Vaclav Klaus Quotes

The world consists of, and is divided by, sovereign states which recognize no superior authority.

I wouldn't say the nation-state is dead, but the Sovereignty has been greatly circumscribed ... even for a country as large as the U. S.

It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation.

For social movements seeking to shape the governance of the world economy, all roads still lead to the state.

A world state which which embraces the entire globe and all of humanity cannot exist. The political world is a pluriverse, not a universe.

Each state claims the right to control interests foreign to itself when those interests are such that it can control them without putting its own interests in danger. ... other powers only recognize this right of intervening in proportion as the country doing it has the power to do it.

Ultimate authority in a global system remains with sovereigns. Governments will not have it any other way: politicians face instant rejection from their electorate if they allow transnational authorities to dictate terms.

Democratic nation states remain far more capable of managing the circuit of coercion, taxation and legitimation than any transnational bodies.

Everything has to be done to build some sort of international democracy. We've seen only the tiniest beginnings of that.

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.

International law is a fiction abused callously, or ignored ruthlessly by those nations that, unlike the Western Democracies, never took it seriously in the first place..

American foreign policy must uphold the sanctity of international treaties. That is the cornerstone on which all relations between nations must rest.

We shall have world government whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World government will be achieved by conquest or consent.

For every nongovernmental organization that has been granted hard-won observer status at a UN meeting, thousands more have been shot out by the state [national] gatekeepers of the curren international system.

Either you support the existing global elite, or you want real change and believe in nation-state democracy.

Donald Trump believes in nation-state democracy; Hillary Clinton used the E.U. as a prototype for a larger global union. Donald Trump believes in sensible immigration controls.

The current nation-state model is the product of thousands of years of political, social, and cultural evolution. I mean, it was only recently - in, like, the last few decades - that people have tried to create an organizing principle larger than the nation-state.

The notion that the UN is some sort of dispassionate body that, “does right” and just pursues everybody’s best interests is a fantasy. Each individual nation will be pursuing their best interests. That’s the normal behavior of nation-states. It shouldn’t surprise us, but neither should we go to them for permission to do what’s in our national interests.

How I learned to love the New World Order.

Things are different in the international relations between states. In this respect, I am neither a friend, nor bride or groom [of the West].

Sovereignty must be redefined if states are to cope with globalisation.

Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy.

So long as the international community consists of sovereign states, war between them remains a possibility, of which all governments have to take reasonable account.

The nation-state is becoming less and less competent to perform its international political tasks... These are some of the reasons pressing us to lead vigorously toward the true building of a new world order.

The US wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The department of state desired that the UN prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.