Kill your own citizens if you can do extreme things

○ Kill your own citizens
○ If you can do extreme things in your state without repercussion, then you are a
sovereign state
○ The U.S.? Yes. capital punishment.
■ Pretend the U.S. decide to drop nuclear weapon to new jersey, what
would be the international reaction?
■ Nothing
■ Reciprocity - they all agree that you own your own people
● How did it all start up?
○ It’s a new idea
■ 3-4 hundred years history
○ Monarchy was the past
○ Individual people own sovereign power, which is reinforced by god
○ Handed down by pope or priest
○ Divine right of kings
○ If you can claim the ultimate power(god) supports you, there’s no other question
○ Sovereignty has changed rapidly
■ Shift 1 - rule over peoples to rule over place
● Europeans were fighting each other constantly
● So they drew lines to separate each other
● This whole concept is nation-state
■ Shift 2 - shift from individuals to people holding the power
● At the same time, there is a shift away from individual to the
people themselves over the sovereignty
● People have power over themselves
● They are like government
● The european were the power over the world, so their system was
implemented around the world
○ But the only true power is defendability

■ Based on raw power
■ Exception to the rule: you can have strong ally like serbia had russia
■ But, even this is changed in the last 60 years, due to international
institutions, mostly the united nations
■ Shift 3 - defendability to recognition
■ How to do that?
● The united nations
● To become a sovereign state in today’s world, simply get a
resolution recognized by the united nations
● Like Grenada, Palau, Vatican city
● Some places will never be a sovereign state
○ UN permanent security council
○ A group of 5 countries
■ US
■ UK
■ Chinakond they all recognize each other, so that there aren’t any more
reasons to fight unless they refuse to recognize sovereignty
● Examples like saddam hussein, former president of Iraq when he invaded Kuwait, a
sovereign state 1991
○ The united states in particular
○ The world agreed that he violated the rules
● But the rules also undoing the concept of sovereignty itself, like managing conduct of the
ruler to the people in the states, protection of human rights
○ War crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression, genocide
● Why?
○ 20th century was the worst century, people could see this. The holocaust by
Nazi. 6 million jews were killed. Japanese cruelty in china, vietnam and
philippines.
○ The world said this can never happen again
○ 1945 UN charter said this can’t happen
● Genocide is further strengthened by the UN law
○ If it occurs, then the UN will be forced to stop it
● It did serious damage to the sovereignty standard
○ For the last couple decades
○ Because of the united states
○ Bill Clinton: reshaping the concept of sovereignty
■ 1994 Rwandan Genocide (in Africa)
■ UN was terrified
■ The united states and UN said it’s a random acts of genocide
■ 1995 yugoslavia, the Serbs were conducting acts of genocide in Bosnia
■ The U.S. said it can’t happen
■ The U.S. and the NATO intervene in Bosnia in 1995
■ 1999 US and NATO intervene Serbia, stopped Slobodan Milosevic,
former Serbian President from conducting genocide in Kosovo
○ Bush:
■