Sovereignty of State in Light of the International Law Changes Between Absolute and Relative State’s Oil Contracts as a Model

Abstract

This study determine the modern approach of the principle of state’s  sovereignty, in light of a set of developments and changes that  contribute in forming the structure of the international system in its situation today. In this approach, we focused on state’s oil contracts as a model through which the results can be accurately determined, given that the state's signing of these contracts with foreign companies is considered one of the clearest and most prominent manifestations of sovereignty exercising . These contracts have raised a controversy in jurisprudential, legal, and economic environment regarding its nature and, consequently, its susceptibility to nationalization. This has led the investments host countries to exercise their traditional (absolute) sovereignty and pushed the international community to recognize their right to nationalize their natural resources. In contrast, technology-exporting countries have sought to fundamentally change the traditional principle of state sovereignty, from absolute to relative, reducing the absolute right of State sovereignty , when it established a set of restrictions imposed under the umbrella of the international law. Based on this, the scope of state sovereignty was reduced from absolute to relative by the tools of international law itself. The study reached to several conclusions, which we believe to be valid, perhaps the most important of which is that , just as the  international law was the spiritual father of the state in its early days , and the nurturing mother of its sovereignty, it will be the effective tool for the beginning of the erosion of its sovereignty and the decline of its star.