Sovereignty

Sovereignty is a concept of International Law, which is;

... the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors.Malcolm Shaw; International Law
Malcolm Shaw; International Law

And generally, international law is law between states¹ ², so what are states? The agreed upon definition is from Montevideo Convention of 1933 where Article 1 states;

ARTICLE 1
The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
Harvard H2O Course Builder for Law; Montevideo Convention of 1933 & UN Articles on Responsibility of States (2001)

But while the footnote lays out that international law has a broad application, Sovereignty does not. Sovereignty is an OLD concept whereby a person has the ability to exercise power within a given geographic area and the people within it. This is to say that a King, Queen, Emperor, Consul, Kaiser, Tsar, etc has the ability to govern their Kingdom, Empire, Colony, Territory, etc etc. This idea is quite old and is widely regarded to have been superseded by the Montevideo Convention of 1933 where Article 3 Law things out as;

ARTICLE 3
The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. Even before recognition the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence, to provide for its conservation and prosperity, and consequently to organize itself as it sees fit, to legislate upon its interests, administer its services, and to define the jurisdiction and competence of its courts.

The exercise of these rights has no other limitation than the exercise of the rights of other states according to international law.
Harvard H2O Course Builder for Law; Montevideo Convention of 1933 & UN Articles on Responsibility of States (2001)

So what does this mean? Generally, people tend to think in terms of state violence where a state has the ability to force certain ends upon a population within a geographic area, but a better way of thinking about which is that Sovereignty is what the Convention itself has to say, it is about Jurisdiction. It is about the ability to create and enforce laws within its borders. This applies to Democracies as well as it does to Dictatorships or Absolute Monarchies, Totalitarian Stalinist regimes or Libertarian utopias³. The difference of course is where the source of Sovereignty comes from. In Democratic States, the power comes from the People of that state, in Monarchies the Monarch, sometimes even called The Sovereign, is the source of power, this goes too for Dictatorships etc.

So in practice, what does this look like? The easiest way I can think of to consider this is to look at a state like Ireland. Ireland is a Constitutional Republic which means that there is a Founding Document, Bunreacht na hEireann, which lays out a set of rules for how to govern the state. It allows the people of Ireland to choose a Representative Government, the Irish Government, which has the power to write laws, though An Dáil Éireann, enforce said laws, though An Garda Síochána, and adjudicate on the application of the laws fairly, though The Courts Service of Ireland.

We also exist in the European Union, which is a second Sovereign area, though a supranational one, and because it is a union of states, it's a little different and done through International Law. So the European Union can write laws with the European Parliament, enforce them through petitions to the European Court of Justice within the jurisdiction of the European Union.

So What Has This To Do With Ukraine?

Well if we are to bring together the various strands which I have laid out above, we all agree that Ukraine is a State as defined by Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention of 1933, as it has;

  1. A permanent population, we call them Ukrainians;
  2. A defined territory, the geographic area of Ukraine;
  3. A government, The Government of Ukraine and;
  4. The capacity to enter into relations with the other states, which it's doing a lot of that by making phone calls etc.

If we accept that Ukraine is a State under Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention of 1933, then we must accept Article 3 which means that Ukraine is;

  1. Has the right to defend its integrity and independence, which it does via the Armed Forces of Ukraine;
  2. To provide for its conservation and prosperity, which it does via sustaining its economy, and;
  3. To organize itself as it sees fit, to legislate upon its interests, administer its services, and to define the jurisdiction and competence of its courts.

Now, number 3 is the major sticking point in this. To legislate upon its interests. What this means is that regardless of what Vladimir Putin seems to think, he is not the Government of Ukraine and thus does not have the ability to legislate upon its interests. But this is what he is doing. Article 5 of the Ukrainian Constitution lays out that Ukraine, like Ireland, is a Constitutional Republic and Article 1 states that Ukraine is a sovereign and independent, democratic, social, law-based state.

This being the case, there is a Founding Document, the Constitution of Ukraine, which lays out a set of rules for how to govern the state. It allows the people of Ukraine to choose a Representative Government (Article 5), the Government of Ukraine, which has the power to write laws (Sections 5 and 6), though the Verkhovna Rada (Section 4), enforce said laws, though National Police of Ukraine (Section 8), and adjudicate on the application of the laws fairly, though The Ukrainian Judiciary (Section 8). Remarkably similar to Ireland now that I think about it...

In short, what Putin is asking to do, in making sure that Ukraine is never able to exercise its Sovereign Rights, by their choosing to join NATO, is to reduce Ukraine to something less than a State. A Puppet or a Client State if you will.

Footnotes

  1. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Nürnberg Charter give certain rights and responsibilities to individuals such as myself under international law such that you can be responsible for say... War Crimes... But also that you have enshrined in law that, in theory at least, supersedes national law by signing such a treaty, that you have a right to life, to not be a slave and to freedom
  2. There is the concept of Subjects of International Law more generally where such Subjects are limited to States, Entities Legally Proximate to States, Entities Recognized as Belligerents, International Administration of Territories Prior to Independence, and International Organizations, but in some cases, this can extend to Beyond this, Individuals, Corporations, Non-Self-Governing Peoples, and Entities Sui Generis in specific situations, such as Human Rights, Trade Law, National Liberation Movements, and the Roman Catholic Church. It's complex...
    Crawford, J. R., 2012. Brownlie's Principles of Public International Law. 8th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.115-126. for more
  3. There is of course... Anarchism but... That's a whole other kettle of fish that I'm just not getting into right now...