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Finding The Sovereign In Sovereign Immunity: Lessons From Bodin, Hobbes, And Rousseau, David Schraub
Finding The Sovereign In Sovereign Immunity: Lessons From Bodin, Hobbes, And Rousseau, David Schraub
David Schraub
The doctrine of “sovereign immunity” holds that the U.S. government cannot be sued without its consent. This is not found in the Constitution’s text; it is justified on philosophical grounds as inherent to being a sovereign state: a sovereign must be able to issue commands free from constraint. The sources of this understanding of sovereignty—Hobbes, Bodin, and others—are, in turn, condemned by opponents of sovereign immunity as absolutists whose doctrines are incompatible with limited, constitutional government. This debate, and thus the usual conception of sovereign immunity, rests on a fundamental mistake. Hobbes and his peers were careful to avoid the …