ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the principles that underlie the concepts of state sovereignty and intervention. The Kantian thesis challenges the widely held view that states, not individuals, are the basic subjects of international law and relations and that state sovereignty is the basis upon which international law properly rests. The chapter investigates when the infringement of sovereignty is justified from the standpoint of the Kantian thesis. The Kantian thesis differs from communitarian Realism, even though they may prescribe the same course of action. Realists see the task of the science of international relations as the study of the interactions of different national interests and the cooperative or confrontational situations those interactions generate. The chapter discusses three modern versions of statism: the view that sovereignty is grounded in the nature of international relations; the view that national sovereignty is a necessary condition for the realization of individual human rights; and the view that are still opaque in the international arena.
