For decades the notion of sovereignty remained unchallenged. From the end of the tThirty yYears wWar and the establishment of the Westphalia treaty, sovereignty was considered the building brick for a peaceful international system. By giving only states the ability to use power, the universal community felt safe from the arbitrary actions of individuals[1].
Today we are faced with a new era.
For centuries after its establishment, sovereignty was considered as the greatest power, because only it held the ability of using force. Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes saw the state as the highest authority. The Leviathan, as he refers to it, gained its power from the civilans which gave their rights to the ruler for safe keeping. This system was governed by law reached by the concent between ruler and civilians[2].
Although the use of force is still one aspect of power, today we are faced with others, such as economical power and technological power. And therefore, sovereignty has become the centre of debate whether or not it has been eroded.  Part of the debate was to find a global definition to the idea, which turned to be a difficult task. Over time there have been many scholars who came with their own definition, though an agreement is still not achieved. For example; “the rightful entitlelment to exclusive,unqualiffied, and supreme rule within a dilimited teritory”[3].
Fowler and Bunck[4]  take the basic understanding of sovereignty (government ruling on people in a spacific territory) and are breaking that down to show that it is dificult to identify on that basis since every country differ in its charactaristics from the other. In the first paragraph of Jens Bartelson book he writes:
“ What is sovereignty? If there are questions political science ought to be able to to answer, this is certainly one. Yet modern political science often testifies to its own inability when it tries to cime to terms with the concept and reality of sovereignty”[5].
To make things even more complicated Fowler and Bunck observe cinicly, and in my opinion correctly, that:
“Today, the flavour of sovereignty depends upon the context in which the word is used.
Since different usages are applied in different, circumstances, the meaning of sovereignty varies according to the issue that is being addressed or the question that is being asked”[6].
Stephen Kkrasner even breaks sovereignty into four diferent types[tmcp1] [7]. He interprets it as “domestic” (internal control), “interdependence” (border control), “international-legal’ (mutual recognition among states) and “Westphalian” (ligaly[tmcp2]  protection against foreign assault or intervantion).
This inability to come to a universal agreement on what is sovereignty makes it difficult to make judgment on weahether the international system is being changed into a non sovereign based system or not. The debate on the subject is based on many reasons. I’ll focuse on the onesissues, which in my opinion, are the strongest points examples in the positive sphere of the debate: Globalization and terrorism. One of the issues raised by scholars who support the argument that sovereignty is beeing aeroded is globalization[tmcp3] . The fact is that in recent years the technological developments have made it almost impossible for countries to controll what happens within their borders. Funds and information, even top secrethighly classified material, can leave the country and within seconds be in an intire entirely different country. The media has become so powerfull and aefficiaent that totalitarian leaders cannot mistreat their citizens without any regard to the international conventions, treaties and law. The media catches, and other non-state actor, such as NGOs[tmcp4]  identifies these violations, transmits them worldwide in a manner of minutes and leaders of, these so called, sovereign countries find themselves under international pressure to change their ways.[tmcp5]  Another aspect of globalization are the enviroornmental issues that are international and cross multi borders[8].
The acts of one state doesn’t affect only it. The effects are global. Therefore the international community is putting a lot of pressure on countries that dissregard enviornmental treaties.             Another issue supporting this claim is the fact that terrorist groups operate whithin the teritory of a spaecific country without representing the standpoint of the country they oppoerate within, and most times even oppose the legitimacy of that government.  The IRA, for example, didn’t accept the British rule over northen Ireland and bombed governmental targets in order for to force Britain to leave the territory and proclaim it as part of Ireland. Further more, these groups take advantage of the cross-border media and internet and undermindes rulers by causing a civil aruption disruption(?) against certain rule[9].
            In contrast, as we have seen, sovereignty is not such an easy concept. That is why we have to analyze these aspects from the eyes of the other side as well. George Sorensen argues that the only reason some scholars believe that sovereignty is being eroded  is because they confuse between the substence of statehood with the legallity of the sovereignty institution[10].
Sorensen argues that “(t)here has never been some golden age… where states could effectively control transborder flows.”[tmcp6]  So in fact the way information and funds are travelling without any state supervision shouldn’t be councidered as an erosion of sovereignty. In his point of view, sovereignty is the legal entity based on “constitutional independence and regulative rules”[tmcp7] . Further more, if we look at countries like Iran we can see how even the so called unsupervised my space world is actually being monitored and kept from the population[tmcp8] , in order to keep western influation into the country and from corupting the youth. Taking Iran as another example, we can see that although huge pressure from the international community to stop Iran’s nuclear project, the Iranian government is still at it and even proud of the fact that it can do whatever it wants within its borders without any interfierance.[tmcp9]  Globalization is beeing used by the west to develop a global community for the protection of their sovereignty. The fast information flow is being incorporated into their security system and by doing so criminals at large are able to get caught and brought to justice within the borders and the criminal justice system of the country from which they fled.
As shown above terror groups are another reason to think sovereignty is been eroded. In fact terrorist organizations can do the oposite of eroding sovereignty and actualy stregthen it. John D. Montgomery states that “it is the responses to (terrorists attacks) that express sovereignty”[11].After the 9/11 terrorist attack there was a dramatic change in U.S domestic and foreign policy. The U.S government felt as if it was loosing controll over the country so it axcersised its sovereign right to close its borders and monitor the cevilan population.
The war against terror was in the name of state sovereignty. Bush declared terror as a threat to the world political system and by appealing to governments fear of loosing ability to controll their state it was made possible to create a coalission and invade middle eastern countries. The fact that even the Iraqi invatsion can be seen as a dissregard and as a defence to sovereignty, only ilustartes the fact that sovereignty is an ideal notion that is subject to veriation of interpretaion, depending on who, when and where it is being defined.[tmcp10]              Further more, terrorizm has made western countries a bit paranoid[tmcp11] . Countries are closing their borders against outsiders and make it extremely difficult to enter. Even the EU, a major challenge to sovereignty understanding, is not allowing foreigners to sattle in their borders that easilly.
            In conclution, for every reasoning given to show that sovereignty is being eroded there will be ways to refute it.
In this assay I consetrated on only two aspects of the discussion but there are many more, each of them having two sides. As I see it, as long as the international community can’t agree upon one definition there will be no way to check if its critiria are being overlooked.  Of course if we continue to identify sovereignty as the Westphelian concept, than yes, states ability to govern their people and teritory has been minimized. But because certain authorities of the state has been taken away due to global changes, for example in order to implament human rights, we cannot continue judging this aspect of international relations on a definition from centuries ago. In my opinion the notion of a national independent  state has always been and still growing today in importance. That is why sovereignty will never be totally eroded.
References:Bibliography Your references should be listed in alphabetical order, citing the surname/family name, before the given name.  See examples below:
Associated Press, 'Thai man who bred fighting cocks dies of bird flu; Indonesian man sickened by the virus', International Herald Tribune, 26th September 2006.  Accessed at http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=2936382 on 16 January
2 007.
Chatterjee, P., 'Cambodia's fight against malaria', The Lancet, vol. 366, no. 9481 July 16,2005, pps 191-192.
Fidler, D.
P., SARS, Governance and the Globalization of Disease, New York : Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.
Goodman, N. M., International Health Organizations and their work, Second Edition, Edinburgh & London : Churchill Livingstone, 1971.
Grein, T.
W., et al., 'Rumours of Disease in the Global Village: Oubtreak Verification', Emerging Infectious Diseases Vol 6, no.
2, March/April 2000, p. 99.
Layne, S.
P., 'Human Influenza Surveillance: the Demand to Expect', Emerging Infectious Diseases; vol. 12, no. 4, pp.  562-568.
* George Sorensen, The Transformation of the State, The state: Theories and Issues, 2006
* Hobbes Thomas, Leviathan,
1 651
* John Baylis & Steve Smith, Thé Globalisation of World Politiques, Third Edition, 2005
* M.R.
Fowler & Julie Marie Bunck, ‘What Constitutes the Sovereign State?’ Review of International Studies, Vol. 22, 1992
* Jens Bartelson, A genealogy of Sovereignty, 1995Is this a book, article, electronic source?
* Stephen Krasner, ‘Sovereignty and its Discontents’, Sovereignty: Organized, 1999
* Kenichi Ohmae, The End of the Nation State : The Rise of Regional Economies, 1995
* John D. Montgomery & Nathan Glazer, Sovereignty Under Challenge, 2002
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereignty/ * www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance [1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereignty/ [2] Hobbes Thomas, Leviathan, 1651, (no page) [3] John Baylis & Steve Smith, Thé Globalisation of World Politiques, Third Edition, 2005, pp.
5 [4] M.R. Fowler & Julie Marie Bunck, ‘What Constitutes the Sovereign State?’ Review of International Studies, Vol. 22, 1992, pp. 381-382
[5] Jens Bartelson, A genealogy of Sovereignty, 1995, pp.1
[6] Fowler & Bunck, pp.398
[7] Stephen Krasner, ‘Sovereignty and its Discontents’ in his Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, 1999, pp. 3-42.
[8] www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance [9] See for example the all the demonstration outside the borders and within the U.S against Bush’s policy in Iraq. Or the civil outcry erupted in Madrid after the 2005 bombing which led to the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.
[10] George Sorensen, The Transformation of the State, The state:
Theories and Issues, 2006, pp.199-202
[11] John D. Montgomery & Nathan Glazer, Sovereignty Under Challenge, 2002, pp.4
 [tmcp1]Clumsy. Example: Krasner argues that there are four different categories of sovereignty.
 [tmcp2]Do you mean: legally?  If not, I am sure what you mean!  [tmcp3]Brief definition is needed here, example, increased transborder flows of capital, goods, people, information and ideas…  [tmcp4]For example, Amnesty International  [tmcp5]Counter-argument – when it is in the interests of these states to do so…  [tmcp6]Reference: (year, page number)  [tmcp7]Reference: (Year, and page number)  [tmcp8]Explain, I am not sure that your point is?
 [tmcp9]Arguing that it has a sovereign right to develop nuclear capability for self-defence reasons.
 [tmcp10]You need to reference this.
 [tmcp11]This is not appropriate language for an academic piece.