Inauthentic Sovereignty: Law and Legal Institutions in Manchukuo

2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 749-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas David DuBois
Keyword(s):  
Civil Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Domestic Institutions ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Japanese Empire ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Sovereign State

Although Manchukuo is easily dismissed as a puppet of Japan, at the time of its founding, it was one of many examples of a partially sovereign state. Specific compromises of Manchukuo's sovereignty shaped the formation of its domestic institutions, such as the legal sphere, in tangible ways. Manchukuo handed over to Japan the power to staff and ideologically mold its judiciary, while the tutelary attitude that Japan took toward the state was concretely manifested in aspects of Manchukuo penal and civil law, and a surprisingly contentious path to the abrogation of Japanese extraterritoriality. With the outbreak of war, Manchukuo effectively surrendered its national sovereignty to the needs of the Japanese empire, sacrificing its jurisdictional integrity as well. While not denying the deliberate attempt made by Japan to misrepresent the independence of Manchukuo, this article also seeks to understand more precisely how Manchukuo's architects assumed certain limits to state sovereignty, and how this understanding systematically crippled the new state's legal institutions.

Sovereign State or Sovereign Group?

1925 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Y. Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Accurate Description ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Late Professor ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
Foundation Stone

The late Professor William A. Dunning is reported to have said of the recent political theories which attempt to replace the conception of state sovereignty by some pluralistic grouping of social forces, that they were “radically unintelligible.” It is hard for political theorists who have been accustomed to regard the conception of sovereignty as a foundation stone and a sort of “rock of ages” for their faith to be told (as one is every day, more or less) that the anti-intellectualistic type of a sociological basis is the only valid one for juristic structure. For that, according to the old rationalistic conceptions of analytical jurisprudence, is indeed to base sovereignty upon shifting sands and to deprive law of any special significance of its own by equating it with social reactions of the most indeterminate character. But the anti-intellectualistic trend of modern political theory indignantly denies this charge. The assumption, it counters, that any legal center of reference can be final in its authority or in its right to command is an outworn Hegelianism, discredited by practice and theory alike. Law is too much a thing of fictions to be taken seriously in its claims, when it pretends to be giving an accurate description of facts in the abstract terms of a pretended right on the part of the state to be the sole author of enforceable commands and the only rightful claimant of men's ultimate loyalty.

Rescuing the State?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Agius
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The State ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Military Applications ◽  
Middle Powers ◽  
Gender Lens

This chapter explores how two middle powers, Sweden and Australia, deploy the politics of protection in different ways. Sweden’s efforts to remake the state is viewed through a gender lens as part of efforts to disentangle its former neutral profile through more robust military applications, whilst embodying a peaceful self-narrative linked to military non-alignment, active internationalism and a ‘feminist foreign policy’. The second case explores efforts to reclaim a bounded concept of the sovereign state in Australia's masculinist and militarized approach to securing its borders with respect to asylum seekers. Australia seeks to reclaim a more traditional imagining of the state, or a return to ‘restoring’ state sovereignty perceived to be under threat by globalising forces. Both case studies explore the inherently gendered and securitized reworking and revisioning of the state, and the tensions and contradictions that emerge in questions of security, sovereignty and identity.

The sovereignty of the people as the fundamental basis of the state system: theoretical and legal aspect

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Fedorov
Keyword(s):  
Legal Aspect ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
Modern State ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
The People

The article is devoted to the content of the theoretical and legal category “sovereignty” as one of the most important characteristics of the modern state. On the basis of general philosophical and private-legal methods, the study of similar concepts of “state sovereignty”, “people’s sovereignty” and “national sovereignty” is carried out. The author reveals the connection between sovereignty, the state system, national legal consciousness and international legal standards.

The Existing Cause of Biafra and its Right to Self-determination

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Yinka Olomojobi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The South ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Right

Abstract There has been recent agitation for self-determination in the south-east of Nigeria for the state known as Biafra (a pro-secessionist group). The principle of self-determination is a well-debated discourse since it connects with the right to secede and create a sovereign state. Like a marriage at gunpoint, a reluctant partner will always want a way out of the marriage, and will take a hike at the first opportunity. Given this political inheritance, Nigeria has fallen prey to several attempts to undermine state sovereignty originating in ethnic and regional differences. The controversy has concerned both the principle’s status in international law and its charter. This principle has played a prominent part in the emergence of former colonies as independent states. The aim of this article is to explore the ongoing agitation for a Biafran Republic and to assess whether it is in conformity with the right to self-determination.

scholarly journals Civil-legal institutions in tax law enforcement.

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-49
Author(s):  
Marina Karaseva (Sentsova)
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Civil Code ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Property Losses ◽  
Civil Order

The subject. The enforcement of civil-legal institutions, such as liability for damage and unjustenrichment in tax disputes.The purpose of the paper is to identify how the civil-legal institutions may help in interpretationand enforcement of tax legal rules.The methodology. The methods of analysis and synthesis are used. The focus of the scientificanalysis concerns the decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation,the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the courts of general jurisdiction.Results and scope of application. Damage (harm) caused to the state by tax arrears is fundamentallydifferent from the harm (damage) caused to the civil order, responsibility forwhich is provided by Art. 1064 of the Russian Civil Code. Concerning the damages to stateby tax arrears, these arrears don’t affect the initial assets of the state and couldn’t be reimbursedusing to the civil order (Art. 1064 of the Russian Civil Code).Concerning property deduction on personal income tax, it can't be equaled to tax (arrears)by using the legal fiction. Because the underestimation of the tax base for personal incometax leads to property losses of the budget, this situation is subject to the application of civillaw institutions.Conclusions. Today the law enforcement practice creates a situation of substitution of legalityby expediency. The essence of this situation is that, if it is not possible to solve a situationby using tax legal rules, the situations is solved by civil law, although the applicationof the civil law to these situations is not possible on the merits.

scholarly journals Legal institutions securing socially recognised rightsof the subjects participating in legal transactions, based on the example of legitimate expectative

2021 ◽  
pp. 190-198
Author(s):  
Joanna Bocianowska
Keyword(s):  
Civil Law ◽  
General System ◽  
The State ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Law System ◽  
General Issue ◽  
Constitutional Tribunal ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Polish Law

The article “Legal Institutions Securing Socially Recognised Rights of the Subjects Participating in Legal Transactions, Based on the Example of Legitimate Expectative” sheds light on the concept of legitimate expectative as a separate right. It gives arguments in favor of qualifying this type of right as legitimate since it protects legally important issues connected with the transactions undertaken by the participants of the market. The article also draws attention to the decisions of the international tribunals and the European legislatives that grant the position of the legitimate expectative in the general system of law. Coined by the German doctrine of law under the names: Anwartschaft, Wartenrecht and Zwischenrecht, the notion of expectative becomes widely recognised in other European countries, also in Poland, which is highlighted in the text. The protection of the said right in the Polish law system is mainly guaranteed by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, in the described in the article decisions of 1989, 1993 and 1996. The topic of the article is not only the analysis of the said right of expectative but it also aims at a more general issue which is the creation of the new rights in very traditional civil law systems, especially in the Polish one. The summary of the analysis shown in the article leads to the conclusion that new rights and regulations are necessary, and the source of them should stem from the needs of the society, not the needs of the state.

Provincialising International Relations through a reading of dharma

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Giorgio Shani ◽  
Navnita Chadha Behera
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Inside Out

Abstract This article will attempt to ‘provincialise’ (Chakrabarty, 2000) the ‘secular cosmology’ of International Relations (IR) through an examination of the relational cosmology of dharma. We argue that IR is grounded in ‘secularised’ Judaeo-Christian assumptions concerning time, relations between self and other, order, and the sovereign state that set the epistemic limits of the discipline. These assumptions will be ‘provincialised’ through an engagement with dharma based on a reading of The Mahābharāta, one of the oldest recorded texts in the world. We argue that the concept of dharma offers a mode of understanding the multidimensionality of human existence without negating any of its varied, contradictory expressions. By deconstructing notions of self and other, dharma illustrates how all beings are related to one another in a moral, social, and cosmic order premised on human agency, which flows from ‘inside-out’ rather than ‘outside-in’ and that is governed by a heterogenous understanding of time. This order places limits on the state's exercise of power in a given territory by making the state responsible for creating social conditions that would enable all beings to realise their potential, thus qualifying the principle of state sovereignty that remains the foundation of the ‘secular cosmology of IR’.

scholarly journals Humanitarian Interventions as Practises of Statecraft: Re-Crafting State Sovereignty in Refugee Crises

Refuge ◽  
1996 ◽  
pp. 23-24
Author(s):  
Nevzat Soguk
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Governance Practices

This study argues that humanitarian interventions are not undertaken merely to alleviate the sufferings of people under duress such as refugees. Beyond humanitarianism, they are activities of statist governance-practices of statecraft oriented to re-articulate and re-craft state sovereignty and the hierarchy it signifies, that is, the hierarchy of citizen/nation/state, not only as natural but also as necessary to the peaceful, stable, and secure organization of local and global politics. In as much as humanitarian interventions target refugees as objects of intervention, they appropriate refugees to the task of statecraft; refugees become not only the manifestation of the difficulties for the sovereign state, but also the site of statist practices, which, attendant upon refugees, endeavour continuously to re-articulate the state-centric imagination of life possibilities in local and global interactions. In the process, humanitarianism is typically subordinated to the contingencies of statism in the late 20th Century.

The Evolution of a Nation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
Karen B. Clay
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Water Transportation ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
Late Twentieth

Although political and legal institutions are essential to any nation's economic development, the forces that have shaped these institutions are poorly understood. Drawing on rich evidence about the development of the American states from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, this book documents the mechanisms through which geographical and historical conditions—such as climate, access to water transportation, and early legal systems—impacted political and judicial institutions and economic growth. The book shows how a state's geography and climate influenced whether elites based their wealth in agriculture or trade. States with more occupationally diverse elites in 1860 had greater levels of political competition in their legislature from 1866 to 2000. The book also examines the effects of early legal systems. Because of their colonial history, thirteen states had an operational civil-law legal system prior to statehood. All of these states except Louisiana would later adopt common law. By the late eighteenth century, the two legal systems differed in their balances of power. In civil-law systems, judiciaries were subordinate to legislatures, whereas in common-law systems, the two were more equal. Former civil-law states and common-law states exhibit persistent differences in the structure of their courts, the retention of judges, and judicial budgets. Moreover, changes in court structures, retention procedures, and budgets occur under very different conditions in civil-law and common-law states. This book illustrates how initial geographical and historical conditions can determine the evolution of political and legal institutions and long-run growth.

Legitimacy

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
International Courts ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Supranational Institutions

This collection brings together scholars of jurisprudence and political theory to probe the question of ‘legitimacy’. It offers discussions that interrogate the nature of legitimacy, how legitimacy is intertwined with notions of statehood, and how legitimacy reaches beyond the state into supranational institutions and international law. Chapter I considers benefit-based, merit-based, and will-based theories of state legitimacy. Chapter II examines the relationship between expertise and legitimate political authority. Chapter III attempts to make sense of John Rawls’s account of legitimacy in his later work. Chapter IV observes that state sovereignty persists, since no alternative is available, and that the success of the assortment of international organizations that challenge state sovereignty depends on their ability to attract loyalty. Chapter V argues that, to be complete, an account of a state’s legitimacy must evaluate not only its powers and its institutions, but also its officials. Chapter VI covers the rule of law and state legitimacy. Chapter VII considers the legitimation of the nation state in a post-national world. Chapter VIII contends that legitimacy beyond the state should be understood as a subject-conferred attribute of specific norms that generates no more than a duty to respect those norms. Chapter IX is a reply to critics of attempts to ground the legitimacy of suprastate institutions in constitutionalism. Chapter X examines Joseph Raz’s perfectionist liberalism. Chapter XI attempts to bring some order to debates about the legitimacy of international courts.

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