ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that by linking sovereignty to the power to decide on the “state of exception,” German legal theorist Carl Schmitt reverses the sequence of the origins and exercise of sovereignty in democratic governments and, thus, confounds the categories of legislative and executive power. By ignoring the separation of powers and the rule of law, Schmitt frees a sovereign decision from any dependence on norms, making it absolute. Köchler’s argument is that Schmitt’s absolutist notion of sovereignty has been most apparent in the international domain, specifically in the institutional framework regulating relations between sovereign states: the United Nations Charter. The Council’s decisions are binding upon all member states, and its resolutions on coercive measures are without the possibility of judicial review. Thus, to Köchler, the UN Security Council’s permanent members are the Schmittian ruler par excellence.
