ABSTRACT
The traditional idea of sovereignty as autonomy, or freedom from external interference, faces a serious challenge in the idea of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’. This new doctrine holds that state sovereignty cannot be restricted to inviolable legal authority. Rather, sovereignty must be extended to embrace not only authority, but also a two-fold ‘responsibility to protect’, as it is called in the official literature.1 The first responsibility of the state is to protect the welfare of the citizens that fall within its jurisdiction. The second responsibility is to the wider society of states. The state is also responsible for preventing human suffering within its borders from spilling over into threatening ‘international peace and security’, in the words of the United Nations (UN) Charter. This framework of overlapping obligations is held to derive from the UN Charter itself. David Chandler summarizes the new doctrine thus: ‘In brief, the three traditional characteristics of a state . . . (territory, authority, and population) have been supplemented by a fourth, respect for human rights.’2 If a sovereign state is unwilling to uphold these obligations to either its internal or external constituency, or even if a state is merely unable to do so, then its authority is forfeit. In such a scenario, the doctrine of sovereignty as responsibility holds that the UN, and even states acting outside the UN’s authority, have the duty to alleviate human suffering however they can.
