I think sovereignty can protect difference, but I do not think it is necessary to protect difference. As a student at American University, I walk around daily with people of very different cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. America, the country, is full of people who are different and though they may not be as strongly represented in the U.S. government as white, males are, they are still protected.
Sovereignty, though it may protect the self against the other, it doesn't always protect the differences within itself. The banning of the burqa in France can be viewed as an example of when sovereignty could have protected a difference if it was in the hands of an Islamic government. Though sovereignty may be good for the overarching population, the exceptions to the norm may not be protected by sovereignty.
If the world broke into sovereign bodies based on differences, it would be a disaster. From a realists perspective, multiplying the amount of "others" would only be many times more threatening as the number of enemies grew. Continuing to evaluate from a realist perspective, sovereign bodies would then begin to take over other sovereign bodies and then potentially squelch the difference in the other body.
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