Rethinking the Concept of Sovereignty in Light of the Responsibility to Protect Principle

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and subsequent human rights agreements and programs, cooperation in the field of human rights has steadily expanded (United Nations, 1948). It is evident that the end of the Cold War and the expansion of globalization processes facilitated opportunities for states and other actors to consolidate their efforts in addressing a wide range of global concerns, including human rights. During the 1990s, a renewed international commitment emerged, which by the end of that decade was, to some extent, referred to as the “age of human rights.” Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, contemporary human rights policies seek to prevent stagnation in the development of relevant actors and related issues. Seventy years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the international community and approximately thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the present moment provides an appropriate opportunity to reassess achievements in the field of human rights and to reflect upon the remaining challenges and emerging opportunities. The present study seeks to contribute to the broader discourse on the relationship between national sovereignty and human rights in the contemporary world. This dissertation carefully examines the dynamic interaction between national sovereignty and human rights. The contentious nature of these issues arises from the fact that they require states to increasingly relinquish their traditional sovereign privileges in matters relating to human rights; alternatively, these processes are increasingly driven by non-state actors; or simply because such developments, taken together, tend to marginalize national governments. Specifically, national governments continue to seek to maintain their position as primary actors in this process; however, as analyzed in the present study, traditional national sovereignty is undergoing erosion and transformation, while the role of non-state actors has expanded significantly. In order to fully and effectively protect human rights under contemporary conditions, emphasis must be placed on the process of establishing a supranational system and, to some extent, a form of global governance, since state sovereignty has frequently served—and continues to serve—as a pretext for impunity in relation to crimes against humanity and systematic violations of human rights.