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 in-habitation 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.