Sovereignty demarcates the line between one nation state and others in an international system. Two conceptions of sovereignty have dominated philosophical accounts of citizenship and the nation state and have in turn influenced legal and political theory: a Hobbesian account, which defines the nation state by its national borders and minimal obligations to its citizens; and a Lockean account, which extends the sovereign’s obligations to protect its citizens’ private property interests. Globalization provides the conditions to constitute a third revolution in sovereignty; it is an opportunity to make a choice between a definition of sovereignty as yet stronger declarations of borders and difference, or something crucially different. Following social theoretical expositions that describe the subject as contingent and negotiated rather than inevitable or necessary, this Article argues that there is a third account of sovereignty, termed here as relational sovereignty. Relational sovereignty is based upon a broader notion of the state’s responsibilities towards its citizens, termed here responsible governance. I argue that relational sovereignty under the conditions of globalization calls for the United States to be a better citizen at the table of international human rights action.
