The nature of world order and state sovereignty: HSC Legal Studies

What this dot point is asking

This is the first part of the World Order option in the Legal Studies Stage 6 Syllabus (2009), examined in the 2026 and 2027 HSC. Students learn about the meaning of 'world order', the need for world order, the development of world order over time, the nature of conflict (inter-state and intra-state) and access to resources as a source of conflict. The "learn to" statements ask you to discuss the concept of 'world order', outline the evolving nature of world order, describe the need for world order and explain the implications of the nature of conflict on achieving world order. From part 2 of the option this page also covers the nation state and state sovereignty, because you must examine the role of sovereignty in assisting and impeding the resolution of world order issues.

World Order is examined as a 25-mark extended response in Section III. This material is the foundation for every judgement you make about the themes: cooperation and conflict, compliance and non-compliance, changing values, law reform and the effectiveness of legal and non-legal responses.

The answer

The meaning of 'world order'

World order is the framework of rules, institutions, relationships and practices through which states and other international actors regulate their interactions, maintain peace and security, resolve conflict and cooperate on shared problems. It has two senses, and the best answers use both.

• Descriptive sense. The actual state of international relations at a given time: how power is distributed, which states and groups are in conflict, and how far the rules are obeyed.
• Normative sense. An ideal of a peaceful, just and rules-based international system that the law is working towards. The phrase "rules-based international order", used often by Australian governments, refers to this sense.

The actors in world order are:

• nation states, still the primary actors and the main makers and subjects of international law;
• intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), created by treaty between states, such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, ASEAN and the African Union;
• non-government organisations (NGOs), such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch;
• courts and tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC);
• non-state actors, including armed groups, terrorist organisations, multinational corporations and individuals;
• the media, which informs public opinion and records violations.

Discussing the concept. World order is contested. A realist view sees it as a balance of power between self-interested states in which law is followed only when convenient. A liberal view sees it as a system of cooperation in which institutions and law change state behaviour over time. The truth in HSC terms is that international law is highly effective where states share an interest (aviation, postal services, trade, maritime boundaries) and least effective where the core security interests of powerful states are at stake.

The need for world order

World order is needed because states are interdependent and many problems cannot be solved by one state alone.

• Peace and security. Two world wars killed tens of millions of people; nuclear weapons make major-power war potentially catastrophic. The prohibition on force in article 2(4) of the Charter exists to prevent a return to that.
• Protection of people. International humanitarian law and human rights law protect civilians, prisoners and minorities from the worst abuses, including genocide and crimes against humanity.
• Global commons. Oceans, airspace, outer space and the atmosphere are shared. Climate change, overfishing and pollution need collective rules, which is why the ICJ gave an advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change on 23 July 2025.
• Trade and economic stability. Predictable rules on trade, investment and finance (WTO, IMF, World Bank) allow states to prosper.
• Transnational threats. Terrorism, pandemics, cybercrime, people smuggling and drug trafficking cross borders and need cooperation between police, intelligence and health agencies.
• Legitimacy and fairness. Without rules, disputes are resolved by force, which favours the powerful.

The development of world order over time

The evolving nature of world order. The trend has been from a system of sovereign states with few rules towards a dense network of treaties, institutions and courts, with individuals now holding rights and responsibilities in international law. But the system still rests on state consent, and 2022 to 2026 shows that when major powers are in conflict, or withdraw from institutions, the order weakens. The UN's 2026 regular budget of about US$3.45 billion, approved in December 2025, is about 7 per cent lower than the 2025 budget and abolishes about 2,900 positions, part of the "UN80" reforms driven by a liquidity crisis.

The nation state and state sovereignty

State sovereignty is the principle that each state has supreme authority within its territory (internal sovereignty) and is independent of external control (external sovereignty). It rests on three Westphalian pillars:

• territorial integrity;
• non-intervention in domestic affairs;
• the legal equality of states.

The UN Charter restates them. Article 2(1): "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members." Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Article 2(7) prevents the UN from intervening in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a state, but this does not prejudice enforcement measures under Chapter VII.

Statehood. Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States 1933 lists a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Under the declaratory theory, recognition by other states is not a legal requirement, although in practice UN membership and recognition matter a great deal (Palestine is a non-member observer state; Taiwan is not a UN member).

Sources of international law. Because there is no world legislature, international law comes from the sources in article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice:

• treaties (conventions), binding only on states that consent, governed by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969;
• customary international law, which arises from general state practice accepted as law (opinio juris) and binds all states, as the ICJ explained in Nicaragua v United States (1986);
• general principles of law recognised by nations, such as good faith;
• judicial decisions and the teachings of highly qualified publicists, as subsidiary means of determining the law.

Hard and soft law. Hard law is binding: treaties in force for a state, custom and jus cogens (peremptory norms from which no derogation is permitted, VCLT art 53, such as the prohibitions on genocide, slavery, torture and aggression). Soft law is not binding but influential: General Assembly resolutions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and the 2005 World Summit Outcome on R2P. Soft law can harden into custom or treaty over time.

Australia's federal government. Treaty-making is an executive power of the Commonwealth. Treaties are tabled in Parliament and reviewed by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (since 1996), but they become part of Australian law only through legislation. The external affairs power (Constitution s 51(xxix)) allows Parliament to implement treaties, as the High Court confirmed in Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1 (the Tasmanian Dam case), which upheld Commonwealth legislation implementing the World Heritage Convention.

Sovereignty assisting and impeding world order

The syllabus asks you to examine the role of sovereignty in assisting and impeding the resolution of world order issues. Organise evidence on both sides.

How sovereignty assists.

• Legitimacy through consent. Because states agree to treaties, they are more likely to comply. The Geneva Conventions 1949 have 196 states parties.
• Equality and voice. Every state has one vote in the General Assembly, which let 141 states condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Resolution ES-11/1 (2 March 2022).
• Consensual dispute settlement. Timor-Leste began the first ever compulsory conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) in April 2016. It led to the Treaty between Australia and Timor-Leste Establishing their Maritime Boundaries in the Timor Sea, signed on 6 March 2018 and in force from 30 August 2019.
• Domestic enforcement. Sovereign states implement international law through their own courts and police: Australia prosecutes war crimes under Division 268 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

How sovereignty impedes.

• The veto. Article 27(3) gives the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) a veto over substantive decisions. Russia vetoed the draft resolution on Ukraine on 25 February 2022; China and Russia vetoed a Gulf-sponsored draft on protecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz on 7 April 2026 (11 votes to 2, with 2 abstentions).
• Non-participation. States need not join treaties: the United States, Russia, China, India and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute.
• Non-compliance with rulings. China rejected the 2016 South China Sea arbitral award as "null and void".
• Withdrawal. In January 2026 the United States announced withdrawal from 66 international organisations, including 31 UN entities and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Venezuela and Chad notified withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2026.
• Shield for internal abuses. Article 2(7) and non-intervention have delayed responses to atrocities within states, such as Syria after 2011 and Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya from 2017.

The nature of conflict: inter-state and intra-state

Inter-state conflict is armed conflict between two or more states. It is governed directly by the UN Charter (art 2(4), art 51 self-defence and Chapter VII) and by the law of international armed conflict (the four Geneva Conventions 1949 and Additional Protocol I 1977). Recent examples:

• Russia and Ukraine, since Russia's full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022;
• India and Pakistan, whose armed forces exchanged strikes in May 2025;
• Israel and Iran in June 2025, and the wider war that began with United States and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026, followed by Iranian strikes on Israel, US bases and Gulf states. On 11 March 2026 the Security Council adopted Resolution 2817 (2026) (13 votes to 0, China and Russia abstaining), condemning Iran's attacks on its Gulf neighbours and Jordan. The legality of the initial strikes is disputed: the United States relied on self-defence, while states including China described them as unauthorised.

Intra-state conflict is armed conflict within a state, usually between a government and one or more non-state armed groups, or between such groups. It is governed by common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol II 1977 (where it applies) and customary law. Examples:

• Sudan, where war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023 and has produced one of the world's largest displacement crises;
• Myanmar, where armed conflict has escalated since the military coup of 1 February 2021;
• Syria, where civil war from 2011 ended with the fall of the Assad government in December 2024, although violence continues;
• the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the M23 armed group seized Goma in January 2025. UN experts have reported Rwandan support for M23, which Rwanda denies.

Many intra-state conflicts are internationalised: outside states supply weapons, troops or money, and fighting spills across borders.

The data. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) recorded 61 state-based conflicts in 2024 and a record 65 in 2025, the highest since its records begin in 1946. It reported that inter-state conflicts doubled for the second consecutive year in 2025 and that fatalities in organised violence rose to about 244,600.

Implications for achieving world order. This is the "learn to" statement, so be explicit.

1. The Charter was designed for inter-state war. Most conflicts are intra-state, where article 2(7) and the lack of consent from non-state groups make intervention harder.
2. Non-state actors are not parties to treaties, cannot be sued in the ICJ and often ignore humanitarian law, so accountability relies on domestic courts, the ICC and sanctions.
3. The veto matters most when a permanent member is a party or ally, which is now true of several major inter-state conflicts.
4. Conflicts produce refugees, famine and terrorism that spread instability, so intra-state conflict becomes a threat to international peace (the trigger for Chapter VII action).
5. R2P (2005) and international criminal law partly respond to intra-state conflict by treating sovereignty as responsibility and individuals as accountable.

Access to resources as a source of conflict

Competition for water, land, energy, minerals and maritime zones is a recurring cause or driver of conflict. International law responds with treaties, dispute settlement and sanctions, with mixed success.

• Maritime zones and fisheries: the South China Sea. In The South China Sea Arbitration (Philippines v China) under Annex VII of UNCLOS, the tribunal (administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration) ruled on 12 July 2016 that China's claimed historic rights within the "nine-dash line" had no legal basis under UNCLOS. China rejected the award, and confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels have continued. This shows that a legal ruling without enforcement depends on compliance.
• Seabed oil and gas: the Timor Sea. Australia and Timor-Leste settled their long dispute over petroleum resources through UNCLOS conciliation and the 2018 treaty, a successful legal response.
• Water: the Nile. Ethiopia inaugurated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on 9 September 2025. Egypt wrote to the Security Council calling it an unlawful unilateral act that threatens its water security; Ethiopia says it respects equitable use. There is no binding agreement among Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, and the Security Council has left the dispute to regional negotiation.
• Minerals: the eastern DRC. Control of coltan, gold and tin mining areas helps fund armed groups. Responses include UN sanctions, reporting by the UN Group of Experts and supply-chain due diligence rules. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (2003) is a similar non-legal response to "conflict diamonds".
• Energy transit: the Strait of Hormuz. In the 2026 Iran war, attacks on shipping and restrictions on transit through the strait sharply cut commercial traffic and disrupted global energy markets, and a Security Council draft on protecting shipping was vetoed in April 2026.
• Historical example. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was linked to oil and debt disputes; the Security Council authorised force in Resolution 678 (1990).

Climate change is likely to intensify resource conflict through drought, food insecurity and sea-level rise. For Pacific states, rising seas threaten territory itself; Australia and Tuvalu's Falepili Union Treaty (signed 2023, in force 2024) includes Australian recognition that Tuvalu's statehood and sovereignty will continue despite sea-level rise.

Evaluating the nature of world order

Judgement. World order is partially effective. The legal framework is comprehensive and succeeds where states' interests align, but because it depends on sovereign consent it is weakest in exactly the situations, great-power conflict and internal atrocities, where it is most needed.

In one sentence

World order is the rules-based framework, built from Westphalia to the UN Charter, through which sovereign states cooperate and resolve conflict, and while sovereignty gives that framework legitimacy, it also lets states veto, ignore or leave it, which is why record levels of inter-state, intra-state and resource-driven conflict in 2024 and 2025 have strained it.

Try this

Q1. Discuss the concept of 'world order'. (5 marks)

• What the marker wants. A definition, the descriptive and normative senses, the main actors and a brief comment on why the concept is contested.

Q2. Explain how access to resources can be a source of conflict, using two examples. (6 marks)

• What the marker wants. Two specific examples (for example the South China Sea and the Nile) with the legal response to each and a comment on its effectiveness.

Q3. Evaluate the role of state sovereignty in resolving world order issues. (8 marks)

• What the marker wants. Charter articles 2(1), 2(4) and 2(7), evidence of sovereignty assisting (Timor Sea) and impeding (vetoes, withdrawals), and a clear judgement.