The state ?

Evolution :

Man is social animal who is dependent on

others for the the satisfaction of his wants. Human beings
remained organized right from the ancient times,
whatsoever its from had been. With the development of
human civilisation, people felt the need of an authority
that could maintain law and order, settle their disputes
and enforce the decision with force.

Different political thinker have define state in their own

words according to their own perception.

Definations of state ?
According to Aristole :

Aristole said that state as an

aggregation of different families and villages organized
for the purpose of providing facilities for the promotion of
happy life.

According to laski :

State is social organization which

is based on government and people have lot of power
using.

Basic Elements of state :

1 : population

2 : territory

3 : Government

4 : Sovereignty
Sovereignty :
Sovereignty is an important element of
state that signifies its paramount position to command
unconditional obedience from its citizens and the groups
there of. By virtue of this unique privilege, a state can
enforce its will with full power. It also implies that state is
free from any external control. This is the sovereignty of
state that discriminates it from all other types of human
associations and establishes its supremacy. This double
aspect of state sovereignty, makes it an important subject
of both, municipal law and international law. Jean Bodin, a
French political thinker of the 16th century, introduced this
concept in political discussions.

Theoretical Implications:
At the beginning of the 21st century the continued
theoretical utility of the concept of sovereignty is
increasingly open to question. As a concept denoting
supreme legal authority it never was appropriate for the
international position of States, since no State has such
authority over all other States. In its proper field of
internal constitutional law, the growing interdependence
of States has both reduced the areas in which a State may
truly be said to exercise supreme legal authority within its
own borders, and has increased the areas in which
authority within a States territory may lawfully be
exercised by some other State or other external authority.
Quite apart from such emerging developments in the
scope of States legal power and authority, the practical
realities of international life make it no longer appropriate
for a State to determine its sovereign status by looking
only to its internal legal position: the legal powers and
freedom of action of all States is restrained by their
interreactions with other States and international
authorities.

Politically, however, sovereignty has lost none of its

appeal, much of it at bottom nationalistic and emotional.
Such political use of notions of sovereignty is nowadays
little more than a nostalgic attempt to invoke the memory
of past freedoms, independence and supremacy.

Practical Applications:

(1) Sovereignty and international law: independence and

equality. Within the overall context of self-determination
the place of sovereignty in international law requires
some explanation, since self-determination is usually
(although erroneously) seen as a quest for sovereignty
and independence.

Sovereignty as a principle of international law is to be

distinguished sharply from sovereignty in its internal and
constitutional aspects. It is implicit in the nature of
sovereignty as supreme authority that such a notion of
sovereignty is inapplicable to the role of sovereign States
on the international plane and within international law.
Internationally, no State has supreme legal power and
authority over other States in general, nor are States
generally subservient to the legal power and authority of
other States (although in former times such claims were
occasionally made, most notably in the traditional Chinese
view of international relations, maintained for well over a
millenium, that the rightful relationship of all foreigners
with the imperial court was one of respectful
subordination - a view which led to major differences on
the occasion of the visit of a British diplomatic and trade
mission to the Chinese Emperor, Qianlong, in 1793).
Moreover, State sovereignty on the international plane
would be inconsistent with the conception of international
law as a body of rules of conduct binding upon States
irrespective of their internal domestic law, for this implies
their subjection to international law and renders
untenable any claims by a State on the international plane
to absolute sovereignty and to the lawfulness of its
conduct being beyond question.

Sovereignty is also not to be confused with international

personality. The former is based on notions of supreme
authority and independence. International personality
connotes the possession of rights, duties, powers and
capacities in international law: whatever person or entity
possesses rights, duties, powers and capacities in
international law has international personality, even if
that person or entity does not possess sovereignty.
Sovereign States characteristically possess the full range
of international legal rights, duties, powers and
capacities, and undoubtedly possess international
personality. But many States which are in one way or
another subject to the authority of another State and may
well therefore not be fully sovereign, may nevertheless,
through the possession of at least some of the legal
entitlements conferred by international law, enjoy
international personality (albeit on a less plenary basis
that do sovereign States); the same applies to non-statal
entities such as many international organisations.

Sovereignty being supreme authority necessarily implies

independence. Toute nation qui se gouverne elle-mme,
sous quelque forme que ce soit, sans dpendance daucun
tranger, est un tat souverain (Vattel, Le droit des gens
(1773 ed.), Bk. 1, Ch. 1, s.4). A ruler or State which is
sovereign is, strictly, independent of any other temporal
legal authority so far as concerns its legal powers within
its borders, and is equally independent as regards its legal
authority to act beyond its borders. A sovereign rulers
domestic legal authority to act both internally and
externally is not in law dependent on any other earthly
authority. In modern times independence (despite
difficulties of application which can arise in practice) has
come to be regarded as the essential quality of
sovereign States, and on the international plane as in
effect coterminous with sovereignty and as the defining
characteristic of Statehood.

Independence was referred to in classic terms by Judge

Anzilotti in 1931[1] as involving

the existence of [a State], within its frontiers ..., as a

separate State and not subject to the authority of any
other State or group of States. Independence as thus
understood is really no more than the normal condition
of States according to international law; it may also be
described as sovereignty (supreme potestas), or
external sovereignty, by which is meant that the State
has over it no other authority than that of international
law ... As long as these restrictions [i.e. upon a States
liberty and arising out of ordinary international law or
contractual engagements] do not place the State under
the legal authority of another State, the former remains
an independent State however extensive and
burdensome those obligations may be.

In the perspective of international law sovereignty has

always predominantly been, and is now invariably, seen as
a legal construct of the domestic constitutional law of
States, of which international law takes cognisance as a
fact but which is not itself based on international law.
Instead of supreme authority over all other States,
sovereignty, in international law, brings into play
considerations of comparative ranking similar to those
which influenced the development of conceptions of
sovereignty within the framework of domestic political
theory. If ruler A is, in his domestic legal order, a
sovereign ruler, then he is, in terms of legal standing, in
the same position as ruler B who, in his domestic legal
order, is also a sovereign ruler. As between two rulers (and
thus their States) who are both (internally) sovereign, the
appropriate legal relationship is one of equality. The
sovereignty of their States is not sovereignty as a matter
of international law, but rather a sovereignty in their
separate domestic laws of which international law takes
due note. In international law sovereignty is more
descriptive of the authority of a State and its ruler within
and as a matter of domestic law than constitutive of their
authority as a matter of international law: it is more an
attribute of Statehood in international law, than a
condition for its existence.

Since the gradations of authority which formerly

characterised the constitutional position of statalw
communities are now largely a thing of the past, and
virtually all such communities have now become fully
sovereign States, it is in the sense just described that one
of the legal constitutional underpinnings of modern
international law is the sovereign equality of States: The
[United Nations] Organization is based on the principle of
the sovereign equality of all its Members (UN Charter,
Article 2.1). This principle was elaborated in the 1970
Declaration on Principles of International Law (GA Res
2625(XXV)(1970)) in the following terms:

All States enjoy sovereign equality. They have equal

rights and duties and are equal members of the
international community, notwithstanding differences of
an economic, social, political or other nature.
In particular, sovereign equality includes the following
elements:

(a) States are juridically equal;

(b) Each state enjoys the rights inherent in full

sovereignty;

(c) Each state has the duty to respect the personality

of other states;

(d) The territorial integrity and political independence

of the state are inviolable;
(e) Each state has the right freely to choose and
develop its political, social, economic and cultural
systems;

(f) Each state has the duty to comply fully and in good
faith with its international obligations and to live in
peace with other states.