Thoughts about sovereignty....

Okay, so this doesn't directly have to do with Pogge's argument but there was a section of his piece that made me think about sovereignty in relation to our past discussions about global justice and human rights. One of Pogge's points about why the WTO is bad for poor countries has to do with the idea that "political power in the poor countries is typically very unevenly distributed" (12). He mentions that some may argue that poor countries must be held accountable to patent rules as laid out by the WTO because they agreed to them. "Volenti non fit iniuria - no injustice is being done to the willing" (12). Pogge argues against this idea, as it uses the inference that the consent of populations is demonstrated through the actions of their rulers. However, many poor countries have corrupt or tyrannical leaders who do not act for their people. As such, "we cannot invalidate the complaint of those now excluded from essential medicines by appealing to the prior consent of the ruler when this ruler himself lacks any moral standing to consent on their behalf" (13). Pogge notes that the international practice to recognize a ruler's power, usually regardless of how they acquired it, is common but that this leads to many problems. This made me think back to our discussion about sovereignty and the right to intervene on the basis of human rights. Pogge seems to suggest that it is right to disregard the decisions of corrupt rulers, as they often do not represent their people and sacrifice their human rights. Although I think he is correct in many cases, it is still hard to determine when sovereignty is illegitimate and when intervention is necessary. I'm curious if anyone else had any thoughts about sovereignty and legitimacy based on this section? How can we tell when a ruler accurately represents a people? Democracy does not seem to be the answer, as there can be both legitimate and illegitimate elections. I'll be interested to hear any thoughts...especially tying back to Beitz or Nagel.