Delegating divisible sovereignty: Sweeping a conceptual minefield

Delegating sovereignty to international organizations (IOs) is both increasingly common and controversial. I address the sources of current controversies in three claims. First, although alleged otherwise, sovereignty is eminently divisible. From practice, indivisibility should not be a barrier to delegating to IOs. Second, it is intuitive that longer chains of delegation will be more likely to fail. Yet, it is not the length of the chain per se that matters as whether identifiable conditions for successful delegation are satisfied. Third, although “delegation” is often used to refer to both, delegating and pooling sovereignty are distinct activities. Much of the concern with IOs is really about pooling rather than delegating sovereignty.

David A. LakeEmail: