8.1.2.1 Internal Sovereignty
A state’s internal sovereignty, meanwhile, is foremost a constitutional issue. Sov-
ereignty in that sense is the ultimate source of authority in a particular territory, and
it is where the power of the state originates. If an official is able to lawfully impose
obligations upon citizens, e.g. the obligation to pay a tax or to perform military
service, there must be something that distinguishes the official imposing the
obligation from the citizen receiving it. The official must have a right or entitlement
to rule. Lower ranking officials such as tax inspectors or policemen will cite the
authority they received from their superiors. These superiors act on the basis of
regulations, which in turn are enacted on the basis of laws. At some point, there
must be an ultimate superior, the source from which all state authorities trace their
own power to rule: the sovereign.
The tax inspector’s individual order to pay a tax may, for instance, be based on an
administrative regulation on how to issue such orders; the regulation in turn is based on
the tax code, which is a general law regulating tax rates; the tax code has been adopted
because the constitution allows the lawmaker to impose taxes (see also Sect.2.2.3). Who,
then, made the constitution, and what gave the creator of the constitution the right to
empower the lawmaker to impose taxes?The People Monarchs, such as emperors or kings, may argue that they derive their
power from God, including the power to make constitutions if they so decide. An
enlightened audience will find such claims implausible, however. In modern times,
the idea has gained ground that the ultimate source of authority within a state lies
with the people. In many Western constitutions, reference is explicitly made to the
people as the origin of the written constitution and as the source of the powers of the
state.
Often the preamble, which is a declaratory introductory statement, makes clear on whose
authority a constitution is enacted. The US Constitution’s preamble famously starts out
with the words: “We, the People...”. The French Constitution’s preamble also makes
explicit that the text is written from the point of view of the people. Other constitutions,
such as the one of Bulgaria, contain an article in the text itself which proclaims that all
public power emanates from the people.
As a result, in systems that are based on popular sovereignty, the people are
bound by laws that are made on the basis of a constitution that was enacted in the
name of the people itself.
Secession A major problem in connection with statehood is how to cope with parts
of a state that wish to secede and become an independent state of their own.
Examples in recent history are Kosovo, the Crimea and South Sudan.
Given the demand of internal sovereignty, a state must exercise internal domes-
tic control and possess the power to stop civil unrest and prevent secessionist and
other revolutionary movements. This demand is obviously not met if secession is
ongoing. In such cases, it depends on the extent and proportionality of the power
used by the seceding “state,” the legitimacy of the secessionist movement, and
160 A.W. Heringa