Page 55 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

Szanto, 2018

process and common to numerous international organizations. International agreements that
establish some sort of bureaucracy tend to establish dispute resolution organs. This is true, for
example, for the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The main difference is that, while most of these IGOs are highly
specialized, the EU has a much more broadly defined scope, hence it tends to regulate more
diverse issues. Within the EU infringement procedures are not extraordinary by any standards,
at the moment the EU has some 2700 active infringement procedures. (European
Commission/b) Once again, it is important to note that Hungary has voluntarily joined the
European Union, and thus voluntarily submitted itself both to its binding laws and the
jurisdiction of the ECJ.

The perception of diminishing sovereignty

The Hungarian Government interprets the above discussed issues as a threat to Hungarian
sovereignty. The argument itself is fairly straightforward: Hungary seeks to pursue a certain
policy direction. The European Union argues that this policy is not in accordance with existing
laws and raises the possibility of a fine. The Government interprets this as a coercive influence
that undermines the independence of Hungarian policy formulation, hence an attack on
Hungarian sovereignty. However, such an interpretation is based on an absolutist interpretation
of national sovereignty.

The issue of sovereignty, especially how it works in the context of the international community,
has inspired a long academic discussion with many distinguished scholars offering their
interpretation. The idea of absolute sovereignty, i.e. the idea that states can govern exclusively
and without interference within their borders, has been criticised for decades. Nayar (2014)
highlights that sovereignty continues to be a complicated subject as two contradictory forces –
the growing porosity of state authority and the reactionary resurgence of statism – shape
contemporary discussion of sovereignty. Similarly, Campbell, Kumar and Slagle (2010)
highlights that while discussions of sovereignty in the 1990s focused on declining state
authority, in the post-9/11 era one can observe a resurgence in focus on state authority and
control. At its core, sovereignty is based on the principle of non-intervention: one state does
not possesses the right to intervene in the affairs of another (Krasner, 2001). This is a popular
interpretation of sovereignty, and is enshrined for example in the key principles of ASEAN, a
regional block that considers non-interference one of its cornerstones. However, such an
interpretation is both vague and narrow considering to scope of activities a state undertakes.
On the one hand, it fails to adequately define what constitutes intervention, e.g. whether
criticism qualifies as interference. On the other, it ignores the fact that states do not act in a
vacuum and that domestic and foreign cannot always be neatly separated. A state’s domestic
policies can have international implications in which case such a definition disregards the rights
and interests of other states. In response to this, many sought to refine the concept of
sovereignty. Janice E. Thomson argues that sovereignty should not be viewed as control but as
authority. (Thomson, 1995) From a laymen perspective this might be considered a distinction
without difference, but from a technical standpoint there is a meaningful difference. Control
assume that the government can directly affect all aspects of life within its territory and
sovereign control would assume that it can do so unchallenged. This was demonstrated to be
untrue as technology empowered various agents to defy state control when it comes to the flow
of capital, people and information. In contrast, sovereign authority means that the state is the
only one with the legal right to intervene in society coercively. Essentially this approach
substitutes rule setting to control. This chips away of the myth of absolute state sovereignty
that failed to stand the test of time. More relevant to the discussion at hand is Oona Hathaway’s

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