Law Commons^™

Sovereignty In Theory And Practice, Winston P. Nagan, Aitza M. Haddad

UF Law Faculty Publications

Our study moves into the sovereignty idea in the context of international law with reference to the work of Grotius, the Dutch international lawyer of the early 17th century. Grotius took the sovereignty discourse to another level by considering the problem of sovereignty in an environment of multiple sovereigns. This was an environment, which required law and legal skills and therefore provided a framework within which reasoned legal elaboration would provide a mechanism to coordinate sovereign relations and thereby provide international restraints on sovereign absolutism. The Article then considers a significant 17th century juridical event in the practice of international …