Humanity as the A and Ω of sovereignty

European Journal of International Law

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 513-544

  Peters, Anne ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BASEL   (Switzerland)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 74849094241     PISSN: 09385428     EISSN: 14643596     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ejil/chp026     Document Type: Article

References (174)

1. Tomuschat, 'International Law: Ensuring the Survival of Mankind on the Eve of a New Century: General Course on Public International Law', 281 Recueil des Cours: Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law (1999) 11, at 161-162.
2. While the legal status of sovereignty is constituted by law, this law reflects and incorporates politics, ideas, social practices, and culture. In particular, law and politics are mutually constitutive and containing, and in tension, so that any legal status is a political status as well. Sovereignty is crucially a borderline concept in which the tension between law and politics is particularly manifest.
3. Without committing himself ontologically, Popper distinguished epistemologically between a World 1 of phenomenal matters, a World 2 of mental states, and a World 3 of ideas and symbolism (or, more accurately, the contents of thoughts and symbols). Typical representatives of World 3 would be 'The Well-Tempered Piano' by Bach, the Pythagorean Theorem, or a Civil Code. Popper, in K.R. Popper and J.C. Eccles, The Self and its Brain (1977), at 36. The three realms theory goes back to philosophers of the 19th and early 20th centuries such as Bolzano, Lotze, Simmel, Frege, and Rickert.
4. See Gabriel, 'Reich, Drittes, 2.', in J. Ritter and K. Gründer (eds), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (1992), viii, cols 499-502.
5. The state has the capacity and the delegated authority to take binding decisions, to make the laws with regard to persons and resources in a given territory, it has the Kompetenz-Kompetenz (the legal competence to decide on one's own competences), and it owns the monopoly on the legitimate use of force in its territory.
6. The Friendly Relations Declaration (UN Doc. A/RES/2625 (XVV) of 24 Oct. 1970) spells this out as follows: 'In particular, sovereign equality includes the following elements: (a) States are juridically equal; (b) Each State enjoys the rights inherent in full sovereignty; (c) Each State has the duty to respect the personality of other States; (d) The territorial integrity and political independence of the State are inviolable; (e) Each State has the right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems; (f) Each State has the duty to comply fully and in good faith with its international obligations and to live in peace with other States.'.
7. I avoid the term 'recognition' used by many in this context in order to avoid confusion with the unilateral act of recognition of states, which has - according to prevailing legal doctrine - only a declaratory effect on statehood. Moreover, it is contested whether states are legally entitled to legal recognition.
8. This jurisdiction encompasses the sovereign power to legislate, to adjudicate, and to enforce. Traditional points of reference of jurisdiction are in the first place territory and in the second place persons.
9. A political entity's right to design its political system according to its own preferences and to be to that extent independent from other states is covered by the international legal principle of self-determination of peoples (see in detail infra section 7.A.), but also by state sovereignty (Military and Paramilitary Activities (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits [1986] ICJ Rep 14, at para. 263).
10. Legal personality and legal capacity are legal institutions which enable actors to participate in the international legal process and which allow them to be held accountable. While contemporary international law does not reserve the international legal personality and the treaty-making power to sovereign entities, only sovereigns (traditionally: states) are considered to possess 'full' and 'original' personality and the corresponding full treaty-making power.
11. To some extent, internal and external sovereignty entail each other and interact in a positive feed-back process. On the one hand, respect for external sovereignty (non-intervention) is a factual precondition for the development of internal structures of authority and control within states. On the other hand, a political entity has to display control over territory and persons in order to be eligible as externally sovereign by other sovereigns.
12. Political entities are accepted as sovereign states (in their relations to other states) when certain factual requirements, which cannot be enumerated in a definite and exhaustive manner, are met. The most important ones are those elements which simultaneously constitute statehood, namely a government exercising some degree of control over a people in a territory.
13. There may be non-sovereign states (e.g. the sub-entities (states) within federal states).
14. This is self-evident for those who understand sovereignty as essentially formal, namely as the possession of legal competences which may be transferred, but are always revocable, and/or as the constitutional independence from other sovereigns.
15. G. Jellinek, Die Lehre von Staatenverbindungen (1882), at 22).
16. A. James, Sovereign Statehood (1986), at 24-25.
17. Hillgruber, 'Souveränität - Verteidigung eines Rechtsbegriffs', 57 Juristenzeitung (2002) 1072, at 1073.
18. Raustiala, 'Rethinking the Sovereignty Debate in International Economic Law', 6 J Int'l Economic L (2003) 841, notably at 852. It is less evident for those who relate sovereignty to some substance and for whom only actors which possess a certain wealth of competencies and powers are sovereign. In that perspective, sovereignty is incumbent upon a political entity only if it has surpassed a threshold of powers (qualitatively and quantitatively).
19. It is less evident for those who relate sovereignty to some substance and for whom only actors which possess a certain wealth of competencies and powers are sovereign. In that perspective, sovereignty is incumbent upon a political entity only if it has surpassed a threshold of powers (qualitatively and quantitatively).
20. Notably Keohane, 'Political Authority after Intervention: Gradations in Sovereignty', in R. Keohane and J. Holzgrefe (eds), Humanitarian Intervention (2003), at 275-298.
21. See the references infra in note 75.
22. D. Rodin, War and Self-Defense (2002), at 119.
23. F. Guiccardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence (ed. and trans. A. Brown, 1994 (orig. around 1520)), at 14: 'I suggest that if we want to judge between different governments, we should consider not so much what type they are but their effects, calling better or less bad the government which has the better or less bad effects. For example, if someone who has usurped power rules better and to the greater benefit of his subjects than someone else who rules legitimately ['uno principe naturale'], wouldn't we say his city was better off and better goverened?'.
24. Cf. on Guiccardini J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975), at 223 and n. 9.
25. T. Hobbes, Leviathan (ed. R. Tuck, 1991), ch. XVII, at 120-121 (originally 87-88), emphasis added: 'For by this Authoritie, given him by every particular man in the Common-Wealth, he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to conforme the wills of them all, to Peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the Essence of the Commonwealth; which (to define it,) is: One person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common defence. And he that carryeth this Person, is called soveraigne, and said to have Soveraigne Power; and every one besides, his subject'. 'The obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign, is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect them': ch. 21, at 153 (originally 114), emphasis added. See also ch. 30, at 231 (originally 175).
26. J.-J. Rousseau, D u contrat social (1954 (orig. 1762)), livre II, ch. I, at 249-250.
27. M. Kriele, Einführung in die Staatslehre (5th edn, 1994), at 19.
28. In contrast to P.W. Kahn, Putting Liberalism in its Place (2005), at 13 and 20, I would insist that this legitimization must be rational, and not merely consist in 'belief' or 'faith' in the sovereign because otherwise no intersubjective understanding on the sovereign's legitimacy is possible.
29. Military and Paramilitary Activities (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, s upra note 8, at para. 263 (emphasis added); see also para. 258.
30. Crawford, supra note 13, at 107: a state may not be created in violation of a people's international right to self-determination and through unlawful use of force.
31. Ibid., at 37-95: the occasional practice of withholding recognition for considerations of legitimacy (e.g. in South America) related to the recognition of governments, not of states.
32. See on the post-1989 legitimacy-based international practice of supporting the emergence of legitimate states d'Aspremont, 'La création internationale d'Etats démocratiques', 109 RGDIP (2005) 889.
33. The international legal principle of effectiveness integrates power and control into the law. Effective control or simply actual power or practice figures as a condition for the existence of a rule or entitlement (e.g. in prescription, recognition, uti possidetis etc.). The rationale is that in the absence of a centralized international law-enforcement agency, the legal subjects must enforce their rights in a decentralized fashion, e.g. by sanctions. If they lack the power to do so, their rights remain hollow. In the long run, such a situation would undermine the international legal order as a whole.
34. Fassbender, 'Sovereignty and Constitutionalism in International Law', in N. Walker (ed.), Sovereignty in Transition (2003), at 115, 129.
35. F. Tesón, A Philosophy of International Law (1998), at 40 and 57.
36. C. Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism (1999 (repr. 2004)), at 226, also at 220.
37. Luban, 'Just War and Human Rights', 9 Philosophy and Public Affairs (1980) 160, at 169.
38. See B.R. Roth, Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law (1999).
39. C. Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity and Institutional Rationality in International Relations (1999), at 30 and 159.
40. I. Clark, Legitimacy in International Society (2005), at 160.
41. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), 'The Responsibility to Protect' (2001), available at: http://www.iciss.ca/pdf/Commission-Report.pdf.
42. See Peters, 'Le droit d'ingérence et le devoir d'ingérence: vers une responsabilité de protéger', 79 Revue de droit international et de droit comparé (2002) 290.
43. Société française pour le droit international (ed.), Colloque de Nanterre, La responsabilité de protéger (2008).
44. C. Verlage, Responsibility to Protect (2008).
45. Evans, 'The Responsibility to Protect: Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention', ASIL Proceedings, 98th annual meeting (2004), at 78, 83.
46. See also Evans, 'The Reponsibility to Protect: An Idea whose Time has Come ... and Gone?', 22 Int'l Relations (2008) 283.
47. 'We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st century', Report of 27 Mar. 2000, UN Doc. A/54/2000), ch. IV, at 48 (paras 217-219).
48. 'In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all', Report of the Secretary General of 21 Mar. 2005 (UN Doc. A/59/2005), at para. 135.
49. 'Uniting our strengths: Enhancing United Nations support for the rule of law', Report of the Secretary General of 14 Dec. 2006 (UN Doc. A/61/636-S/2006/980), at para. 6.
50. 'A more secure world: our shared responsibility', Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change of 2 Dec. 2004 (UN Doc. A759/565), sub-ch. 3: 'Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, internal threats and the responsibility to protect', at paras 199-203.
51. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, World Summit Outcome, UN Doc. A/RES/60/1 of 24 Oct. 2005, at para. 138: 'Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it.'.
52. A thematic resolution on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, while repeating in its preamble the SC's 'respect for the sovereignty of all states', confirmed in its operational part the provisions of paras 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. UN SC Res. 1706 (2006), on the conflict in Darfur, preamble para. 2, again recalled paras 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document.
53. Case concerning the application of the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), judgment of 26 February 2007, not yet reported, at paras 425-450.
54. Address of 18 Apr. 2008, available at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080418_un-visit_en.html.
55. Art. 4 lit. a) and h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union of 11 July 2002.
56. UN Doc. S/2005/833 of 30 Dec. 2005, at para. 10. The new mechanisms put under international scrutiny questions previously considered to pertain to the exclusive jurisdiction of national sovereignty, and are operational without the consent of the host country.
57. Addis Abbaba, 31 Jan. 2008, available at: www.un.org/news/press/docs/2008. The UN SG appointed Edward Luck as a Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect in Feb. 2008, to work under the overall guidance of the Special Representative for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities. Letter of SG Ban Ki-Moon (S/2007/721 of 7 Dec. 2007), and report of the SG (A/HRC/7/37 of 18 Mar. 2008), at paras 11-12.
58. Tutu, 'Taking the Repsonsibility to Protect', International Herald Tribune, 19 Feb. 2008.
59. Evans, 'The Responsibility to Protect', supra note 34, at 289.
60. See on the threshold for the responsibility to protect Decaux,' La question des seuils de déclenchement de la responsabilité en cas de violations graves des droits de l'homme', in Société française (ed), supra note 33, at 333-342.
61. See for an invocation of R2P Lellouche, 'Scandale birman: plus jamais ça!', Le Monde, 24 June 2008, at 17.
62. See for an analysis of the human rights situation in Darfur within the framework of the responsibility to protect UN Human Rights Council, Implementation of GA Res. 60/251, Report of the High-Level Mission on the situation of human rights in Darfur pursuant to HR Council decision S-4/101 ('Jody Williams report', UN Doc A/HRC/4/80 of 9 Mar. 2007). The report concludes 'that the Government of the Sudan has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from largescale international crimes, and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes. As such, the solemn obligation of the international community to exercise its responsibility to protect has become evident and urgent.' However, the steps of the international community 'have not proven adequate to in ensuring effective protection on the ground' (especially at paras 67 and 76).
63. See also UN SC Res. 1706 (2006), preamble, para. 2.
64. Bothe, 'La responsabilité de protéger en action: le contenu de l'intervention', in Société française (ed), supra note 33, at 327.
65. See for the argument that R2P does not have the status of a legal or even of a social norm Delcourt, 'La responsabilité de protéger et l'interdiction du recours à la force: entre normativité et opportunité', in Société française (ed), supra note 33, at 305, 306-308.
66. ICISS, supra note 33, para. 1.35.
67. Ibid., supra note 33, at ch. 3.
68. Supra note 20.
69. Permanent Court of Arbitration, arbitral award rendered between the United States of America and the Netherlands, relating to the arbitration of differences respecting sovereignty over the island of Palmas (or Miangas), award of 4 Apr. 1928 (M. Huber), XI RIAA 831.
70. reproduced in 1/part II Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (1929) 1, at 17 (emphasis added). Given the fact that individuals were in the pre-international human rights era completely mediated, and protected in foreign territory only by the law of aliens, the obligation to protect was in doctrinal terms owed to the state of nationality.
71. Müller, 'Wandel des Souveränitätsbegriffes im Lichte der Grundrechte', in R. Rhinow, S. Breitenmoser, and B. Ehrenzeller (eds), Fragen des internationalen und nationalen Menschenrechtsschutzes (1997), at 45, 62.
72. But see Boisson de Chazournes and Condorelli, 'De la "responsabilité de protéger", ou d'une nouvelle parure pour une notion déjà bien établie', 110 RGDIP (2006) 11, at 16.
73. Seminally App. No. 87/1997/871/1083, Osman v. United Kingdom, Reports 1998-VII, 3214, at paras 115-122.
74. On the universal level see UN Commission on Human Rights, General Comment No. 31 [80], 'Nature of t he General Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant' of 26 May 2004, at paras 6-8.
75. ICISS, supra note 33, at para. 2.15.
76. See for the responsibility of sovereign governments both externally to other sovereigns and internally to their citizens: R.H. Jackson, Quasi-states (1990), at 28.
77. See for responsibility towards the international community Myres McDougal, 'In its attitudes toward territorial communities ... such an international law [of human dignity] will, of course, respect the equality of states, ... but the equality it respects will be a genuine equality of shared power and responsibility': McDougal, 'Perspectives for an International Law of Human Dignity' (orig. 1959) in M. McDougal et al., Studies in World Public Order (1964), at 987, 1010 (emphasis added).
78. John Locke argued that 'the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people of supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative to act contrary to the trust reposed in them': J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government (ed. P. Laslett, 1960 (orig. 1690)), at 413, para. 149.
79. Hobbes, supra note 20, ch. 30, at 231: 'The office of the sovereign (be it a Monarch, or an Assembly,) consisteth in the end, for which he was entrusted with the Soveraign Power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the Law of Nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but him' (emphasis added).
80. See Art. 42 lit. b) and 48 (1) lit. a) and b) of the ILC Arts on the Responsibility of States for International Wrongful Acts of 2001, UN Doc A/CN.4/L.602, Rev.1.
81. Ibid., Art. 54 leaves the question open, as this provision allows only 'lawful' countermeasures.
82. Cohen, 'Sovereign Equality vs. Imperial Right: The Battle over the "New World Order"', 13 Constellations (2006) 485, at 486, 489, and 502.
83. Walzer, 'The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics', 9 Philosophy and Public Affairs (1980) 209, at 212 and 216: a people (or the greater part it) may accept or merely tolerate its regime, because it judges rebellion to be imprudent or uncertain of success, or because it is accustomed to it, or because it is personally loyal to its leaders.
84. Ibid., at 225.
85. Ibid., at 214.
86. See for a good discussion S. Caney, Justice Beyond Borders (2006), at 25-62.
87. Rodin, supra note 18, at 154.
88. H.J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, The Struggle for Power and Peace (ed. Kenneth W. Thompson and David Clinton, 7th edn, 2005 (orig. 1948)), at 320.
89. Peters, 'The Growth of International Law between Globalization and Great Power', 8 Austrian Rev Int'l and European L (2003) 109, at 130-135.
90. See for a powerful argument that the constitutionalization of international law inevitably requires the reconsideration of the principle of state equality Preuss, 'Equality of States - Its Meaning in a Constitutionalized Global Order', 9 Chicago J Int'l L (2008) 17.
91. Cf. P.H. Kooijmans, The Doctrine of the Legal Equality of States: An Inquiry into the Foundations of International Law (1964), at 112.
92. Cf. Feinstein and Slaughter, 'A Duty to Prevent', 83(1) Foreign Affairs 136. For example, a central concern of the international order is security and effective peace-keeping. World peace cannot be guaranteed without the support of the most powerful states. This reasoning is a valid starting point for a defence of the veto power in the Security Council (which would additionally have to be shown to be adequate and proportionate in relation to the objective of peace-keeping).
93. Such a measure could be based on an extensive reading of Art. 5 of the UN Charter allowing for the suspension of the exercise of the GA rights of member states against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken.
94. Notoriously, James Lorimer divided humanity into three concentric zones: 'civilised humanity', 'barbarous humanity', and 'savage humanity', to which three different types of recognition could be awarded, ranging from 'plenary political recognition' through 'partial political recognition' to 'mere human recognition'. 'Barbarous communities' in 'political nonage' did not have a right to recognition, but merely a right to guardianship. Lorimer also assumed that some non-European states were imbecile or criminal states and therefore unrecognizable: J. Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations (1883), i, at 101-103 and 156-162).
95. see also J.L. Klüber, Europäisches Völkerrecht (2nd edn, 1851), at 28 and 41-42.
96. A.W. Heffter, Das europäische Völkerrecht der Gegenwart (7th edn, 1881), at 111.
97. H. Wheaton, Elements of International Law (1878), ch. 18, at 44.
98. J. Westlake, International Law: Part I, Peace (1910), at 21 and 321.
99. L.F.L. Oppenheim, International Law. A Treatise (2nd edn, 1912), i, at 107-115.
100. See above section 1.
101. See A. Peters, 'Dual Democracy', ch. 6 in J. Klabbers, A. Peters, and G. Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (forthcoming 2009).
102. See on global popular sovereignty Benhabib, 'Crépuscule de la souveraineté ou émergence de normes cosmopolites?', in M. Wieviorka (ed.), Les sciences sociales en mutation (2007), at 183.
103. Jones, supra note 29, at 218 and 226.
104. Nagel, 'The Problem of Global Justice', 33 Philosophy and Public Affairs (2005) 113, at 116.
105. A vast body of research is struggling with the question whether the government's renouncement of the exercise of traditional sovereignty only functions because it takes place in the shadow of hierarchy and of state law: see A. Peters, L. Koechlin, T. Förster, and G. Fenner (eds), Non-State Actors as Standard-Setters (forthcoming 2009).
106. Kingsbury, 'Sovereignty and Inequality', 9 EJIL (1998) 599, at 624.
107. See also Alvarez, 'The Schizophrenias of R2P', 2373 ASIL Newsletter (summer 2007), 1.
108. Cohen, supra note 64, at 491.
109. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that additional war costs for the next 10 years from financial year (FY) 2009 to FY 2018 inclusive could range from $440 billion, if troop levels fell to 30,000 by 2010 to $865 billion, if troop levels fell to 75,000 by about 2013. Under these CBO projections, funding for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War On Terror could total about $1.3 trillion or about $1.7 trillion for FY 2001 to FY 2018. See Congressional Research Service, CRS Report RL 33110, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations since 9/11 (updated 15 Oct. 2008), available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf (visited on 23 Dec. 2008).
110. Vagts, 'Hegemonic International Law', 95 AJIL (2001) 843, at 845.
111. J.S. Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's only Superpower can't go it alone (2002), at 40.
112. 'The paradox of American power at the end of this millennium is that it is too great to be challenged by any other state, yet not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism and nuclear proliferation' (quoting Joffe, 'America the Inescapable', New York Times [Sunday]Magazine, 8 June 1997, at 38).
113. M. Hardt and A. Negri, Empire (2000).
114. E. Todd, Après l'Empire: Essai sur la décomposition du système américain (2002).
115. J.L. Holzgrefe, 'The Humanitarian Intervention Debate', in Keohane and Holzgrefe (eds), supra note 16, at 15, 18.
116. See supra section 1.
117. R.J. Vincent, Nonintervention and International Order (1974), at 333.
118. See for a similar conclusion, based on the insight that the idea of state autonomy is a misleading analogy to individual autonomy, Graham, 'The Justice of Intervention', 13 Rev Int'l Studies (1987) 133, at 134-135: sovereignty can be defined only in terms of the right to non-intervention, not the other way round.
119. Vincent, supra note 89, at 333.
120. But see PCIJ, The SS Lotus (France v. Turkey), PCIJ Reports Ser. A No. 10 (1927).
121. The implicit endorsement of this domestic analogy still pervades contemporary international legal thought. It has its origins in the discipline of ius natuerae et gentium, which viewed international law as the law of nature, applied to states. See on the analogy between states and individuals as one of the most decisive features of the teachings of Hugo Grotius seminally Lauterpacht, 'The Grotian Tradition of International Law', first published in 23 British Yrbk Int'l L (1946) 1.
122. here as published in E. Lauterpacht (ed.), International Law: Being the Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht (1970-1978), ii, at 307, e.g. at 336.
123. See for a nuanced treatment C. Wolff, Ius Gentium Methodo Scientifi ca pertractorum (trans. J.H. Drake, 1764), ii.
124. in J.B. Scott (ed.), The Classics of Interntational Law (1934), preface (at 5 of the translation) and paras 2-3 (at 9).
125. E. de Vattel, Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires de Nations et des Souverains (1758), i.
126. Scott (ed), supra, passim (e.g. préliminaires, para. 18; bk II, ch. III, at 285).
127. J.-J. Rousseau, Du contrat social (1954 (orig. 1762)), livre I, ch. VII, at 245: 'à l' égard de l' étranger, il [the state] devient un être simple, un individu'. Draft of Abbé Grégoire for a declaration of the rights of peoples of 23 Apr. 1793: '2. Les peuples sont respectivement indépendants et souverains, quel que soit le nombre d'individus qui les composent et l' étendue du territoire qu'ils occupent. Cette souveraineté est inaliénable. 3. Un peuple doit agir à l' égard des autres comme il désire qu'on agisse à son égard; ce qu'un homme doit à un homme, un peuple le doit aux autres'.
128. in W.G. Grewe (ed.), Fontes Historiae Iuris Gentium: Sources Relating to the History of the Law of Nations (1988), ii, at 660 (emphasis added).
129. See in later scholarship the analogical arguments in G.F. de Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l'Europe (2nd edn, 1864), i, at 37, 40-41.
130. N. Politis, The New Aspects of International Law (1928), at 8-9.
131. See seminally on the 'natural rights' of states Wolff, supra note 92, at para. 255. Wolff however realized that,' since, indeed, nations are moral persons and therefore only subject to certain rights and duties, .... their nature and essence undoubtedly differ very much from the nature and essence of indivual men as physical persons': preface, at 5.
132. F. Tesón, A Philosophy of International Law (1998), at 40, 42.
133. C. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (1979), at 81.
134. See in earlier scholarship on the responsibility of the international community e.g. Henkin, 'That's "Word: Sovereignty, and Globalization, and Human Rights, et cetera', 68 Fordham L Rev (1999) 1, at 5-6: 'If sovereignty has imploded sufficiently, so that the human community feels responsible for what goes on inside territories, we have to find ways of addressing problems occurring in other states, ways that are legally, morally, and politically acceptable'.
135. ICISS, supra note 33, esp. at paras 2.29-2.33 and 4.1.
136. This 'commmunitarian' view of international law is of course not new, and there are still numerous problems associated with it, for instance the question how the international community can be construed as a legally relevant actor to whom rights and responsibilities can be attributed.
137. Szurek, 'La responsabilité de protéger, nature de l'obligation et responsabilité internationale', in Société française (ed.), supra note 33, at 91, 134.
138. Seminally Wellens, 'Solidarity as a Constitutional Principle: Its Expanding Role and Inherent Limitations', in R. St. J. MacDonald and D.M. Johnston (eds), Towards World Constitutionalism: Issues in the Legal Ordering of the World Commmunity (2005), at 775.
139. ICISS, supra note 33, at para. 2.31.
140. See for a 'default duty' of states to take a fair share in preventing genocide in other states as a limitation of their own sovereignty to stand idly, Shue, 'Limiting Sovereignty', in J. Welsh (ed.), Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations (2004), at 11.
141. See also Schaber, 'Humanitäre Intervention als moralische Pflicht', 92 Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (2006) 295.
142. G. Meggle (ed.), Ethics of Humanitarian Interventions (2004).
143. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report. Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned (2000), at 186.
144. High Level Panel, supra note 37, at paras 207-209.
145. see also Kälin, 'Humanitäre Intervention: Legitimation durch Verfahren? Zehn Thesen zur Kosovo-Krise', 10 SZIER (2000) 159.
146. See Peters and Peter, 'Lehren vom "gerechten Krieg" aus völkerrechtlicher Sicht', in G. Kreis (ed.), Der "gerechte Krieg" (2006), at 43.
147. ICISS, supra note 33, at paras 4.25-4.26.
148. S. Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (2001), esp. at 226.
149. High Level Panel, supra note 37, at para. 203.
150. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, World Summit Outcome, supra note 38, at para. 139.
151. ICISS, supra note 33, at paras 6.27-6.28 and 6.37-6.39.
152. Since SC Res. 688 (1991) - Iraq; SC Res. 794 (1992) - Somalia.
153. Peters and Grubenmann, 'Diplomatie préventive, prévention des conflicts et réforme des Nations Unies', in J. Cardona Llorens (ed.), La ONU y el mantenimiento de la paz en el siglio XXI: Entre la adaptación y la reforma de la Carta (2008), at 29, 51-53.
154. High Level Panel, supra note 37, at paras 207-209.
155. UN Secretary General, 'In larger freedom', supra note 36, at para. 126.
156. The report continues: 'The fact that we cannot protect people everywhere is no reason for doing nothing when we can. Armed intervention must always remain the option of last resort, but in the face of mass murder it is an option that cannot be relinquished': Secretary General's millennium report 'We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st century', 27 Mar. 2000, UN Doc. A/54/2000), at para. 219 (emphasis added).
157. See on this issue notably Szurek, supra note 98, at 91.
158. This general principle of international legal responsibility has so far been codified only for the special case of the failure to perform a treaty (cf. both Arts. 27 of VCLT 1969 and 1986).
159. The fact that even grossly shocking inaction of the Security Council cannot be directly sanctioned, because the Council is merely an organ of the UN and not a international legal person which can be held liable and because no dispute settlement institution is available, furnishes an additional argument for the supporters of a legal permission of subsidiary unilateral humanitarian interventions.
160. Not only nations (the sum of the citizens of a state) and not only peoples under colonial domination, but also sub-groups within a multi-national state may qualify as a 'people'.
161. UN Commission on Human Rights, General Comment No. 12 (1984), at para. 1, available at: www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/f3c99406d528f37fc12563ed004960b4?Open document.
162. Franck, 'The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance', 86 AJIL (1992) 46, at 52 and 55.
163. Eide, 'In Search of Constructive Alternatives to Secession', in C. Tomuschat (ed.), Modern Law of Self-Determination (1993), at 139, 147: 'The right to self-determination above all is a right to democratic governance'.
164. Art. 2(1) CCPR, 999 UNTS 171; see similarly Art. 2(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, GAOR 44th Sess. Res., 8.166.
165. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinon of 9 July 2004 [2004] ICJ Rep 131, at paras 107-113 with references to the practice of the UNHRC.
166. Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), judgment of 19 December 2005, [2005] ICJ Rep 168, at para. 178.
167. In contrast to the ICJ and the UNHRC, the ECHR has been more reluctant to apply the ECHR outside the territory of Convention States (notably App. No. 52207/99, Bankovic and others v. Belgium and others, 2001-XII ECtHR 333, at paras 59-80). However, the Court based its more recent decisions in which it declined jurisdiction for acts outside the territory of a Member States not on territorial grounds, but on other considerations: see App. No. 23276/04, Saddam Hussein v. Albania and others, decision on inadmissibility of 14 Mar. 2006: inadmissibility because governmental power transferred to Iraqi authorities; App. No. 78166/01, Saramati v. France, Germany and Norway, Grand chamber decision on admissibility of 2 May 2007 (inadmissibility based on incompatibility ratione personae). In App. No. 48787/99, Ilascu v. Moldova and Russia, judgment of 8 July 2004, ECtHR 2004-VII, at paras 310-331, the Court held Moldova responsible even in the absence of effective control over the Transdniestrian region within the state of Moldova.
168. Wall, supra note 119, at para. 106.
169. Stephan, 'The New International Law - Legitimacy, Accountability, Authority, and Freedom in the New Global Order', 70 Colorado L Rev (1999) 1555, at 1570.
170. M. Loughlin, Sword and Scales, An Examination of the Relationship between Law and Politics (2000), at 202.
171. Moreover, the task of guaranteeing and coordinating the exercise of rights is not necessarily incumbent upon the state. It has already been partly transferred to other, notably international, institutions.
172. Jones, supra note 78, at 220.
173. Tomuschat, supra note 1.