 2. http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_03_02/67289916/.

(22) 2011. “More Violence Will Not Solve Libyan Crisis.” China.org.cn. April 7.
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2011-2004/07/content_22306059.htm.

(23) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 2007. “Remarks at the InterAction

2007 Annual Forum.” L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, Washington, D.C., US Dept. of State,
April 18. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2007/apr/83213.htm (Jan. 24, 2006).

(24) President Bill Clinton. 1999. “Clinton’s Statement: Stabilising Europe.”

BBC. March 25. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/303693.stm.

(25) Quoted in Samantha Power. 2001. “Bystanders to Genocide.” The Atlantic.

Sept. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-
genocide/4571/.

(26) President Barack Obama. 2011. “Remarks by the President in Address to

the Nation on Libya.” The White House. March 28. http://www.whitehouse.gov/
the-press-office/2011/03/28/remarks-president-address-nation-libya.

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Sovereignty

(27) UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. 2001. “Human Rights—A Priority of

Britain’s Foreign Policy.” Global Policy Forum. March 28. http://
www.globalpolicy.org/empire/humanint/2001/0328robincook.htm (Jan. 24, 2006).

(28) . Tony Blair. 1999. “The Blair Doctrine.” PBS. April 22. http://www.pbs.org/
newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html.

(29) Paul Reynolds quoting Tony Blair. 2004. “Blair’s ‘International Community’
Doctrine.” BBC. March 6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/
3539125.stm

(30) Cited in Catherine Guicherd. 1999. “International Law and the War in
Kosovo.” Survival (Summer): 28.

(31) Nicholas Watt. 2011. “Nicolas Sarkozy Calls for Air Strikes on Libya if
Gaddafi Attacks Civilians.” The Guardian, March 11. http://www.guardian.co.uk/
world/2011/mar/11/nicolas-sarkozy-libya-air-strikes; News Wires. 2012. “UN
backed action in Syria is an option.” France 24. May 29. http://
www.france24.com/en/20120529-hollande-says-un-backed-military-intervention-
syria-option-resolution-security-council-france.

(32) . Although some have questioned whether sovereignty in this sense has
been a constant, or even a “norm” in the international system (Krasner 1999),
compliance with the norm has arguably occurred more often than not. For
example, Krasner asserts that sovereignty covaries over time with power and
interests and is frequently violated. However, he provides no baseline from
which to judge this (potential number of violations) and thereby his work suffers
from selection bias. I would argue state sovereignty has, more often than not,
served as an inviolate norm governing international relations.

(33) Sciolino, Elaine. 2007. “French Leader Raise Possibility of Use of Force in
Iran.” New York Times. Aug. 28, A3.

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