Sovereign rights

While all nations of the world possess the sovereign right to establish their own acceptable levels for pesticide residues in foods, many lack the resources to develop their own regulatory programs and instead rely upon a set of international standards developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, frequently referred to as Codex. The Codex international standards are termed maximum residue limits (MRLs) and, like U.S. tolerances, are established primarily as enforcement tools for determining whether pesticide applications are made according to established directions. While many countries have adopted Codex MRLs, others, such as the U.S. and several Asian countries, rely on their own standards. Thus, there is no uniformity among the world with respect to allowable levels of pesticides on foods. A pesticide-commodity... 

The Committee drew attention to the fact that the PP allows authorities to extend their policing powers, and that the implementation of this concept will have major implications at the international level inasmuch as It enables countries to temporarily suspend their free trade commitments. The precautionary principle gives countries a sovereign right—and makes them the sole arbiter—on matters affecting the safety of their nationals. There is thus a stark contradiction with the EU Treaty. 21... 

The issue of access to genetic resources is presented in Article 15. Article 15.1 describes how each state/government has sovereign rights over the natural resources and that national governments have the authority to determine access. The creation of conditions to facilitate access to genetic resources for environmentally sound uses is indicated in Article 15.2 with the admonition not to impose restrictions that run counter to the objectives of the Convention . 

It is, then, precisely the use of a nation s sovereign right to determine who shall compose its members that best reveals that nation s moral and political character. When, for example, the American Republic was formed, the nation withheld citizenship from its black- and red-skinned inhabitants, enfranchising the former in 1865, and the latter only in 1924. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is in a different category, as Article 81(1) of Protocol I specifically requires the parties to a conflict to grant the ICRC all facilities within their power so as to enable it to cany out the humanitarian functions assigned to it by the Conventions and this Protocol. Therefore, while States parties to the conflict retain the authority to grant facilities to the ICRC, the sovereign right of those States to decide whether to allow or not to allow such facilities is strictly limited. However, with respect to humanitarian activities other than those specified in the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I, the ICRC s actions are subject to the consent of the Parties to the conflict concerned. ... 

The main theme of this chapter was to clarify the extent to which a State may exercise its discretion to withhold consent to humanitarian activities to be carried out on its territory during armed conflict, in the light of the principle of State sovereignty under general international law, and IHL. It also addressed the interplay between the principle of sovereignty and IHL and clarified the extent to which IHL limits the exercise of the sovereign right of a State to control the entry of external actors into that State s territory. 

In practice, the alternatives are not no or total coastal state jurisdiction. Rather, the issue is which aspects (activities, operations, physical arrangements, qualifications etc.) on board the mobile facility should be subject to what kind of jurisdiction. This follows from the key wording of UNCLOS art. 77 ...sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring it and exploiting... . 

Export controls could even prove counter productive in the longer term. Western governments rarely described them as a panacea most depicted them as an interim measure, pending the negotiation of a Chemical Weapons Convention. Thereafter, the United States characterised them as a sovereign right which could still be imposed to promote national... 

Recognizing the sovereign rights of States over their natural resources, the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national governments and is subject to national legislation. 

This represents a diluted (and legally unenforceable) consensus on forest management which resulted from earlier (1990-1991) attempts to formulate a global forest convention. The principles assert the sovereign right of individual countries to profit from their forest resources but advocate that this should take place within a framework of forest protection, conservation and management. ... 

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