Sovereignty in the 21st Century

Last week, newspapers across the country disclosed that in 2004, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld secretly authorized a policy that allowed the United States to pursue and attack al Qaeda and other terrorists in any sovereign state, even if they were not at war with the US. So far, it appears the recent cross-border operations conducted in Syria and Pakistan may have quite the precedent, and the New York Times reported that these types of actions may have extended to “other” countries, including Somalia.

After reading about this policy, what interested me more than the Bush administration’s justifications for breeching the sovereignty of other nations were the public’s comments. Responses ranged from exuberant support to outright abhorrence. A number of people were furious at the administration, drawing parallels with the Patriot Act’s violations of civil liberties, and calling these attacks the illegal operations of war criminals. On the other side of the debate, many people commented that this is what any president would have done, as it is just part of being at war and protecting America. Many other comments criticized the media’s choice to print these articles, noting that it undermines our war strategy and Obama’s future diplomatic capabilities.

While scrolling through what people had written, I tried to figure out where I stood on this issue. At first, I assumed I would side with those calling these acts illegal—all states have the same claim to sovereignty under international law! But then I realized my own hypocrisy: I have frequently argued that Sudan has little right to tout its sovereignty as a means of continuing the genocide (by claiming it is an internal matter), and I have no qualms about breeching that sovereignty in order to stop the violence. In my mind, some states just commit such egregious acts that they no longer deserve recognition as a legitimate state. But where did this leave me? Sometimes states are sovereign and sometimes they are not, with the difference depending on whether I think they are committing war crimes? That didn’t seem like a very good conclusion.

And then I wondered, is sovereignty really a moot concept in the contemporary world? The United States clearly seems to interpret it in ways that best serve our interests: it is irrelevant in the War on Terror, but it keeps us from doing anything meaningful in Darfur and from abiding by some international environmental treaties. What I began wondering was not whether state sovereignty really means anything more than the interpretation by the most powerful states, but how this international norm would serve the global community in the decades to come. As we destroy the environment and warm the globe, many other regions are likely to degenerate into Darfur-like conflicts over resources. Should states have the right to pollute as much as they want? And if the answer is no, how would it be enforced? If asymmetrical conflict between state and non-state actors proliferates, how does state A’s sovereignty factor into State B’s need to declare war on a group of people harbored within state A’s boundaries? Are multinational corporations beholden to states, or might it increasingly be the other way around? Do states have a right to bar journalists from entering into their country on the grounds of national security? What about humanitarian aid organizations? Will sovereignty continue to be a de jure reality, while its de facto status rests on interpretation?

We cannot forget that the concept of state sovereignty really only dates back to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, and is not a given in all political thought. And we should also remember that most national borders were carved on a map by distant colonial powers, and truly reflect arbitrary divisions.

If not sovereign states anymore, then what? How sovereignty is defined will either facilitate or hinder attempts to solve the spectrum of global, regional, or inter-state conflicts now and in the future. And it will impact the ability of a country to pursue foreign policies that concomitantly serve the national interest while not being hypocritical. These are really tricky questions without clear-cut answers, but I think they raise pressing issues we should all consider, especially as the new Obama administration takes office.