Sovereignty, that old-new friend, is in vogue again thanks to Brexit and the advances made by nationalists across Europe and the United States. Those of us who lament these developments should not regret the reassertion of national sovereignty, for it is intimately linked to democracy and self-determination and provides domestic legitimacy for the kind of liberal, cooperative world order we wish to see. If you want a strong international community, you need to have strong, confident nation-states in which people believes their country can be active in the world without losing its sense of self.
Sovereignty is at the heart of the International Criminal Court’s ruling that it enjoys the jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes in eastern Jerusalem, Gaza, and Judea and Samaria. This has been coming for some time, with chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda having indicated in 2019 that she wanted to open an investigation in what she calls ‘Palestine’, more than 12 months before the court established whether it had jurisdiction.
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