State sovereignty may be an obstacle to human rights when such rights are enacted at a supra-national level and implementation or defense of these rights requires sovereign states to enforce them. This creates a principal agent problem, where the interests of the state and the supra-national agency (e.g.) the United Nations) diverge, and the state disregards the agency because it profits off that choice. However, state sovereignty may support human rights when human rights are enacted and enforced by the state itself (which occurs frequently in advanced, Western democracies).

The idea that people within a state can and should determine the laws within that state is referred to as popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty is the principle that the people in a state can determine the laws within that state.

Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state; thus preserving the Union. It was all about popular sovereignty and states rights.

The sovereignty of a state, nation, or country guarantees that they control the domestic laws and commerce, and the rights of citizens. In the United States, individual states will normally control their own laws and regulations, except where this conflicts with individual rights under the Constitution, or with Federal law. State sovereignty is a legal principle that US states are acknowledged by the Constitution to have control over the laws and activities within their jurisdictions. This is subject to restriction in some cases by the Congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, to prevent individual states from discrimination in interstate commerce.

internal sovereignty = state is the highest authority within that territory

external sovereignty = the recognition by all states that each state possesses internal sovereignty in equal measure