Meaning and Definition of Sovereignty

A company can sell its business, a person can give up their citizenship, but a State cannot give away its sovereignty and remain the same State. That single impossibility — sovereignty cannot be transferred without destroying the very thing that held it — is the doorway into what the word actually means.

In two minutes

Sovereignty is the State's supreme legal authority — a power so complete that it cannot be shared, transferred or given up without the State itself ceasing to be what it was, which is why the classical definitions describe it using words like absolute, indivisible and inalienable rather than merely “strong” or “important”.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Political Science – I: Political Theory and Political Organisation on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.