ABSTRACT
The main obstacle for the kind of conception of shared sovereignty needed in sovereignty conflicts is that sovereignty, even conceived as being limited, is mainly assumed to imply a singular supreme authority. The latter had to do with the introduction of "self-ownership", its limitations, and working out in parallel the similarities with sovereignty so as to demonstrate that, even though it may accept limitations of different kinds, it does not affect its nature. Sovereignty assumes supreme authority and, for some, that means single nonshareable authority. But this chapter reviews that sovereign states accept internal and external limitations and therefore states may cooperate together, limit their freedom, and still be considered as being sovereign. In order to show this point, it deconstructs the concept of "sovereignty" by examining its subatomic or fundamental elements and reviews how a concept with similar features operates and accepts limitations without changing its nature.
