In Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement: Premises of a Pluralist International Legal Order, author Brad R. Roth provides readers with a unifying account of the various applications of sovereign equality in international law, and defends the principle of sovereign equality as amorally-sound response to disagreements in the international realm. The United Nations system's foundational principle of sovereign equality reflects persistent disagreement within its membership as to what constitutes a legitimate and just internal public order. While the boundaries of the system's pluralism have narrowed progressively in the course of the UnitedNations era, accommodation of diversity in modes of internal political organization remains a durable theme of the international order. This accommodation of diversity is part of the international system's commitment to preserving a state's territorial integrity and political independence. Theprinciple of state sovereignty serves as an impediment to those who which to establish a universal justice that transcends territories. The wish to establish a universal justice, however, neglects to address the danger of allowing powerful states to invoke universal principles to rationalizeunilateral (and often self-serving) impositions upon weak states. In Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement, Brad Roth explains that though frequently counterintuitive, limitations on cross-border exercises of power are supported by substantial moral and political considerations, and are properlyoverridden only in a limited range of cases. Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement accomplishes two tasks. The book constructs a unifying account of the manifestations of the principle of sovereign equality in international legal norms governing a range of subject areas, from foundational matters such as the recognition of states andgovernments to controversial questions such as legal authority for extraterritorial criminal prosecution and armed intervention. And it also defends the principle as a morally sound response to persistent and profound disagreement within the international community as to the requirements oflegitimate and just internal public order. | Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement by Brad Roth, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters