Globalization and Sovereignty Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism

Sovereignty and the sovereign state are often seen as anachronisms; Globalization and Sovereignty challenges this view. Jean L. Cohen analyzes the new sovereignty regime emergent since the 1990s evidenced by the discourses and practice of human rights, humanitarian intervention, transformative occupation, and the UN targeted sanctions regime that blacklists alleged terrorists. Presenting a systematic theory of sovereignty and its transformation in international law and politics, Cohen argues for the continued importance of sovereign equality. She offers a theory of a dualistic world order comprised of an international society of states, and a global political community in which human rights and global governance institutions affect the law, policies, and political culture of sovereign states. She advocates the constitutionalization of these institutions, within the framework of constitutional pluralism. This book will appeal to students of international political theory and law, political scientists, sociologists, legal historians, and theorists of constitutionalism.

Introduction; 1. Sovereignty in the context of globalization: a constitutional pluralist approach; 2. Constitutionalism and political form: rethinking federation; 3. International human rights, sovereignty and global governance: toward a new political conception; 4. Sovereignty and human rights in 'post conflict' constitution-making: toward a jus post-bellum for 'interim occupations'; 5. Security council activism in the 'war on terror': legality and legitimacy reconsidered; Conclusion.

This book seeks to show that human rights and sovereign equality are not antithetical but two key principles of our current dualistic international political system and that both are needed for a more just, legitimate and effective version of that system.

Jean L. Cohen is Nell and Herbert Singer Professor of Contemporary Civilization and Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University where she has been teaching international political theory and courses on sovereignty, the state and global justice for over ten years. She is the author of Class and Civil Society: The Limits of Marxian Critical Theory (1982), Civil Society and Political Theory (co-authored with Andrew Arato, 1992) and Regulating Intimacy: A New Legal Paradigm (2002).