What I Talk About When I Talk About Sovereignty

A friend of mine kept complaining how his girlfriend is a constant pain in the ass, especially during the weekends. Weekends, for us boys, is the time when we can sit back, drink a glass of lager while supporting, in a plastic kind of way, our respective football clubs. But that wouldn’t be the case for those with nagging girlfriends. Those blokes must entertain their girlfriends and might miss out on their clubs game on the telly. This, my friends, is a serious breach of our dignity and, in terms of public international law, our sovereignty as an individual.

Might I remind you that the term ‘sovereignty’ is a term well-known in public international law. Charles Fenwick defines sovereignty as “the independent personality of the State in its relation with other members of the international community”, while J.G. Starke explains sovereignty as a supreme authority by the State to exercise over persons and property to the exclusion over other States. In short, sovereignty is a supreme authority one might have to exercise its jurisdiction within oneself and the ability to interact with other sovereign subjects. Then how did I dare to make an analogy of a term used in public international into such a colloquial use? Besides that I’m an international law scholar, it’s because you can basically see ‘sovereignty’ in your everyday events.

The closest thing you can feel the exercise of sovereignty is in your own household. Your parents, as heads of the household, may exercise their supreme authority over you and your siblings until you are legally old enough to do your own errands. Although you have your own room, don’t think of it as your very own sovereign land. Think of it as a small autonomous land given to you from your parents’ kindness. You should expect your mum entering your room without knocking, though you hanged your sock on the handle. No biggie, it’s their ‘sovereign land’ anyways. As long as you are in your parents’ house, you are bound by their rules.

As I said earlier, sovereignty can be analogised to simpler meanings. It’s inherent in each and everyone of us. We are even sovereign of our own bodies. When us football heads stay up in the middle of the night to watch Man United against Barcelona, we are actually exercising our right to our own body. We know our body needs rest, but heck we watch it anyway. We can interact with other people, have social lives, do our jobs, make enemies, get in fights, and determine sexual orientations in the name of sovereignty.

Some might mistake sovereignty with independence, I won’t blame them since sovereignty is interchangeable with independence. One cannot exercise their sovereignty, if one is not independent. That is why, I guess, every wealthy province in Indonesia is aching to be independent.

So whenever your girlfriend is nagging you to hangout on the weekends, you can always say, “bitch please, I wanna watch some footie, so butt off. If you’re still nagging, I take that as a breach of my sovereignty”.

PS: the author will not be held liable for any reason should there be any arguments, breakups, or parting of some sort by any couple that may occur after reading this article. Cheers.