Summary
The concept of sovereignty symbolizes the critical point of contention between legal norms and political dynamics. Having multiple formulations, it is used in both disciplines and often serves as a trigger for international disputes and conflicts. Following Martti Koskenniemi’s assertion that the modern construction of international law does not provide for one and clear solution in hard legal cases touching upon sovereignty,[1] this paper undertakes a deconstruction of the sovereignty concept to see how its social connotations and local historical and philosophical interpretations affect the modern political use and legal understanding of the term by the two international heavyweights: Russia and China.
The comparative study of political and legal philosophy in Russia and China with regard to the historical circumstances affecting the concept formation enables an understanding of the specific interpretations of sovereignty that Russia and China most frequently employ in their current policies. To structurally compare sovereignty concept interpretations by Russia and China, I use Sartori’s Ladder of abstraction.[2] This scale allocates the properties of a given concept on different levels of abstraction depending on the range of its connotations. It allows to identify and position the parameters of the Western understanding of sovereignty on specific levels of the ladder of abstraction and then locate the Russian and Chinese interpretations of sovereignty in relation to the original Western properties.
It becomes evident that the concept of sovereignty serves both studied countries as an ideal instrument for promoting regionalism, legal relativism, and the supremacy of local legal norms and cultural values over liberally formulated human rights and alleged Western dominance. However, the choice of sovereignty interpretation, in case of Russia, is rather dictated by (i) the local conservative thought ingrained in formalism and decisionism together with (ii) the Soviet heritage of a great power politics; whereas in case of China, the sovereignty interpretation is much stronger linked to (i) the traditional legitimization of a centralized state rule through the Legalist-Confucian orthodoxy and (ii) the diplomatic heritage of the Republican Era. Thus, from the perspective of political philosophy, the two countries have absolutely different grounds for their interpretations of sovereignty. Yet, both come to choose the restricted[3] reading of sovereignty, strongly influenced by the German political thought,[4] because of the geopolitical necessity imposed by the non-inclusiveness of modern international relations theory on the one hand, and the systemic imperfection of modern international law on the other.
It is suggested that the theory of international law by itself is not capable of solving the conundrum between law and politics. It is only through intercultural exchange and open political dialogue that the common ground can be developed for a sustainable and gradual reform of the existing international legal theory.
[1] M. Koskenniemi, The Politics of International Law, IEJIL (4, 1990).
[2] G. Sartori,“Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics”, Americal Political Science Review (1970) 1033-53, at 1044.
[3] Author’s terminology.
[4] Works of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schmitt.
Biography
Ksenia Radchenkova is a PhD student and coordinator for Eastern European, Eurasian, and Asian research and cooperation projects at the Department of Global Governance at the Institute for the Foundations of Law of the University of Graz, Austria. She holds a specialist degree in Sinology from the Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok, Russia. She also holds a Master of Science degree from Xiamen University, China. Her current research focuses on the study of historical interpretations of the concept of sovereignty in political and legal discourse in China and Russia, and covers fields such as international law, comparative constitutional law, political science with an emphasis on regional political philosophy.
