sovereign immunity

(noun)

A legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution.

Examples of sovereign immunity in the following topics:

  • The 11th Amendment

    • The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution deals with each state's sovereign immunity.
  • Two Judicial Revolutions: The Rehnquist Court and the Roberts Court

    • One of the Court's major developments involved reinforcing and extending the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which limits the ability of Congress to subject non-consenting states to lawsuits by individual citizens seeking money damages.
  • Diplomacy

    • Receiving recognition is usually difficult, even for countries which are fully sovereign.
    • However, Palestinian representatives in most Western countries are not accorded diplomatic immunity.
  • The Public Debt

    • Sovereign debt usually refers to government debt that has been issued in a foreign currency.
    • Bonds issued by national governments in foreign currencies are normally referred to as sovereign bonds.
    • Investors in sovereign bonds denominated in foreign currency have the additional risk that the issuer may be unable to obtain foreign currency to redeem the bonds.
    • Lending to a national government in the country's own sovereign currency is often considered "risk free" and is done at a so-called "risk-free interest rate. " This is because, up to a point, the debt and interest can be repaid by raising tax receipts (either by economic growth or raising tax rates), a reduction in spending, or failing that by simply printing more money.
  • Popular Consent, Majority Rule, and Popular Sovereignty

    • Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government.
    • The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly.
    • With the American Revolution, Americans substituted the sovereignty in the person of King George III, with a collective sovereign—one composed of the people.
    • Rather, the consent of the governed and the idea of the people as a sovereign had clear 17th and 18th century intellectual roots in English history.
  • The Articles of Confederation

    • First, they expressly provided that the states were sovereign.
    • (A sovereign state is a state that is both self-governing and independent. ) The United States as a Confederation was much like the present-day European Union.
  • Inherent Powers

    • Inherent powers are those powers that a sovereign state holds.
  • Roving Wiretaps

    • All three of these Telecom companies faced multiple civil lawsuits related to their handling of phone records and the passing of this bill granted them immunity.
    • In favor of the bill, McConnell has stated that such immunity was necessary to prevent the telecoms from being bankrupted and to encourage them to continue to cooperate with intelligence agencies.
    • Bush said that he would veto any intelligence bill passed that did not include such immunity.
    • Senator Russ Feingold from the District of Washington promised to lead a filibuster to block approval of retroactive immunity.
    • Retroactive immunity set the terrible precedent that breaking the law is permissible and companies need not worry about the privacy of their customers, Feingold said.
  • Head of State

    • Head of State is a term used in constitutional law, international law, political science, and diplomatic protocol to designate an official who holds the highest ranked position in a state and has the vested or implied powers to act as the chief public representative of a sovereign state.
    • "The World's Sovereigns": A photo montage made in Europe in 1889 with the main heads of state in the world.
  • Thinking Politically

    • States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state.
    • States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state.
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