 Yet international law still describes states as sovereign. The principle of sovereignty equality constructs a world order where states are endowed with ultimate authority over some matters, yet inescapably subject to the authority of international law in others. (For a defence of the idea of sovereignty as a vital mechanism for ensuring the authority of international law in an ineradicably pluralistic world in which states disagree on what constitutes a just and legitimate internal public order, see Roth 2011).