Quote on the sovereignty of international institutions
June 16th, 2008 • Law
There’s a good quote from from an Opinio Juris post on a recent inter-disciplinary conference between theologians and international law academics. It’s on the sovereignty of international institutions and is after the jump.
Perhaps one of the reasons it is difficult to think of international institutions having attributes of sovereignty is that they rarely impose duties on individuals. It is difficult to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s if the emperor never asks for anything…. Even the granting of rights is not commonly among the delegated duties assigned to international institutions…. The idea of international institutions “governing over us” by conferring rights does not resonate with the general public…. So if international institutions do not impose duties or guarantee rights, what do they do that is “sovereign”? The answer, if there is one, is that they perform sovereign functions. The best way to think of international institutions is that they are entities that “we the people” through our governments delegate tasks that cannot be achieved without international coordination.
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