Abstract
The birth of the modern sovereign state is usually associated with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, after which modern nation-states began to constitute in Europe. Today, some scholars argue that state sovereignty has been challenged by trends such as globalization and European integration. In Neil MacCormick's book, 'Questioning sovereignty', he says that the European Union has witnessed a change beyond the sovereign state, and a dilution of sovereignty between member states, European institutions and sub-national sectors. MacCormick's definition of sovereignty is threefold : the legal sovereignty is the power of law-making, not restricted by any legal limit, the political sovereignty is the ability to take effective decisions on whatever concerns the common well-being of the members of one community, and on whatever affects the distribution of the economic resources available to them, and the external sovereignty characterizes a state as not a subject to superior political power or legal authority, within its territory.
