Popular Sovereignty in Authoritarian Regimes: Philosophical and Legal Foundations and the Limits of International Intervention - An Analysis of the US-Venezuela Case from the Perspective of International Precedents

Abstract

This article examines state sovereignty from the philosophical perspective, the theory of the State, and public international law, with an emphasis on popular ownership of sovereignty even in the context of authoritarian regimes. A systematic analysis is developed that articulates the contributions of Rousseau, Sieyès, Kelsen, and Bodin with contemporary international normativity, demonstrating that popular sovereignty is not extinguished by the form of the political regime, but remains as the ontological foundation of the State. The central thesis argues that imperialist interventions under the pretext of a democratic deficit lack legal foundation in positive international law and violate structuring principles such as self-determination of peoples, non-intervention, and sovereign equality. Thru a legal-dogmatic and philosophical-analytical methodology, the purported legitimacy of unilateral interventions is critically examined, demonstrating their incompatibility with the normative architecture of the United Nations Charter and the theoretical foundations of sovereignty as a legal-political institution. Although Sovereignty, in classical International Law, continues to be conceived as the supreme legal power of the State to self-determine and govern itself freely, both internally and externally, on equal footing with other States, without submission to any higher authority, in contemporary International Law the classical concept has been relativized. Indeed, the notion of sovereignty, conceived in International Law as the independence of States, has gained new substantive uses at the domestic level of countries, especially from the second half of the 20th century onward, when it began to be associated with the self-determination of peoples, active citizenship, and the effectiveness of fundamental rights and human rights. In light of the emergencies of modern times, the study concludes with the necessity of distinguishing between the ownership of sovereignty (always popular) and the exercise of governmental power (contingent), arguing that internal political transformations constitute an exclusive prerogative of the peoples thru their own mechanisms of self-determination.