When you have a court made up of the victors in the war, charging the leaders of the losing side with things that hadn’t been internationally prosecuted before that (waging aggressive war and committing genocide), when one of the countries itself passing judgement on the defendants had itself waged aggressive war and committed genocide in that same time period (the Soviet Union), how is that not “victor’s justice”?
Don’t get me wrong. The Nazi leadership were evil fuckers who very much deserved their fates, but they only got those fates because they lost the war and the winners decided that was how they were going to be punished.
I’m surprised that no one (except post #31 in passing) has yet mentioned extradition. When I saw the title of this thread, extradition was the first thing I thought of.
A person who is wanted by another state happens to be within our border right now. That means we have first dibs on him, and no one else has the right to enter our borders to take him. We don’t even have to give him up if we choose not to, and we could just as well choose to grant him asylum and sanctuary. — Sounds like a pretty strong example of sovereignty to me!
Unlike the American constitutional theory, the provinces in Canada are not considered to have delegated powers to the federal government. Rather, the federal government and the provinces both derive their authority from the same source, the Constitution of Canada.
Unlike the US model, the Canadian Constitution has three lists of powers: the list of exclusive federal powers (Constitution Act, 1867, s. 91, s. 94, and s. 94A); the list of exclusive provincial powers (s. 92, s. 92A, s. 93, and s. 93A), and the list of concurrent federal and provincial powers (s. 95).
The existence, powers, and territorial limits of the provinces are entrenched in the Constitution, as are the existence and powers of the federal government. To change those allocations would require joint action by both the provinces and the federal Parliament under the constitutional amendment process. The provinces cannot reduce the powers of the federal Parliament without the consent of the Parliament, and vice versa: Parliament cannot reduce the powers of the Provinces without the consent of the provinces, through the amending process.
The model for our system is primarily exclusive jurisdiction. If something is on the list of exclusive provincial powers, the federal Parliament cannot legislate in that area, and vice versa - if something is on the list of federal powers, the provinces cannot legislate in that area. Within their assigned areas, both levels of government are sovereign legislatures.
Does the international community recognize those governments as representing sovereign countries? More simply, do any of them claim their governments represent a sovereign nation-state?
This isn’t my “scheme,” by the way. I’m describing what every political science student is taught in the first week of studying international relations.
As far as Taiwan and the Knights of Malta, Taiwan is currently a complex case. It is not generally recognized as a country, despite it walking, talking, and quacking like a country. I’m unaware of the Knights of Malta being a governmental organization that has a recognizable claim on land, population, and a functioning recognized government. If you’re talking about Malta, it has been independent since 1964, is a full member of the UN, the EU, and other international bodies, and exchanges ambassadors with countries including the US. I can’t imagine why Malta wouldn’t be a country.
Seriously, though, if folks want to play “is this a country,” perhaps take it to a different GQ thread? These questions really have nothing to do with the OP.
And I would ask if it’s not rather that independence is an *expression of *sovereignty. I’ll defer to those with access to Law Libraries on vetting dictionary.com’s take.
Of course, for the overwhelming majority of the nation-states of the world, only actual independence made sovereignty operational – the 13 colonies after all did not publish something styled “declaration of sovereignty” but rather “declaration of independence”.
The better answer may be that given by other posters, that what is meant by “sovereignty” as a Term of (American) Law when referring to the several states and the Union, involves something similar and overlapping with, but not exactly the same, as “sovereignty” when used in reference to independent nation-states in I.L. The base notion remains, that US States are not mere administrative subdivisions existing at the sufferance of the Federal Government and subservient to it, and that the sovereign powers are distributed into spheres respectively reserved to ones and assigned to the other, that can’t be altered save by the amendment process, which requires 38 of the states’ own consent.
What about them? England, Wales and Scotland are not sovereign states in any sense. All authority derives from the monarch (okay, the Parliament of the United Kingdom). Like municipal governments, the UK Parliament can theoretically dissolve the Welsh Assembly or Scottish Parliament whenever it wants and carry out their functions directly. Any nominal independence is a function of tradition, not sovereignty.
I know they’re not sovereign states. Ravenman was speaking of “countries,” and saying the definition of “country” was black and white. I think it’s pretty clear that Scotland is a country, although it’s not a sovereign state.
To clarify my use of terms, I was using the word “country” as interchangeable with the term “state” as in “nation-state.” The reason I substituted the word “country” for “state” several times was to avoid confusion between a state meaning an international actor as opposed to a state meaning a US constituent government or territory.
It should be clear by the context that I was talking about countries in terms of sovereignty. In using the term country, I suppose I should warn people that I also am not referring to non-urban areas to avoid further confusion.
Not necessarily. A government that does not have a power to tax and collect taxes directly is almost be definition not a sovereign. Governments need money to operate; if they cannot independently gather money, but are dependent on some other government for money, their powers are circumscribed.
That was one of the major defects in the Articles of Confederation: the Congress had no direct taxation power, but could only request levies from the state governments, who in practice were able to ignore that request. That meant that while the United States as a whole were sovereign, the Congress was not an independent sovereign body - sovereignty rested with the states.
No, this isn’t accurate. While the Queen is sovereign in the literal sense of being the Queen, the authority of government is vested in the Parliament, composed of the Commons, Lords, and the Queen. The Parliament is the supreme legislative body, and all laws are enacted by the Parliament. That’s what the phrase “parliamentary supremacy” means - that the Parliament is the supreme law-maker. As a general rule, the Queen does not have any independent legislative powers.
Well, yeah, but the Articles of Confederation were an almost uniquely half-witted founding document. The central government didn’t really have any lawmaking power, either.
No, it isn’t pretty clear at all. In fact, it’s a surprising concept for anybody who isn’t British and accustomed to the idea. When people think “country” they usually have in mind an independant entity, and are unlikely to know that within the UK, Scotland is said to be a country.
In any case, only the UK is a subject of international law. Subdivisions of it are totally irrelevant (as are subdivisions of the USA). If, say, an international dispute is being settled, by the ICJ, saying “that has been done by one of our states/provinces/countries/villages, and according to our constitution there’s nothing we can do about it” isn’t a valid position.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
Can the Queen dissolve Parliament?
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Sure - but that’s a different function, an executive one. I was responding to the suggestion that Parliament can only act in the Queen’s name and has no independent authority - that is incorrect.
As well, as Polycarp notes, she only does it on the advice of the PM.
I stand corrected. Thank you. I had thought that the whole concept of requesting extradition means that the other state could say “no”.
I had totally forgotten the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2, which was quoted there. I guess I was confusing extradition between the States with extradition requests between other countries, which does frequently appear in the news as being denied.
I think implicit in the title of this thread is the assumption that U.S. states are sovereign to some extent, but not to the extent of actual independent sovereign states. Instead of disputing terms and definitions, I think what is called for here is rather an explication of the range of sovereignty or characteristics of sovereignty and where along that scale U.S. states fall.
The most common popular concept of “sovereign” implies an ability to contract treaties with other sovereigns and have an independent foreign policy (and ability to engage in military action). Clearly, U.S. states aren’t sovereign in that respect.