SLOANE In the context of decolonization (and beyond), the private-army rule came under stress for two principal

reasons. First, private armies raise the global expectation of unauthorized violence and destabilize world public order because they operate outside the interstate political constraints of the traditional laws of war, including reciprocity. Yet within the emerging legal and normative regime of international human rights law, insistence on nonviolence and deference to all established institutions in a global system with many injustices [seemed to] be tantamount to confirmation and reinforcement of those injustices.105 Apartheidera South Africa offered a paradigmatic example of this predicament. Second, the inherited laws of war presume the stability of states, including both their authoritythat is, effective and plenary control over their territoryand legitimacyin the sense of popular normative acquiescence or support. Because the stable identity of many states is a fiction,106 so tooat least to this extent and in this regard is the rationale for the private-army rule. These issues came to a head during the decolonization era, when the authority, legitimacy, and identity of many states fluctuated. States also recognized at the timein the popular, if anachronistic, terminology used todaythat failed states could seriously threaten international peace and security.107

107=116061

CALL Related to the paternalistic character of the failed state label is the obfuscation of the West's role in the contemporary condition of these states. This ahistoric scoring of a state as failing or fragile omits the long history of colonialism and exploitation in the impoverishment and poor governance of many societies presently considered fragile or failing.27 European states (and later North American countries) created the system of nation-states, often drawing the borders of states themselves, as well as extracting resources, fostering colonial institutions with powerful legacies, propping up postcolonial leaders, providing them with arms, and undermining the emergence of plural and civil societies that might have diminished poverty, warfare and weak institutions. 28 Certainly elites and social groups in many poor and war-torn societies bear important responsibility for choices they have made. However, it is egregious to ignore the role of Western colonial powers, international financial institutions, development agencies and the systems these actors have created in the historical evolution of so-called failed states.

RILEY Given the expansiveness of the transformations underway, it appears that sovereignty faces greater challenges in the modern era than it has ever before.38 Globalization of our technological world promises (or threatens) to connect us across time, space, and borders.39 This phenomenon is minimizing the nationstate, and, concomitantly, its relevance.40 This does not mean that the nation-state has lost its importance within the global political framework,45 but it is clear that globalization has diminished its significance.46 As nation-states territoriality decreases, there is a correlative rise in the focus on citizens rights and claims against the government.47 This new vision of sovereignty places a higher obligation on the sovereign state to care for and regulate the behaviour of its citizens both inside and outside state borders.48 STACY Studies indicate that governmental institutions, policies, and economic development projects256 are all vulnerable to failure if they are not a good cultural match.257 Failure among such institutions can be devastating to an Indian nation. If a government fails, it may be unable to, inter alia, maintain stability, produce economic gains, provide for basic social services, or safeguard members human rights.258

40=117274 (describing failure of state model)

46=1182 258=116062 (describing characteristics of failed states)

WORSTER
However, just the opposite could be argued: that the need in the international order for state sovereignty and equality must necessarily result in less discretion on the part of states to refuse recognition. Although state discretion, and the institution of statehood generally, has been a source of stability,166 it also has been a source of conflict.

arguing that the history of the state is a history of repression and war and that even the United Nations Charter, the emergence of human rights law, and other sovereignty-limiting doctrines have not ended state predation. 1159, 1173.

COGAN The post-War regime rested on the twin notions that both the primary threat to and primary protector of individuals was the state. This state-centered perspective made a good deal of sense in the wake of World War II, and it continued to have meaning going forward, particularly in the West. After all, states provided social safety nets, satisfied dreams of national liberation, and defended their peoples from the perceived dangers that lurked beyond (and within) national boundaries. And yet states also abused their powersthe Soviet bloc and dictatorships worldwide provided powerful reminders of the persistent danger to individual rights posed by the uncontrolled state, and the liberal welfare states of the First World, though beneficent in their purposes, threatened just the same, if perhaps less menacingly. But what if these foundational ideas were no longer true, or as true, as they once were? What if the state could no longer fulfill its responsibilities? And what if, instead, the greatest threat to individuals shifted from the state to non-state entities, including other individuals? Just as the role of international law in relation to the individual depended on a certain set of historically contingent conditions for its establishment and continued resonance, so too could its function alter with changed circumstances. And so it did. The fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the toppling of many authoritarian regimes, the Reaganite/Thatcherite undermining of the centrality of government in the West, the move to privatize governmental functions, not to mention the failure of many states, such as Somalia, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan,94 and the fact that the state, acting alone, seem[ed] increasingly less able to accomplish what [was] expected of it95all these developments of the 1980s and 1990s undercut the value of governments and defanged in important ways the post-War conceptualization of governmental evil. 94=1160

Rosa Brooks has gone even farther. She rejects the idea of restoring failed states because they attempt to put into place the nation-state as the governing form. According to Brooks, the nation-state itself is tottering on eroded foundations, and failed states might be better off in non-state arrangements.52 While the state is not defunct, she urges that we should be more open to diverse forms of social organizationand that we should strive to create an international legal order that permits and values numerous different forms of social organization.53
52=1185-86 53=1195