THE INTERNATIONAL order that had its beginnings with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)--in short, a world comprised of sovereign territorial states--is coming to a close. Many states today are not truly sovereign--not in the accepted Westphalian definition of a government possessing a monopoly of force and in firm control of the territory under its titular jurisdiction.(n1) As many political scientists and policymakers have recently discovered, failing and failed states make up the bulk of the Third World, as well as a large part of the former Soviet bloc. Not only are these countries increasingly unable to develop independently, they can pose a serious threat to international stability. Failed and failing states provide havens for terrorists and organized crime networks, and they can destabilize their larger region when internal chaos and conflicts spill over their borders to affect neighboring states--as the experience of West Africa during the 1990s aptly demonstrates.
At the same time, the Westphalian order is being undermined from another direction. In some Western political circles, the traditional concept of "integral sovereignty" is gradually giving way to the notion of "limited sovereignty." For some, the individual sovereign state is no longer in a position to meet all of the economic and security challenges of the modern world, requiring the delegation of some powers and functions to supranational bodies like the European Union. (n2) For others, the sovereignty of any state is circumscribed by its ability to protect and enhance the human rights of the population under its care. The doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" implies the loss of internal and external legitimacy by those governments that choose to violate these rights. And the "democracy deficit" apparent in many countries--together with their inability to guarantee their own social and economic development---calls into question the ability of such nations to exercise their sovereign rights....