Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order:

A New Sovereignty?

by

Kurt Mills, Ph.D.

Published by Macmillan (UK) ISBN 0-333-72127-6 and St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-21468-5.

Abstract

This book examines how the concept of sovereignty is changing as a result of normative, empirical, and institutional developments. From a normative political theory perspective it argues that respect for human rights, popular sovereignty, and self-determination are inherent in the social purpose of the state and thus must be considered when evaluating claims to sovereignty and non-intervention. Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order examines how recent international practice in the areas of human rights, self-determination, refugees and human migration, and humanitarian intervention are challenging traditional conceptions of sovereignty in important, yet ambiguous, ways. Finally, it provides policy prescriptions to deal with these continuing humanitarian problems. The book concludes that the concept of sovereignty is changing, albeit in ambiguous ways, and argues that we need a more fluid notion of sovereignty that recognizes the partial, multiple and overlapping centers and levels of authority and power which are developing in the emerging global order.

 

Book Reviews

 

 

Contents


Preface

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1: Reconstructing Sovereignty

    The Concept of Sovereignty
    A Postmodern Perspective
    Undermining Sovereignty
    International Law
    Subnational and Transnational Actors
    Changing Functions and Dynamics of the State
    Human Rights
    The New Sovereignty

Chapter 2: The Quest for Community: Internal Challenges to Sovereignty

    Whose Identity?
    Communal Conflict in Theory and Practice
    Self-Determination As A Legal Norm
    Self-Determination As A Moral Principle
    Human Rights and Self-Determination
    Self-Determination in Practice
    Self-Determination and Sovereignty

Chapter 3: Permeable Borders: Human Migration

    Crossing Borders
    The Forcibly Displaced
    Controlling Borders?
    International Law and Institutional Frameworks
    The Internally Displaced
    The Morality of Borders
    Open Borders
    Admitting the Other
    Human Migration and Sovereignty

Chapter 4: Humanitarian Access and Intervention

    Access and Intervention
    Intervention: The Legal Framework
    Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention
    Regional and Global Intervention
    Humanitarian Access
    Moral Issues
    Criteria for Humanitarian Access and Intervention
    Access, Intervention, and the New Sovereignty

Chapter 5: The Institutional Foundations of the New Sovereignty

    Self-Determination
    Displacement
    Access and Intervention
    Institutional Innovation and Sovereignty

Chapter 6: Concluding Observations on the New Sovereignty

Bibliography

Index