Toward a Realistic Moral Theory of State Sovereignty

Abstract:     
Many liberal cosmopolitans are prone to argue that the fundamental moral importance of human rights is sufficient to justify armed intervention in sovereign states in cases of grave human rights violations. I agree that we have a fundamental duty to prevent human rights from being violated. But I am disturbed by the conclusion that this duty justifies armed intervention. Instead, we should exhaust all options before committing to a policy of armed intervention. A promising option here is to look for ways to reform the institution of state sovereignty, which often shields human rights violators behind national borders. What we need is a sovereignty institution that makes sovereignty safer for human rights.

I propose to lay the groundwork for the task of constructing a moral theory of sovereignty that is realistic enough to ground a practicable strategy for making sovereignty safer for human rights. The paper is divided into three parts. Part 1 considers the role of non-ideal theorizing in political philosophy and delineates the conditions such a theory must meet to count as thoroughly non-ideal. Part 2 examines Allen Buchanan's account of recognitional legitimacy - which is among the most promising non-ideal proposals to reform the sovereignty institution - and shows that it is ultimately too unrealistic to provide a practicable strategy for making sovereignty safer for human rights. Part 3 provides a preliminary framework for a positive non-ideal theory of sovereignty by outlining some of the important considerations such a theory must take into account if it is to ground a viable plan for reforming the sovereignty institution. My general conclusion is that non-ideal moral theorizing about sovereignty is limited to proposing ways to reform the sovereignty institution that restructure political relationships so that the interests of political leaders become aligned with the protection of individuals' human rights.

Keywords: sovereignty, human rights, international relations, non-ideal theory

Working Paper Series