The myth of the sovereign state

Publish date 13-11-2022

by Edoardo Greppi

In these dramatic months, in which the specter of war has reappeared in Europe as a result of Russia’s mad armed aggression against Ukraine, the issues of international peace and security have returned to the fore.

In the preamble of the UN Charter the states had solemnly declared that they were "determined to save future generations from the scourge of war, which twice in the course of this generation has brought unspeakable afflictions to humanity" . We are the future generations of that 1945.
Two terrible wars that we call world, but which broke out in Europe, led to seek solutions in terms of the commitments of the states, that is, of the governments. The guiding idea was that peace could only be guaranteed by prohibiting the use of war. Doing so, however, touched the heart of the problem.
Until then, in fact, war was not only considered lawful, but was even understood as one of the elements characterizing the sovereignty of the state.

The sovereign state - at least from the dawn of the modern age - was conceived as the holder of the fullness of powers: rex, Superiorem non recognoscens, in Regno sua est imperator. The king in his reign is an emperor, precisely because he does not recognize a higher authority. In relations with other sovereign entities, he can deploy all the tools he wants, from peaceful ones, such as agreements and diplomatic relations, to those of "self-defense", such as reprisals and war.
In the UN Charter, the States have assumed the commitment ("must", states art. 2 par. 4) to "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force, whether against territorial integrity or the political independence of any state, whether in any other way incompatible with the purposes of the United Nations ”. Only two exceptions were allowed: self-defense and the force necessary for the UN itself to create a "collective security system", managed by the Security Council. However, the international community remained and remains a society of sovereign states. The first affirmation we find in the Charter, in fact, is that "the Organization is founded on the principle of the sovereign equality" of States.

The heart of the problem is therefore this: the international community remains firmly anchored to the principle of state sovereignty; it is a "horizontal" society, in the sense that the states are placed on an equal footing with each other, and there is no higher authority. There is no world parliament that sets the laws; there is no government that ensures its application and execution; there is no court to which states must necessarily submit. The rules are those that the States themselves establish and undertake to respect (essentially the treaties); their application must be guaranteed by the States themselves; an international court has jurisdiction over disputes only if states declare they accept it (as in arbitration).

In practice, in the life of international relations, all this has serious consequences. The sovereign state tends to cultivate this myth of sovereignty. In recent years, in Europe we have witnessed the rise and growth of parties that declare themselves "sovereign". History teaches that the claim of full internal sovereignty is accompanied sooner or later by aggressive foreign policies. The step from "sovereignty" to "nationalism" is short. The great French writer Romain Gary, author of the beautiful novel European Education, wrote: «A patriot is someone who loves his country. A nationalist is he who despises the country of others ». And nationalism often leads to war.
The myth of the sovereign state rests on the principle that respect for the "reserved domain of the state", that is the sphere of sovereignty, is accompanied by the prohibition of intervention, of interference by other states. The sovereignty of the state is protected by its borders.

In a beautiful and prophetic article, published on January 3, 1945 in The liberal Risorgimento , Luigi Einaudi pointed to the danger: "the myth of the sovereign state means, is synonymous with war" . This article recalled the letter that Einaudi had written on January 5, 1918 to Luigi Albertini, director of Corriere della sera, with heavy criticism of the League of Nations project (the progenitor of the UN), precisely because it was understood as an organization of sovereign states.

Einaudi's questions (from a century ago!) are very topical. Is sovereignty still an acceptable principle in the contemporary world? Are the borders of the States adequate tools in the face of the global challenges of the contemporary world? Economic globalization, the migrations of tens of millions of people, international terrorism, transnational crime, the problems of environmental and climate degradation, the internet and planetary communication, pandemics, are challenges that can be adequately addressed by a international society that takes refuge in the myth of the sovereign state?
Therefore, Einaudi's warning remains extraordinarily current: wars will disappear "on the day in which the unclean idol of the sovereign state is forever dispelled from the hearts and minds of men".


Edoardo Greppi
NP August / September 2022


At the link http://www.iisf.it/discorsi/einaudi/mito_s_s.htm it is possible to read the article by Luigi Einaudi published on January 3, 1945 in Il risorgimento liberale.

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