127 Sovereignty, Legitimacy and Fundamental Rights as Limitations to Criminalisation Power of the State Simeneh Kiros Assefa  Abstract Sovereignty is a doctrine of power that constitutes and vests supreme political power in the state, including criminal lawmaking power. However, this supreme power of exercising coercive state power through the criminal law is not unlimited. Because the justifications for sovereignty are also justifications for criminal lawmaking power of the state, they are discussed together. After presenting the justification and legitimacy of sovereignty and the criminal lawmaking power of the sovereign, this article discusses criminalization power of the state in three parts: the limitation inherent in the notion of sovereignty, in constitutionalism and the bill of rights. Finally, it reviews the practice of criminalisation in Ethiopia. Key terms Sovereignty · Criminalization · Legitimacy · Principle theory · Legislative rationality · Coordination theory DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mlr.v12i1.5 Received: 8 April 2018 Accepted: 30 September 2018 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) _____________ Introduction The state is the highest form of socio-political organisation. Sovereignty is another political devise in this organisation, and some even contend that it is one form of organisation. Intuitively understood, sovereignty is the supreme power of the state. However, sovereignty is a social construct meant to represent the legitimate power exercised by the state, not the naked power. Stated directly, sovereignty is an instrumental concept justifying the power exercised by the  Simeneh Kiros Assefa: LL.B (Addis Ababa University), LL.M (University of Pretoria), LL.M (Kyushu University), LL.M (University of San Francisco); Assistant Professor of Law at AAU Law School, Attorney-at-Law and member of California State Bar (inactive). Email: simeneh@simenehlaw.com