Sovereignty and External Interventions: The Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire

The article examined the concepts of sovereignty and external interventions against the background of the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire. This was with a view to appraising the nature and extent of assertions of sovereignty by the ousted President Laurent Gbagbo and possible implications of external interventions from some notable international communities. The crisis was wholistically considered in its historico–legal, political, socio-economic and international perspectives. Reliance was placed on primary and secondary sources of information based on relevant theoretical and practical models propounded by scholars in other interdisciplinary subjects. All data obtained were subjected to content and contextual analyses. The study found that though, Cote d’Ivoire is an independent nation having the right to exercise her sovereignty in the management of her domestic affairs; such right should be exercised subject to other international legal instruments to which the country was signatory. Also, reducing the Ivorian crisis to just an election dispute could be naive without a classic examination of the role of some nations especially France, a former colonial master.