« Onus orbis terrarum » About a possible shift in the definition of sovereignty

Starting with an insight from Peter Sloterdijk about the enduring notion of Empire in European idea of sovereignty, the paper explores a problem common to the field of international relations and more generally geopolitics as well as social theory: the very origin of the notion of an entity endowed with some sort of autonomy over a territory. It is argued that the notion of a bounded entity triggers many artifacts that explains, in part, the failure and denial of world politics especially over the question of the climate. See also the interview in the same issue.