There have emerged certain issues which are, by their very nature, of global concerns. These concerns, on the one hand, require global effort and to that extent compromise on external sovereignty and, on the other, challenge the concept of territorial or geographical impermeability of the state boundary. To list some of them, they include issues of environmental degradation and damage; human rights; nuclear proliferation, terrorism; poverty, hunger and human migrations; etc. These issues affect the states irrespective of their geography and territorial boundary thus questioning the concept of geographical defence and territorial impermeability. Further, they bring multilateral pressure to affect the external decision-making of the states. This also questions the distinction between the internal and external sphere of state activities.
Environmental movements and multilateral conferences like Green movement, UN Stockholm’s Conference on Human Environment (1972), Rio Earth Summit (1992), Kyoto Protocol (1997), etc., affect the decision-making of states in a large way. Similarly, human rights movements like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc., affect even the policy of internal security of the states. Human rights issues have been deployed by one state to influence the decisions and behaviour of the other state. For example, USA, UK and other developed countries use human rights issues to influence even the internal security and ethnic policy of China (Tibet) and India (Kashmir). The issue of nuclear proliferation is equally important from the point of view of state sovereignty. One the one hand, fear of nuclear proliferation has led the group of five dominant and recognized nuclear powers to influence the decision of other states and restrict their ability to acquire such a capability. On the other, inter-continental ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear weapons threaten the boundary of the state. Terrorism, of late, has also threatened the impermeability of states and global terrorism has challenged the concept of both internal and external security that the tradition concept of state enjoyed. We find that in many poor countries, ethnic violence and civil strife leads to human migration and refugee problem. In most of Africa, this is has posed problems for the state to provide for itself a secure boundary. Thus, we can say that the traditional concept of state as a sovereign and impermeable entity has come in question.
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