Cosmopolitanism, State Sovereignty and International Law and Politics:
A Theory
By
Jorge E. Núñez
Chapter 4
Agents and players
This chapter exposes an often-overlooked situation in relation to both sovereignty and cosmopolitanism─there are several different agents and each of them may play different roles in different capacities. Therefore, to argue that a particular agent or player is the main (and at times, sole) subject to be considered in, for example, territorial disputes, pandemics or trafficking of any kind, is both a mistake and an oversimplification.
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At the level of civil societies, individuals have common and conflicting interests; similarly, individuals in communities have similar and conflicting interests. Consider, for example, issues related to gender, minorities, internal migrations, differently-abled people, children and young adults and many other intra-community subgroups. At the level of the international society, these individuals and communities are a single legal and political entity, i.e. the state, that also has common and conflicting interests with their peers. A classic example of the intersection between common and conflicting interests in the international society is the case of territorial disputes. Despite the internal differences within states about individual and community interests, when there is a territorial dispute, internationally, states seem to be a single agent.
This is indeed a simplified view. Cases such as the difference between Israel and Palestine or Catalonia clearly show that there are other agents at play in addition to the states. For example, the Israel-Palestine difference includes diaspora, settlements, Hamas and other individual and community interests.
[…]
Sovereignty and cosmopolitanism include different agents that, similar to a board game, may “play” in different capacities. For instance, an individual or a community may play different roles within and in their interrelation with other agents ranging from, for example, a two-people egalitarian relationship to a dictatorship, with or without political parties. Furthermore, the role of political parties and political leaders may or may not operate in favor of their community. Therein, borrowing from game theory and board games, sovereignty and cosmopolitanism present different agents that, as players, may be broadly classified into hosts, participants, attendees and viewers. Consider the cases of territorial disputes where there are at least two players, i.e. the challenger and the challenged. These two players act as hosts of the dispute in the sense that without them there would not be a quarrel. In some situations, there may be other players such as participants in question. For example, in the cases of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands and Gibraltar the hosts would be the UK and Argentina and the UK and Spain, respectively. In turn, Falkland Islanders and Gibraltarians might be the participants. There is, however, a difference between being a participant and an attendee. Whilst participants have a certain degree of interaction generally allowed by the hosts, attendees are merely present in the dispute without much legal or political ability to participate. In the case of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, the islanders are mere attendees for Argentina because the Argentinian government has systematically neglected their right to participate in any negotiation about the sovereignty over the territory in question. On the contrary, in the case of Gibraltar, the UK and Spain have moved towards accepting a certain degree of participation, in light of the principle of “Two Flags, Three Voices.” Finally, viewers refer to any other player related to the territorial dispute, but without any actual or hypothetical legal and political connection. Regional players such as neighboring states are an example.
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Chapter 5: Contexts, realms and modes of existence
Friday 09th June 2023
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @DrJorge_World
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