ABSTRACT
Progressive versions of sovereignty were based on the rivalry of natural law and human individual rights versus divine sovereignty now vested in the state, but, in cases of dispute, always allowing the concern with individual liberties to trump concerns state security. These three towers, individual sovereignty at one end, state sovereignty at the other, both mediated by national sovereignty in the middle, with their respective concerns individual rights and obligations, state rights and obligations, and national rights and obligations, are three different towers. The opponents of the primacy of state sovereignty make their argument on the premise of the primacy of individual sovereignty and a theory of natural rights. Whatever powers the individual surrendered to the state, that individual never surrendered his or her natural or universal rights. State may have been a necessary tool to gather and collect coercive power to protect, but the protection of individual sovereignty was always prior.
