The past decade witnessed many conflicts which focused around the issues of sovereignty. States have invaded other sovereign states for reasons that seem to be dubious by the international community. National separatist movements have intensified and are associated with the rise of the doctrine of self-determination among nations and ethnic groups (versus sovereign states). The decline of the concept of sovereignty, the increasing international recognition of the principles of human rights and the rise of self-determination all caused many implications on the norm of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. That said, Is sovereignty in decline and what are the reasons for its decay? In order to answer this question, I intend to review different sources such as Nation Against State: A New Approach to Ethnic Conflicts and the Decline of Sovereignty by Gottlieb Gidon, NATO and the international politics of ethnic conflict: perspectives on theory and policy by David Carment. I will also use different databases from the Suffolk University website and from various periodical journals such as Foreign Affairs and International Journal. .
Many scholars have analyzed the reasons behind the decline of sovereignty. The two ascendant theories are self-determination and collective force. The principle of self-determination according to some scholars represents the obligation to an individual's autonomy "So long as any change is peaceful and orderly, consistent with standard liberals rights and does not involve any unjust taking of territory or unfair terms of separation. " On the other hand, collective force theory constitutes of a coalition of parties within one organization. The theory argues that this cooperative concept give the resulting organization an increase in power and an expansion of the legitimacy of any of their taken action.