sovereignty

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sovereignty Ultimate authority, held by a person or institution, against which there is no appeal. In early modern Europe, sovereignty came to be ascribed to the absolute monarchs of the new nation-states. In Britain, sovereignty resides in Parliament. In most countries, it now resides in ‘the people’. Since 1945 states agreed to pool sovereignty in certain intergovernmental organizations, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU).

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