THE CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND LESSONS FOR NIGERIA
THE CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND LESSONS FOR NIGERIA
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Date
2009-07
Authors
FRANCIS, ADASU AONDOWASE
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Abstract
New trends and innovations in modern communications and commerce
have dealt a great blow on the political boundaries of states otherwise
referred to as Sovereignty. Sovereign equality presupposes that each
state enjoys the rights inherent in full sovereignty. This seems to be the
basic principle of international law equally recognized by the United
Nations. Sovereignty is the central pillar of the contemporary international
system. No wonder, within the United Nations (UN) itself, sovereignty is
not regarded as an obstacle to the maintenance of peace or the protection
of human dignity.
The lowest common denominator envisaged by this opening
paragraph is that sovereignty is the basic principle of relations between
states thus promoting non intervention, sovereign equality, inviolability of
frontiers and the possibility of peaceful change. There is no doubt that,
while respect has been accorded independent states particularly in the
area of non intervention in their domestic affairs, new issues have
continued to emerge in international law and that is the area of human
rights protection. Thus human rights has made a significant impact on
international law.
More recently, allegations of the possession of weapons of mass
destruction, protection of democracy amongst others have variously been
listed as grounds upon which the sovereignty of a state was tempered
with. These new issues have no closed category and have variously
threatened emerging states of its survival as this concept no longer
possesses the limitations which it earlier had. More also civil unrest’s and
factional fighting as in the case of Liberia, Sierra – Leone etc equally
affected their sovereign status at the height of those crisis which
necessitated the intervention of Economic Community of West African
States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) at that time led by Nigeria to stop the
senseless killings in those countries.
There exist several Literatures on international law dealing with this
subject matter. Attempt however have been made to deal with this subject
matter as well as to highlight the Nigerian experiment and the growing
danger on the limitations accorded this concept.
In view of the foregoing, an attempt has been made by this research
work to highlight these problems and make recommendations by
categorizing the thesis into seven chapters.
Chapter one forms the introductory part of the thesis. It consists of
the statement of the problem, scope of the research, aims and objectives,
literature review, research methodology, organizational layout and finally
justification as to the benefits of this research to the public.
Chapter two basically touches on the concept of statehood. It begins
with the definition of state as viewed from international law perspectives on
the subject matter. It proceeds to evaluate the philosophies of the state
and went further to identify the attributes of statehood premised on
population, territory, government as well as capacity to enter into relations
with other states. The chapter finally examines the doctrine of recognition
of states as practiced by different entities.
Chapter three, though closely connected with chapter two however
moves further to examine the meaning and development of the concept of
sovereignty. Other issues associated with sovereignty such as
independence has equally been considered. This chapter further highlights
the limits of independence by exposing such issues like science and
technology, economics, politics, poverty as well as the role of International
Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Paris and London clubs of creditors in
touching the independence of states.
Chapter four, which is basically theoretical and represents the views
of lawyers and academicians both from the West and their African counter
parts examines the role of sovereignty in the contemporal world order. The
chapter touches basically the doctrine and role of sovereignty,
international instruments recognizing sovereignty, arguments in defence
and against the usefulness of sovereignty. This theoretical component
further highlights the problems in this field of research as viewed from
different perspectives.
Chapter five is based on the factors rendering the concept of
sovereignty nugatory. Such diminishing issues which have continued to be
check on the doctrine of sovereignty have been considered. Issues such
as self-determination, intervention, human rights, International
Humanitarian Law as well as states incapable of guaranteeing security,
law and order have been highlighted. The treaty obligation of states as
well as the numerous exceptions to the doctrine of non-intervention have
equally been expoused.
Chapter six brings us to the examination of state sovereignty, with
special emphasis on Nigeria. Here, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Republics were
scrutinized. Further examined in this chapter are the military regimes of
1965 – 1979, the Nigerian civil War and the military regimes of 1983 –
1999. Other issues such as military coups and democracy in Nigeria as
well as ECOMOGs intervention in Liberia and Sierra – Leone have been
considered. These issues touch on several aspects of sovereignty as it
affects Nigeria and other West African countries traumatized by civil
unrests.
Chapter seven concludes the thesis work by summarizing the major
issues discussed in the previous chapters as well as raising observations
and making recommendations on the subject matter.
Description
BEING A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE
SCHOOL, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF
THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF LAWS (LL. M.).
Keywords
CONCEPT,, SOVEREIGNTY,, INTERNATIONAL LAW,, ISSUES,, CHALLENGES,, LESSONS,, NIGERIA