ABSTRACT
We have been examining various limits to independence. They include the familiar external curbs on the freedom of action of states that nevertheless remain in essence completely sovereign. But some limits go beyond that, and encroach on what used to be meant by independence. The walls which, in the European and the UN theory of sovereign statehood, separate independent states from each other are being breached.1 The erosion has reached the point where it offers us new ways of looking at the pressures and interests that bind our states system closer together, and at the rules and practices with which we try to manage the tightening system. And we can also discern patterns in the relations between states which are not visible if we limit ourselves to independence. This is where the cutting edge of the theory of ‘international’ relations now seems to be.2
