Popular Sovereignty and Domestic Constitutional Orders
This chapter provides a basic groundwork that facilitates the interpretation of international legal discourse on the subject of government illegitimacy. It explores the relationships between and among the concepts of legitimacy, constitutionality, and sovereignty. It seeks to demonstrate that the legitimacy of governmental authority, however much owing to the constitutional order of a given state, cannot be said ultimately as a matter of international law to rest on that order. Although a domestic legal system confers legitimacy on governmental acts, it does so only to the extent that it is regarded as the authoritative means of interpreting an underlying sovereign will.
Keywords: government illegitimacy, legitimacy, constitutionality, sovereignty, governmental authority, international law, domestic legal system
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