By Autumn Perkey

Abstract: Current literature demonstrates that the relationship between global justice and sovereignty is dependent upon how sovereignty is applied. Considering John Rawls’s work on sovereignty, he defines sovereignty as a product of states that is limited by successful internal governance. The problem arises in what ought to be done when there is poor internal governance. I will examine the theoretical work on sovereignty and its
relationship to indigenous sovereignty. This will help demonstrate that sovereignty is a structural, rather than an ideological problem. Sovereignty, being a structural element and ordering principle, proves to be problematic. The problem of global justice maybe the limitation created by sovereignty as associated with a structural phenomenon and the multitude of variations in sovereignty’s conceptualization, and what sovereignty implies. Building upon the work of Thomas Nagel, Joshua Cohen, Charles Sabel, and John Rawls, this paper focuses on the example of the limitations of sovereignty faced by indigenous people to demonstrate why constitutive identities limit the effects of sovereignty and global justice.