Does the principle of sovereignty promote security or threaten it?

   Realist theory of international relations maintains that states are sovereign and act in an international community without order. Therefore, these states will always act in their own interests without regard for others. This can create a situation known as the ‘security dilemma’, defined by Robert Jervis as the situation when “many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others”. This very statement implies that even if the sovereign of a state acts to promote security within its territory, security within other territories will be threatened. Following realist theory, this is no great problem as only internal affairs matter. However, with regard to security as a concept that affects all people in all states, the ‘security dilemma’ is a clear threat. However, a non-realist approach, as put forward by Alexander Wednt, allows that sovereign states have the ability to make policies that avoid the security dilemma’. This leads to the conclusion that the sovereignty of a state allows for both increased internal security with it decreasing externally and for internal security alone.

   The entire world is split up into separate states, but not all of these states represent all the various ethnic groups in the world. Those who see themselves as belonging to a state not in official existence and the implications of this are important factors regarding conflicts (both international and internal) and the security of these people and of the regions. For example, the Kurdish people, who reside in the Middle East have often been involved in conflicts with the governments of the states in the region by trying to create Kurdistan. Since these people live mainly in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, their security can be threatened by the actions of any of these states. For example, the Iraq-Iran war involved the sovereignty of these nations, but not that of the Kurdish people, whose interests may have conflicted with those of the states in which they lived. In this and other examples, it can be seen that hostile majorities that make up the government often persecute ethnic minorities. This is true even more so in Iraq, as in Sovereignty would allow this to happen without the availability of outside forces. To illustrate, only when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991 did other countries (namely USA) intervene to ‘restore Kuwait’s sovereignty’. This led to more favourable conditions for Iraqi-Kurds in the country. If this had not happened, the persecution of Kurds in Iraq may have continued unfettered.  Following from this, the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers is a problem that cannot be addressed with state sovereignty alone. People fleeing from persecution in one state hope for security in another, but if sovereignty is true to it’s principle, borders may be closed to those people. This, however, is not the case in the modern world. Most countries, particularly modern ‘western’ countries, accept asylum-seekers and refugees from around the world, albeit sometimes grudgingly. However, although the security of those granted asylum by more friendly states is improved, those refused may become even more threatened if forced to return to the original country. Also, not all refugees cross countries’ borders. Those displaced within a state pose quite a considerable question to aspects of sovereignty and security. In many countries where regional differences, often ethnically based, cause individuals to be displaced, the principle of sovereignty blocks efforts by outside forces to ensure their security. Indeed, it seems that  “A major constraint in developing effective protection [for refugees] is the sensitivity of the issue of national sovereignty.” All this seems to suggest that the principle of sovereignty is indeed a threat a threat to the security of asylum-seekers and refugees. Only when countries act with an internationalist approach that is not based solely on self-interest and grant asylum to them, can people persecuted in other countries be afforded some kind of security.

   Chechnya, part of the Russian Federation, has often been a source of debate regarding sovereignty. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s, the mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya tried to become independent, but invasions in 1995 and 1999 restored Russian rule. Russia claimed Chechen rebels were responsible for terrorist acts in Moscow. Western governments objected to some of the methods used by the Russians, especially the bombing of civilian areas. However, the conflict was seen as an internal matter within a sovereign state (Russia) and so no intervention was made. Alleged human rights’ abuses made by the Russian military have caused greater concern in the west. In 1999, the E.U issued the following statement:

The European Council does not question the right of Russia to preserve its territorial integrity nor its right to fight terrorism. However, the fight against terrorism cannot ... warrant the destruction of cities, nor that they be emptied of their inhabitants, nor that a whole population be considered as terrorists.

   Also, many organisations have claimed that many countries, including Russia in this example, use the principle of sovereignty to deter other states from intervening in issues such as human rights.

The United Nations Charter upholds sovereignty by forbidding intervention in matters "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of states. On numerous occasions, governments have hidden behind this veil to evade responsibility for gross violations of human rights within their borders. 

This clearly shows how the principle of sovereignty acts as a strong deterrent to states which otherwise may intervene in other states internal affairs. Human rights abuses are as clear an example of a lack of security as there is. Those who are denied their human rights are denied the basic necessities needed to ensure security, therefore if sovereignty prevents interventions to ensure human rights, it can only threaten individuals’ security.

   In the post cold-war era, it is generally accepted that the USA is the only super-power in the world system of sovereign states. Taken this into consideration, it can also been seen that it is the most ‘sovereign’ state of all. This means that, because of the USA’s vast military and financial strength, it is perhaps less influenced by outside forces than any other state. Given this, the events on September 11th 2001 have massive implications for the question of security. The events involved the deliberate hijacking of civilian aircraft and the crashing of them into the World Trade Centre in New York. This was as well as a similar attack on the Pentagon, USA’s security centre in Washington D.C.  Civilian fatalities from these terrorist attcks ran to over six thousand, mostly workers in New York. From the perspective of this essay, the sovereignty of the USA offered no security or protection for the people who died. Looking at the conventional types of security mentioned previously, the armed forces and police, neither of these bodies did, or could have, provided security for the population from such a terrorist attack. This is not, like previously, an example of how sovereignty threatens security. However, as it is clear that the principle of sovereignty did not promote safety in this situation, it serves as a good example.

   As previously stated, the premise of this work was that the principle of sovereignty is a threat to security. However, contrary to the previous examples, there are certain situations that the premise is false. If the sovereignty of all states is respected, to the full extent of the principle, and no outside forces interfered with ‘internal’ affairs, then the security of the population would be increased with regard to the threat of war. Added to this, a stable government with a strong mandate from the population may reduce the threat of civil war and abuses of human rights. Given these two conditions, it is possible that security would be promoted. However, there seems to be no country in existence where they are met. Even in the ‘liberal democracies’ of the western, modern world which includes the UK (and other EU countries) and USA, these conditions do not exist. The sovereignty of these states is not respected fully, even if only by terrorist groups. As said before, the USA has been a victim of terrorism, as has the UK for decades (from the IRA and ‘splinter’ groups) and Spain from basque separatists ‘ETA’. Also, even when such countries have strong, democratic governments, the risk from internal forces still exist. An example of this is the Oklahoma City bombing in the USA, when Timothy McVeigh, a citizen of the USA bombed a building, killing 168 people. These show that the conditions needed that would ensure that the principle sovereign could promote security do not exist, even in what president George W. Bush calls ‘the civilised world’

   This essay has examined how the principle of sovereignty works as a threat to individuals in the world. The Kurdish people, and others claiming a new state to be created, face threats from their own governments, whose sovereignty allows for no external intervention. Abuses of human rights, such as those in Chechnya, have been hidden ‘behind the veil’ of sovereignty and those who perpetrated them face no repercussions as long as they are in power. The sovereignty of the USA did not promote security with regard to terrorism, neither has that of any other state. However, although they have been found not to exist, there may be certain conditions under which sovereignty could promote security. Yet, in the modern world, as it has been in the past possibly even more so, the principle of sovereignty does, in fact, present a threat to security.

Bibliography

Bodin, J.  Six Bookes of a Commonweale, (1576)

Cress, Lee. International terrorism in the contemporary world (Greenwood Press, 1978)

Goldstein, Joshua .S. International Relations. (4th Edition. New York: Longman, 2000)

Jervis, Robert. “Cooperation under the security dilemma” in World Politics 30, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978)

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Turner, John. The Larger Idea: Lord Lothian and the Problem of National Sovereignty, (London, The Historians’ Press, 1988)

Wednt, Alexander. “Anarchy Is What States Make of It” in International Organisation 46 (spring 1992)