A longtime Chicago educator and administrator, John Heintz recently served Niles Township High School District 219 as assistant superintendent of operations and chief legal officer. Holding an LLM from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 2009 and an MBA from the University of Chicago in 2012, John Heintz focused his studies at the former on International Economic Law and Sustainable Development. He authored a thesis titled “Sovereignty versus the Environment: The Qualification of Sovereignty in International Law.”
In the paper, Mr. Heintz looks closely at the concept of sovereignty as a construct that has historically meant absolute, unqualified rights of states to act as they wanted. This includes the rights of countries to exploit natural resources as they wish, an entitlement that still holds to this day. At the same time, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international agreements have set in place a global commons that includes much of the oceans, the sea bed, the polar regions, and outer space.
Within this basic framework, and despite fierce defense of their unqualified rights by sovereign states, qualifications have been brought to bear through international organizations from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization. International treaties and agreements have exerted interventional force, as have the activities of multinational corporations. The era of unfettered sovereignty is a trend that seems to be waning as international legal norms take hold.
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