Sovereign schliberties

Distinguishing between basic liberties and sovereign liberties is today a cornerstone of the most prominent republican theories of democracy and their promotion of freedom as non-domination. The two sets of liberties are intended to function together to guarantee individual freedom at all levels of governance, both domestically and globally. Basic liberties belong to the national sphere of governance, where they contribute to the free and equal civic status of the individual and are correlatively linked to the protection of the individual by a system of state laws and norms. Sovereign liberties, on the other hand, operate in the international sphere where they constitute ‘state freedom’ as an external (global) dimension of individual freedom. According to the republican adage “No free individual without a free state”, this external dimension of individual freedom implies the absence of international domination of states by other states or internationally active agencies and bodies, just as the internal (domestic) dimension of individual freedom implies, among other things, the absence of individual domination by other individuals or agents. However, the author of this essay argues that sovereign liberties, as conceived, are inadequate to protect states and their people from certain kinds of external domination, namely, those arising from state-to-state relations in international law and the circumstances of global domination.