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A significant reorganization and reform has been underway in the state-oriented world
system. The change has manifested itself since the end of World War I, gathering momentum
since the end of World War II, and with the cruising speed of what we now call globalization.
The different facets of that change have come to be recognized by international relations scholars
as the challenges by various non-state actors and the power erosion of the modern state. Others
have concentrated on incremental changes in norms of international conduct, the shaping of
international regimes and new customs in international law. What is lacking in all of these
disparate observations is an appreciation that the underlying paradigmatic shift that will
eventually be recognized as such is in the morality of global responsibility that has come into
being, which is paradoxically based on human needs that ushered in the modern state and the
urgent need now to domesticate that state.
The image by association of the modern state from the liberal point of view is that of a
monstrous Leviathan bent on restoring order by whatever means. That notion was further
reinforced by our habitual acceptance by definition of the visceral need of the modern state to
monopolize coercive power in society alias Max Weber. Those same ideas continued to inform
the worldviews of traditional realists as well as neorealist of the international system even though
criticisms abound about the erosion of power of the state, that the Westphalian concept of
sovereignty is antiquated, and perhaps a reconceptualization of sovereignty is urgently needed.
None of these criticisms, however, suggest that the core concepts associated with sovereignty are
outlived by changing structures and circumstances. In fact the evolution of ideas and practices
about the modern state are still rooted in its Westphalian origins. We can appreciate the new
transition in moral order by briefly recalling the characteristics and circumstances under which
Convention