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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