Sovereignty

About: Sovereignty is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25909 publications have been published within this topic receiving 410148 citations.

Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States

Abstract: eignty assumes a world of autonomous, internationally recognized, and wellgoverned states. Although frequently violated in practice, the fundamental rules of conventional sovereignty—recognition of juridically independent territorial entities and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other states—have rarely been challenged in principle. But these rules no longer work, and their inadequacies have had deleterious consequences for the strong as well as the weak. The policy tools that powerful and well-governed states have available to “ax” badly governed or collapsed states—principally governance assistance and transitional administration (whether formally authorized by the United Nations or engaged in by a coalition of the willing led by the United States)— are inadequate. In the future, better domestic governance in badly governed, failed, and occupied polities will require the transcendence of accepted rules, including the creation of shared sovereignty in speciac areas. In some cases, decent governance may require some new form of trusteeship, almost certainly de facto rather than de jure.1 Many countries suffer under failed, weak, incompetent, or abusive national authority structures. The best that people living in such countries can hope for is marginal improvement in their material well-being; limited access to social services, including health care and education; and a moderate degree of individual physical security. At worst they will confront endemic violence, exploitative political leaders, falling life expectancy, declining per capita income, and even state-sponsored genocide. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), for example, civil wars that have persisted for more than two decades have resulted in millions of deaths. In Zimbabwe the policies of President RobSharing Sovereignty

The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All

Abstract: Never again! the world has vowed time and again since the Holocaust. Yet genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other mass atrocity crimes continue to shock our consciences --from the killing fields of Cambodia to the machetes of Rwanda to the agony of Darfur. Gareth Evans has grappled with these issues firsthand. As Australian foreign minister, he was a key broker of the United Nations peace plan for Cambodia. As president of the International Crisis Group, he now works on the prevention and resolution of scores of conflicts and crises worldwide. The primary architect of and leading authority on the Responsibility to Protect (""R2P""), he shows here how this new international norm can once and for all prevent a return to the killing fields. The Responsibility to Protect captures a simple and powerful idea. The primary responsibility for protecting its own people from mass atrocity crimes lies with the state itself. State sovereignty implies responsibility, not a license to kill. But when a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert such crimes, the wider international community then has a collective responsibility to take whatever action is necessary. R2P emphasizes preventive action above all. That includes assistance for states struggling to contain potential crises and for effective rebuilding after a crisis or conflict to tackle its underlying causes. R2P's primary tools are persuasion and support, not military or other coercion. But sometimes it is right to fight: faced with another Rwanda, the world cannot just stand by. R2P was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit. But many misunderstandings persist about its scope and limits. And much remains to be done to solidify political support and to build institutional capacity. Evans shows, compellingly, how big a break R2P represents from the past, and how, with its acceptance in principle and effective application in practice, the promise of "Never again!" can at last become a reality.

Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places

Abstract: In "Wars, Guns and Votes", award-winning author Paul Collier investigates the violence and poverty in the countries at the bottom of the world economy that are home to a billion people A highly-regarded economist and expert on developing countries, Collier argues that the spread of elections and peace settlements in the world's most volatile countries may lead eventually to a brave new democratic world In the meantime, though, nasty and protracted civil wars, military coups, and failing economies will plague the bottom billion - unless national sovereignty is curtailed and economic disciplines introducedThrough innovative research and astute analysis, Collier provides an eye-opening assessment of the ethnic divisions and insecurity in the developing countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia where the democratic process so often fails There have been many policy failures by the United States, the UK and other developed countries since the end of the Cold War, especially the reliance on pre-emptive military intervention, but Collier insists that these problems can and will be rectified He persuasively outlines what must be done to bring long-term peace and stability

The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty

Abstract: The White Possessive explores the links between race, sovereignty, and possession through themes of property: owning property, being property, and becoming propertyless. Focusing on the Australian Aboriginal context, Aileen Moreton-Robinson questions current race theory in the first world and its preoccupation with foregrounding slavery and migration. The nation, she argues, is socially and culturally constructed as a white possession. Moreton-Robinson reveals how the core values of Australian national identity continue to have roots in Britishness and colonization, built on the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty. Whiteness studies are central to Moreton-Robinson’s reasoning, and she shows how blackness works as a white epistemological tool that bolsters the social production of whiteness—displacing Indigenous sovereignties and rendering them invisible in a civil rights discourse, sidestepping issues of settler colonialism. Throughout this critical examination Moreton-Robinson proposes a bold new agenda for critical Indigenous studies, one that involves deeper analysis of the prerogatives of white possession within the role of disciplines.