<P> Sovereignty has taken on a different meaning with the development of the principle of self - determination and the prohibition against the threat or use of force as jus cogens norms of modern international law . The United Nations Charter, the Draft Declaration on Rights and Duties of States, and the charters of regional international organizations express the view that all states are juridically equal and enjoy the same rights and duties based upon the mere fact of their existence as persons under international law . The right of nations to determine their own political status and exercise permanent sovereignty within the limits of their territorial jurisdictions is widely recognized . </P> <P> In political science, sovereignty is usually defined as the most essential attribute of the state in the form of its complete self - sufficiency in the frames of a certain territory, that is its supremacy in the domestic policy and independence in the foreign one . </P> <P> Named after the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the Westphalian System of state sovereignty, which according to Bryan Turner is "made a more or less clear separation between religion and state, and recognised the right of princes' to confessionalise' the state, that is, to determine the religious affiliation of their kingdoms on the pragmatic principle of cuius regio eius religio ." </P> <P> The Westphalian model of state sovereignty has increasingly come under fire from the "non-west" as a system imposed solely by Western Colonialism . What this model did was make religion a subordinate to politics, a problem that has caused some issues in the Islamic world . This system does not fit in the Islamic world because concepts such as "separation of church and state" and "individual conscience" are not recognised in the Islamic religion as social systems . </P>

When does one country have an absolute advantage over another