National Sovereignty Versus the Rule of Law

Walter Sandelius

American Political Science Review, 1931, vol. 25, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: So evident has become the reality of the international community on the one hand, and that of occupational groups on the other, that sociology, which is more concerned with social tendencies than with formal doctrine of any kind, has largely discarded the idea of the sovereign nation-state. But juristic science in considerable measure still clings to it. This is true because the latter is naturally more concerned than sociology with the conservative function of legal formalities. Yet the progressivist influence that sociology has already exerted upon legal concepts is likely to continue; which means that the present sociological insistencies will more nearly correspond with the legal ideas of tomorrow than they do with those of today. Law, in order to maintain its function, must of necessity feed upon the fresh materials of change; to live, it will, in the long run, have to conform to moral and social needs. Morality, which is always at least a step ahead of the law, requires to be followed by the law, for the sake of the life of both, at a distance neither too great nor too short. For the law that follows too closely upon the heels of morality, no less than that which is too far behind, fails to be generally respected and enforced. Legal development is in constant need of being harmonized with all the other strands of history, to the end of the good life. This historic propriety is the ideal not only for the content of legislation, but also—though here the steps of change are fewer and longer—in the realm of fundamental juristic concepts such as that of national sovereignty.

Date: 1931
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