From the Treaty of Westphalia to Global Governance: A Reassessment of the Sovereignty of Pakistan through the Prism of Public International Law

Abstract

This paper is a critical analysis of how sovereignty has evolved since its classical Westphalian comprehension to its modern expression in the working arsenal of global governance, with a specific interest in the role of Pakistan in public international law. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) set the steps to the new international plan of the territorial integrity, political autonomy, and non-intervention, which determined the modern system of the state. Nevertheless, the changes in international law, multilateral institutions, economic interdependence and transnational security regimes have, to a large extent, transformed the operational definition of sovereignty. The study appraises Pakistan's participation in the international legal regimes such as the United Nations system, the international financial institutions, the trade frameworks, the counterterrorism mechanisms, and the human rights treaty bodies through a doctrinal scrutiny of the law and a contextual review of the case. The paper presents the claim that the sovereignty of Pakistan has not, however, been eroded, but incorporated into a model of controlled and mutually dependent sovereignty. Although the global governance frameworks subject the nations to limiting conditions given out by the legal obligation, conditionalities and normative pressures, they also offer the nation’s strategic conditions of economic stability, security cooperation, and international legitimacy.

The study concludes that sovereignty in the modern world is more adaptive and negotiated as opposed to absolute. The example of Pakistan has shown how this has been happening in the entire world, as people have turned to a pattern of cooperation as opposed to an absolute Westphalian autonomy in international law.

Keywords: Sovereignty; Treaty of Westphalia; Global Governance; Pakistan; Public International Law; Non-Intervention; International Institutions, Geopolitics.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19418516