SOVEREIGNTY - ORIGIN ANND WAYS OF ACQUIRING IT



The doctrine of sovereignty is another inseparable corollary of the nation-state  just like the concept of national  power.  As the system lies at the centre of international relations, so  is the doctrine of sovereignty intertwined  with  that of the nation state and the international system.  Sovereignty is an attribute of the state system. Thus, no  discussion on the state system will be considered  complete without featuring  the doctrine and concept of sovereignty.  The  correct phraseology will be “state sovereignty’  since there is no other social  reality  that is imbued  with the doctrine  of sovereignty,  except the modern state  system.

As a social science concept, it has been subjected to a variety of conceptualizations. For Palmer and Perkins, it is ‘the legal theory that gives the state unique and virtually unlimited authority in all domestic matters and in its relations with other states”13.  Another conception  of the term sees it as the ‘claim to be the unlimited political authority, subject to no higher power as regards the  making and enforcing of political decisions”.14 This  conception tends to restrict sovereignty  to the domestic environment of states. Realizing this,  the  theorist quickly adds that sovereignty in the international  system is the ‘claim by the state to full self government ..”  for the man credited as the father of the doctrine  of  sovereignty,  the  16th century  French lawyer and political  thinker Jean Bodin (1530=96),  sovereignty is “the  absolute  and  perpetual power of the state, that  is, the   greatest power   to command”15 in his, six books on the state (les six  livres de la  republique) published in 1576,  Bodin was not only the   first to use the word sovereignty,  but was also the first  to  attempt a systematic and clear  conception of the doctrine as  an attribute of   the state.  In his conception of the doctrine with  regards to the absolute monarchy in the France of his time, Bodin declared sovereignty to be   “the supreme power over  citizens and  subjects,  unrestrained by law”.16 it must  be  observed that in  his   first conception, as we indicated,  Bodin  rightly associated sovereignty with the state- the absolute  and  perpetual power of the state, but subsequently,  with deference to the  absolute monarchy of his   period  which  claimed  a fusion of the state with the  monarch himself, he   now associated sovereignty with the power of the monarch.
The must however be state that the concept of  sovereignty remains as attribute of the state,  not  the   government.  The government only exercises sovereign rights on behalf of the state, and as an agent of the state. And as   Bodin pointed out, sovereignty is perpetual, and so once it is conferred  on the state it continues to retain and  exercise  it  until it, i.e  the state , cases/ to exist.
Origins of the Doctrine of State Sovereignty
The  doctrine of sovereignty  developed as  part of  the  transformation of the medieval system in  Europe into the  modern state system.17 the treaty of Westphalia of  1648 was  a culmination of this process, and it saw the  emergence of  modern nation-states  with  sovereign powers exercised by   recognized  governments of such sates. This  treaty which  ended the thirty years war  (1618-1648)  in Germany, saw to  it  that the two medieval institutions that threatened and  rivaled the power of nation-states:  universal  church and  dynastic empires, suffered several degrees of diminution of  their powers. Both  were  henceforth  to be denied any interference in the ecclesiastical and temporal affairs of the  developing nation state.18.  sovereignty thus signified  thus signified the rise  of  the monarch to absolute prominence over  rival feudal  claimants such as the aristocracy, the papacy and the  roman empire19.  It began, and has continued to serve  internationally, as the basis for exchanges of recognition of  statehood,  and  of legal equality of states in  the international system, as  well as diplomacy and international law.
It  has  however  been  argued that “sovereignty  is the other side of the coin of  international anarchy”,  since the claim of sovereignty  by states makes the structure of  international system to be anarchic, in that every state retains the power  and  authority to act authoritatively within  its  domestic environment without any inhabitation either   from within or without. But as we noted earlier, the  international society operates on mutually agreed rules, precepts or  conventions. So as we shall have occasion to mention later, rather than a harbinger of chaos in the  international system  the mutual recognition of claims to sovereignty is actually the  basis of the emergence of the international society  as we have come to know it today.
Ways of Acquiring Sovereignty 
In the contemporary international system , at least  four possible ways have been identified  through which a political entity can acquire sovereignty. These include:
1.      Formal granting of independence by a colonial power to a colonized territory
2.      Through a successful revolution or liberation way.
3.      through  a successful war of secession, and 
4.      By the recognition of the independence of an  uncolonized or claimed territory by member states   of  the international system20.
As examples abound on each of these processes, we  shall only highlight a few instances, especially those that have been neglected.
Granting of independence to colonized territories
            Most of the new states of Africa and Asia acquired their sovereignty and independence through this means.  The wind of change, according to Mcmillan, saw  to it that the   1960s  became a decade of liberation from colonial tutelage for most hitherto Afro-Asian colonized territories.  The reverses suffered by the colonial powers of Europe in early to mid 20th  centuries following the two world wars, among  other  things, made colonialism an achromatic. They thus had no option but to  grant independence to their  erstwhile colonies.  Although the  Portuguese continued to cling to their colonies  in  southern  Africa and the pacific rim until the  70s  and  80s ,  the British and French, except   for Lan Smith’s  intransigence  in 1965  in Rhodesia now Zimbabwe,  had hands –off their  colonies within the  1960s.  These states  thus  acquired  the  sovereignty  rights  that come  with independence existence
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