Sovereignty in Otfried Höffe’s Political Thought

the universality of the imperatives of law and state

Abstract

This text intends to analyse in what measure the universality of the imperatives of law and state, proposed by Otfried Höffe, does not implicate an antinomy in the face of the political-legal concept of sovereignty. Firstly, it succinctly presents an outline of the process of sovereignty affirmation in Modern Age. Secondly, it examines a concept of political law that seems to be espoused by the named author, concept that makes evident the vocation of the legal regulation to become universal. Next, it emphasizes that, in Höffe’s thought, the legal protection of the individuals requires public powers to operate the law. As a consequence, emerges the universal imperative of State, which should be fulfilled by a federal, subsidiary and democratic World Republic. At this point, it brings the mentioned thinker’s comprehension about sovereignty as a right to act and concludes that the global political order, as he conceives it, would not suppress the sovereignty of the national States in so far as the World Republic would be complementary and not alternative in relation to them.