This essay posits the argument that sovereignty, in its ultimate expression, lies, to a large extent, in the power and authority to determine who may live and who must die.

Consequently, the boundaries of sovereignty, its main characteristics, are to kill or to allow someone to live. The sovereign is the one who exercises control over mortality and defines life as the display and manifestation of power.

The above summarizes what Michel Foucault meant by the term biopower: it is the domain of life that power has placed under its control.

But under what specific circumstances is this deadly power exercised, allowing us to live or exposing us to the risk of death? Who holds this right? What does the exercise of this power reveal about the individual who is thus killed and about the relationship of hostility that confronts this individual with their killer?