2024 South Korean Martial Law Crisis, How Do We Describe the Attempt to Destroy People’s Sovereignty?: For Historical Perspectives on the Legitimacy concernig the Location of Sovereignty

According to Schmitt’s theory, the declaration of martial law in 2024 was an act of determining a state of exception and it expresses the will of the president of the Republic, the representative of sovereignty, to become a sovereign by himself. From the perspective of martial law executors, the night of December 3 was a state of exception that deviated from the legal order by the will and commands of the Supreme ruler. Declaring this exception, the new sovereign continued the tradition of monarchical sovereignty, established in the Absolute Monarchy. This situation temporarily created a dual power, where the people who had sovereignty competed with the new sovereign from the exception. This was a theoretical proxy war between Bodin and Rousseau. How to evaluate and recognize historically the legitimacy of the locus of sovereignty? Through a critical review of Schmitt’s theory and the logic behind the punishment of Louis XVI during the French Revolution, we will answer this question.