THE CRISES IN THE THEORY OF LAW: MUNICIPAL, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE MODERN STATES

The global evolution has propelled the international system into a novel stage in its development process that is completely different in the final texture from that upon which our ancestors inhabited. We have attained so powerful a scale of global interdependence that the theory of state sovereignty has consequences in international relations of an entire different character from those of the period when Grotius and his descendant laid the fundamental bases of international law. This study seeks to unveil the degree to which the international law has been able to regulate the relationships between states and the level of its binding forces in the midst of their sovereignty. Since it is inherent in the idea of law that those who dwell within its jurisdictions should be bound to obey its stipulations independent of their own will. The study however, reveals that as long as the modern states remain sovereign international law will continue to exist at the mercy of their consent. Therefore, there are no potential means of making the international law to become more than what scholars have already referred to as a species of positive morality, except by the abrogation of state sovereignty.