The object of this thesis is to consider the relationship between sovereignty and responsibility and to examine how this relationship has developed over time. There is a conventional story told by many scholars of International Relations which holds that sovereignty has ‘traditionally’ entailed the absence of responsibility and accountability. It has meant that states have a right to govern themselves however they choose, free from outside interference. Only in recent years, the tale goes, have the indefeasible rights that sovereigns have long enjoyed been challenged by notions that sovereigns are responsible and accountable for the protection of their populations. Ideas of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ and ‘the responsibility to protect’ which have emerged since the end of the Cold War are framed as radical departures from the way in which sovereignty has been ‘traditionally’ understood. This thesis challenges this conventional account of the history of sovereignty. It argues that the notion that sovereignty entails responsibilities is not new. Rather, responsibilities have been an enduring feature of the social and historical construction of sovereignty. The thesis demonstrates that sovereignty has been understood to involve varied and evolving responsibilities since it was first articulated in early modern Europe and it traces the historical development of the particular tension between the right of sovereign states to be self-governing and free from outside interference and their responsibility to secure the safety of their populations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/282388 |
| Creators | Luke Glanville |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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