Making states

The 'declarative theory of statehood', which is seen as having greater weight than the alternative 'constitutive theory of statehood', says a state does not need to be recognised by other countries in order to actually be a state provided it meets certain objective criteria.

Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States says:

"The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states."

The ideas outlined in these essays would see a state become little more than a neutral administrator. It would still have borders, and therefore a permanent population and a defined territory.  But the concept of a centralised government would be meaningless in an era of microgovernment.

And such a system would have little ability to conduct relations with other states. Instead, the sharing of frameworks and the issuing of metaframework instructions to the neutral state would the mechanisms for conducting state-to-state relations.

If the constitutive approach to recognising states is considered – under which a state is only a state if its sovereignty is recognised by existing states – then what scenarios might occur if frameworks begin recognising each other's sovereignty and legitimacy?

If either of these possibilities come to pass, then there will be major implications for the current practice of international law and the definition not just of states but of other organisations with legal standing. How would virtual entities with shifting memberships, indeed support that at one moment might be small and at another huge, play an effective role? ^[i]

Footnotes:

[i] 'Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States', available at http://www.taiwandocuments.org/montevideo01.htm [January 20, 2010].