The Paradox Of Sovereignty And Universal Human Rights: From Absolute Authority To Responsible Stewardship
Aditi Gupta, D.E.S. Shri Navalmal Firodia Law College, Pune
Yash Pandit, Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur
ABSTRACT
This article examines the relationship between state sovereignty and universal human rights in international law. It argues that the two are better understood as mutually constitutive and continuously renegotiated than as opposing principles. Tracing sovereignty from the settlements of 1648 through decolonization and the Cold War, and testing four theoretical accounts (realism, liberal institutionalism, constructivism and organized hypocrisy) against recent practice in Myanmar, China and the war in Ukraine, the article shows that claims to sovereign immunity from scrutiny have become progressively harder to sustain in law, though they remain politically potent. It then considers the doctrinal channels through which this change has occurred: treaty consent, obligations erga omnes, individual criminal responsibility and the Responsibility to Protect. Postcolonial and cultural relativist critiques are addressed, as is the claim that sovereignty is obsolete, together with the pressures that climate displacement and transnational artificial intelligence place on territorial authority. The article closes by proposing a model of “stewardship sovereignty,” which is consent- based, legitimacy-driven, relational and accountability-oriented, and by examining the objections to which that model is exposed, including the charge that stewardship language revives colonial trusteeship.
Keywords: Human Rights; Sovereignty; Stewardship Sovereignty; Responsibility to Protect; Erga Omnes; International Law.
