Talk:List of sovereign states

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I would like to change the vertical "List by country" navigational box on the right of this page to a horizontal one at the bottom. Please discuss at Template talk:Lists by country. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 12:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Is Transnistria a sovereign state?

According to the Montevideo convention, a state should be able to establish relations with other states. Transnistria is recognized as a state by nobody. In fact, it is internationally recognized as a region of Moldova. Compare that with, say, Texas, which is internationally recognized as a part of the USA. Texas, too, has relations with other sovereign states, but not as a sovereign state itself. Dpotop 10:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

PS: I have also read the previous threads concerning Transnistria and Northern Cyprus. There is a fundamental difference between the two. Northern Cyprus is recognized by another sovereign state (Turkey), whereas Transnistria never has been. So, if you argue that "Transnistria is de facto independent", I say OK, but when you say "sovereign state", I say no: This notion is clearly defined, and the condition 4 is not met. Dpotop 14:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

PS2: As concerns other "international relations", take a look at Transnistria#International relations, and you will see that Transnistria is not capable of having relations with other states, unlike, e.g. Northern Cyprus. Dpotop 14:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

To Dpotop and other Romanian editors: Not only is Transnistria capable of having relations with other states, it is currently having these relations with other states. Last week alone, it signed 16 agreements with various government ministries in Russia. It also participates in status settlement talks with Ukraine, Moldova, USA, and the EU. It has an office of a permanent mission (the OSCE in its capital, Tiraspol. Some development organizations offer advice and / or funding, and try to influence policy. It receives official visits from numerous foreign ministries (recently: Sweden, Belgium, Spain). See the website of its Foreign Ministry if in doubt. It has names and pictures, and even includes details of signed agreements which you can download. Danida, from the Danish foreign ministry, is involved a program to deter human trafficking. In 2006, half a dozen countries submitted aid. Even the U.S. State Department paid for cargo of humanitarian supplies in mid-2006. - Mauco 15:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

If any type of international relation would be acceptable, then the USA states qualify according to Montevideo. And not only them, but also French departments and Romanian judets, which take part in European regions, etc. What Montevideo requires is probably international recognition of the state. In the case of Transnistria this is not the case. You talk about conflict settlement. But the Palestinian authority has participated in such talks, too. However, it does not qualify, because of territory (disputed, just like in Transnistria) and foreign relations (none recognized as sovereign, just like in Transnistria).

Again, note that I'm not disputing the "de facto independence", but the sovereignty, according to Montevideo and to standards applied to other states and statal entities. Dpotop 15:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you want Article I of the Montevideo convention to be something it is not. What it defines is more or less the de facto state. If you read the article on the Montevideo Convention, you will see that:

the first sentence of article 3 explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states."

sephia karta 16:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I read that, but then what kind of relations are implied in the Montevideo convention by "capacity to enter into relations with the other states"? Is this the capacity to control its borders (Transnistria cannot do so, because Ukraine refuses it, asking Moldovan travel documents). BTW, Transnistrian passports are probably worthless, given that they are not recognized by other countries? Nope, Transnistria cannot enter into relations with other states. Dpotop 20:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Why exactly do we use Montevideo as our basis for the definition of a state? Assuming that Sephia karta and Mauco's interpretation of Montevideo is correct, then the definition includes a lot of places not generally considered to be sovereign states. As such, it seems clear that Montevideo does not provide a consensus definition of what is a sovereign state, and as such, we should steer clear of it, or at least of using it as our only basis for declaring whether a state is sovereign or not. The various "de facto" states ought to be listed separately. The current situation, where there is nothing to actually distinguish Abkhazia from Afghanistan in terms of their status, is unacceptable. john k 16:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, it's absurd that we list South Ossetia and not Palestine, which is recognized by dozens of countries. john k 17:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with John. Only recognized countries should be in this list. The various "de facto" states, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, ought to be listed separately. We should create a separate list for them.--MariusM 17:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

What this list is doing, so that all will know, is to focus on Customary International Law. The Montevideo Convention is merely one expression of this. Montevideo is the norm, not the exception. It is one example of where customary international law was codified. But the same principles date back much further than the Montevideo Convention of 1934, and they have been re-affirmed again and after AFTER the Montevideo Convention (1934) as well. The European Union's Badinter Commission of 1991 used the same principles. Non-EU countries such as Switzerland apply the same principles. It is public international law, and principles which are valid worldwide. In contrast, the "only recognized countries" statement opens up a whole new can of worms. Which is not needed, since international law has already dealt with the issue. And this list follows the principles of international law. - Mauco 19:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Aren't you, somehow, picking the criteria that suits you? This list is made according to a given criterion: The Montevideo Convention. If you want to change the criterion, start another thread. My concern is the following: I believe that according to the Montevideo Convention, Transnistria should not be in this list. Dpotop 20:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not picking the criteria which suits me. This is a stable version of the article, which you are attempting to all of a sudden change. The reason why the Montevideo Convention is highlighted is because it is representative of customary international law. You can of course attempt to change international law, if you want. But that is outside of Wikipedia's realm. - Mauco 21:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not a stable version. The article used to either list Abkhazia, et al, in a separate section, or foonoted in a different type face. Now they are just listed alongside everything else. And, pretty clearly, whatever customary international law may say, this is not how these things are generally recognized by most people on earth. For instance, every makes of world maps that I am aware of does not show any of these countries (well, I have one that shows North Cyprus, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some showing Somaliland, but I'm focusing right now on the former Soviet entities). I think this list ought to give the conventional list of sovereign states that is generally recognized by people throughout the world. Any criteria that gives us Transnistria and South Ossetia is clearly not the conventional way to do this, because Transnistria and South Ossetia are not normally considered to be proper sovereign states. john k 14:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I am quite sure that the stable version of the articles does include them. I have edited here, on and off, for the better part of 2006 and have frequently referred to this list. If I recall correctly, however, the unrecognized states were listed in italics and had a footnote next to them. This is how it is done on List of countries, too. But their inclusion is part of the stable version, as I think that a check of the history log will show. Longtime editors might want to comment on this. - Mauco 15:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

What does "capacity to enter into relations with the other states" means?

I believe the entire problem lies in the understanding of this expression. My oppinion is the following: Transnistria does not have this capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Transnistria does not have the capacity to control its foreign commerce, as proves the Ukrainian requirement for Moldovan papers. And from what I know, Transnistria does not have the basic capacity of issuing de facto accepted passports (this is why every other Transnistrian as a Russian/Moldovan/other passport). Dpotop 20:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that your characterization is incorrect, foreign trade, passports, etc are not mentioned in the Montevideo Convention at all and rarely enter into a consideration of statehood issues in international law. On the other hand, what is specifically mentioned is the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Here, not only does Transnistria have the capacity. It has actual relations. Last week alone, 16 agreements were signed with Russia. Agreements have also been signed Moldova, with Ukraine, and numerous with the OSCE who is a "conglomorate" which represents states only. The OSCE keeps a permanent office in Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria. This is not original research. Sources can be provided for all of the above. - Mauco 21:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

So, what exactly does qualify as "international relation" as concerns sovereignty? Just about any piece of paper? But then, you have guerillas in Colombia that control their territory and engage in peace talks and hostage exchange with other governments. :) Are they sovereign? Dpotop 06:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Even a private company can sign agreements with a foreign government. Does it mean that private companies are sovereign states?--MariusM 13:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

No. The capacity to enter into relations is only one of four criteria which together form a principle in customary international law. The other three are population, territory and government. Transnistria meets these requirements. Private companies do not, nor do Colombian guerilla groups. - Mauco 13:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you describe something which does not, under your definition, have the capacity to enter into relations with other states? You seem to have diluted this principle to the point of near meaninglessness. I think what we need here is citations - some sort of textbook explanation of what this principle means would be very helpful here. john k 14:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Relations with other states would include official visits (where the head of a state is referred to by his official title by the government of the receiving state). Apart from their lack of the other three criteria of the Montevideo Convention, that is something which guerilla groups or private companies, to name the two extreme examples, can never obtain. - Mauco 15:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, mentioning self-styled titles is usual when dealing with breakaway/guerilla entities. I presume what you would need to show is actual official documents of another state signed by both Smirnov (or other minister), in his quality of President of Transnistria", and some other chief of state. Something that goes beyond the mere solving of the border conflict. Dpotop 15:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I am referring to an official statement (press release) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a foreign country which refers to Igor Smirnov as President of Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica (the official name of Transnistria). This is a U.N. Security Council member. I can assure you that these things are not dealt with lightly and that this is not "usual" (as you claim) when "when dealing with breakaway/guerilla entities" (as you claim). You may want to provide sources to back up the somewhat novel theory that this is usual in international relations. Furthermore, I merely gave this as an example. There are numerous other items of evidence in the "capacity supporting" category, and I would most certainly also include international bilateral Ministry-to-Ministry agreements in that field as well. Last week alone, a further 16 of these were added. - Mauco 18:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I presume that by "member of the UN security council" you mean Russia. Well, I find extremely important that even the country that created and supported Transnistria as a breakaway entity (including militarily) refuses to recognize it as a sovereign state. Turkey, for instance, has recognized Northern Cyprus. For me, this means that there's no way Transnistria will be a normal state in the near future. Not even Russia openly supports its sovereignty. It's just another way to create a frozen conflict zone near the EU and NATO. Dpotop 19:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I hate to be harsh, but that is really a straw man argument. We are NOT giving sources as to whether or not Transnistria will "be a normal state in the near future". That is, frankly, irrelevant to this list. All we need to determine is if it meets the criteria listed by the Montevideo Convention. We are clear on the first three, and I have given five sources to document that it also meets the fourth. Not content with that, you now change the goal posts? Sorry, but the very same Montevideo Convention is also clear on the recognition issue, as are the sources which I have provided. So please just stick to the topic, and we can quickly close out this discussion. - Mauco 23:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

So with this flurry of "international activity" (basically limited to adjoining territories and the country whose armed forces sided with it against Moldova), has the PMR opened any embassies? To resolve the situation, at some point Smirnov needs to be talked to. The act of talking to Smirnov, however, in no way confers legitimacy on Smirnov or the PMR, which is what this series of responses contends. If you try to talk a thief into leaving your house, does the act of talking to him confer legitimacy on his presence? That is what is being postulated here as comprising international relations. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Second question: What reliable source stated that Transnistria is sovereign?

It also seems that this article includes parts that are in direct breach of WP:OR, looking more like an original research paper, than like a report on what reliable sources say. All sorts of debates took place here, as to which states are to be included, and which not, and some guys decided Transnistria qualifies according to the Montevideo Convention. But this is exactly what WP:OR is about: original research. Dpotop 20:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Empirical evidence is not original research. Anyone can read the Montevideo Convention. There is plenty of precedent for how to interpret it, too. Then you simply review the more than 200 sources of interactions at various levels with other sttaes and it is becomes clear as water that Transnistria meets the requirement. - Mauco 21:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I cite from WP:OR: It introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source. Putting Transnistria here is exactly this. There's no source having have made the same analysis. Dpotop 06:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You should also read WP:SYNT. Dpotop 06:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

SYNT is actually beside the point, in this case. But if all you need is an external source which tells you that Transnistria meets the requirements of the Montevideo Convention, then just say so, and lots of editors here can easily provide it. It is about as far from original research as you can get. - Mauco 13:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Alright, please do so. I'm particularly interested in what is said on whether any of these states "have the capacity to enter into relations" with other states, and on whether South Ossetia, at least, has a defined territory which it controls. This latter seems particularly dubious. So, anyway, citations please. john k 14:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd be leary of writing anything about South Ossetia since I know too little about this subject. I am quite familiar with Transnistria, however. They have several government ministries in place which a) have the capacity to enter into relations with other states, and b) actually do enter into relations with other states, usually in the form of agreements signed with their counterparts abroad. Would you like sources for a) or for b)? A should be enough, since that is what the Montevideo Convention is about. But numerous examples of B abound as well. (For instance, last week alone, 16 new bilateral agreements.) - Mauco 15:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that JohnK, like me, would like to see some reputable source saying explicitly that either:

1. Transnistria is sovereign, or
2. Transnistria meets the requirements of the Montevideo convention

That's all. Dpotop 15:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's what John said: I'm particularly interested in what is said on whether any of these states "have the capacity to enter into relations" with other states. - Mauco 15:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry for you, but saying only this is not enough. Remember WP:OR, WP:SYNT. BTW: I indented your text. Dpotop 15:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for indenting my text. But what are we really discussing here, again? The better accepted theory of customary international law holds that the existence of states is a factual matter, and that recognition by other states or the international community can be no more than evidence of statehood or a display of willingness to establish a certain level of relations with the recognised state. Even the entities aspiring to statehood which are not formally recognised by other states do have rights vis‑a‑vis other states. For example, during four decades the state of Israel was not formally recognised by many Arab states; still, these states recognised that the territory of Israel could not be invaded by them. When in 1949 British planes were downed by the Israel airforce, the United Kingdom at once informed the Israeli authorities that they would demand compensation. The fact that the United Kingdom had not recognised Israel at that time was not considered relevant. Last, before the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) was recognised by Greece, that country did in fact recognise that de facto a state existed on the territory of (former) Yugoslav Macedonia; indeed, Greece even negotiated with FYROM in order to reach a settlement on the name and state symbols of that state. Within the past seven days alone, two incidents somewhat along the lines of these examples happened in Transnistria. - Mauco 15:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you give the sources you were talking about earlier, so that we finish this matter? Dpotop 16:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll deindent back out and give you some. - Mauco 18:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Most of these are not online. One of the most recent and most specific to this mater is «Отношения России и Абхазии: проблемы теории и практики» 19 декабря 2006 г. в Государственной Думе РФ which fortunately is online at http://materik.ru/print.php?section=analitics&bulsectionid=17055

It is a presentation by international law and international relations specialist K. Zatulin, head of the Institute of CIS countries, to the lower house of Russia (State Duma) in December 2006. The article reviews the four criteria of the Montevideo Convention, then states that "it is obvious" that Transnistria meets "at least three of four requirements." It then examines the fourth requirement, and concludes that "in fact, their capacity to enter into relations with other states is beyond any doubt."

If you have access to a good library, there are many more sources for this. Some of them, for starters:

• International Society and the De Facto State' by Scott Pegg, Ashgate Publishing (1999), ISBN: 1840144785, pages 30 - 43
  
• Fragmentation and the International Relations of Micro-states: self-determination and statehood by Jorri C. Duursma, Cambridge University Press (1996), ISBN 0521563607, page 122
  
• De facto states: the Quest for Sovereignty, by Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, Henry Felix Srebrnik, Routledge, UK (2004), ISBN 0714654760, page 112
  
• I would also include The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized Quasi-States, by Pål Kolstø, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 43, No. 6, (2006) DOI: 10.1177/0022343306068102, of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, Pages 723-740, although it does not enumerate Montevideo directly. It does go to the heart of all four criteria, however, and sustains this (narrow) sovereignty argument.

It is interesting research and there can be no doubt at all that Transnistria and Abkhazia belongs on the list, but with the appropriate disclaimers and footnotes of course. I am less certain about South Ossetia. I know too little, but I will be glad to help anyone else with sources if someone wants to do more research into this. - Mauco 18:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I took a look on the source http://materik.ru/print.php?section=analitics&bulsectionid=17055 . You can obtain an English version (more or less good) using babelfish.altavista.com (you put in the web page and choose the Russian to English translation).

I see a single occurrence of "Dniestr Moldovian" in the text, and as concerns the 4th point the position is that it's debatable. Nothing new on sovereignty, I'm afraid. BTW, does someone know what this "materik.ru" is? Dpotop 19:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

As to the other sources, I presume "reputable" includes "verifiable", so I'll just wait for some other reputable editor to confirm reading them. Dpotop 19:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

So, Mauco, do you have some real source? Dpotop 19:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The four books quoted are peer-reviewed academic works. They are more substantial than most of what floats around on the Internet. I am sorry that you want everything to be hyperlinked. But in my field, some of the best material is hardcopy and not always available online. - Mauco 23:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I am dubious of sources coming from interested parties. That a Russian paper states that it is "beyond doubt" that Transnistria can enter into relations with other states does not settle the matter for me. That it takes the other three points as "obvious," but feels the need to engage in an argument as to the latter (which is, I take it, what it says? If I've misinterpreted, correct me), suggests that, in fact, it is not "beyond doubt," and that people have, in fact, argued the opposite. I'd really be interested to see some general discussion of the issue of what it is that "capacity to enter into relations" means under international law. At any rate, whether or not these states meet the Montevideo definition, I still don't think they should be listed alongside the rest of the list. john k 21:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

John, that criticism is only valid for the online link. Are you able to check out the four Western academic sources? A good university library should be able to locate all or most of them. They are not interested parties in any way, and they back up our edit in full. - Mauco 23:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I will try to take a look, but there's no guarantee that I'll have time to do so. It'd be nice if you provided a paraphrase of the arguments these writers make about the "capacity to enter into relations" business. BTW, none of the sources you refer to appear to be legal sources - they all look like poli sci stuff, and I'm not sure that political scientists are qualified experts on the interpretation of international law. For instance, the abstract of the Kolsto book you mention, for instance, appears to be an analysis of the real, on the ground political and economic conditions of these states, not a legal analysis of their precise status. john k 19:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't know if I count as a "reputable editor", but I did give that source a try. First, Konstantin Zatulin is this guy, here. Second, in his report, he mostly focuses on Abkhasia, giving Transnistria a glancing mention. Third, he argues, that, since Transnistria does participate in conflict regulation talks (that also include Russia and Ukraine), that would, in his opinion, qualify as at least a basic form of relations with foreign entities.

The site appears to be a news aggregator (hosted by Zatulin's Institute of CIS (an NGO)), providing information concerning post-Soviet territories from a Russian point of view. In my opinion, Zatulin's report would formally pass as a WP:RS, although I'd personally prefer a more neutral, preferrably non-Russian source on this issue. --Illythr 22:01, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is about Abkhazia. The points which are relevant to this discussion (Montevideo Convention in general, and the "capability" issue in particular) all cover Transnistria. They cover Transnistria specifically, by name, in the context. Not implicitly. Do not focus on Zatulin's nationality, please, but on his scolarly credentials in the field. He is the top expert in the State Duma, and the head of a very serious, respected organization which works professionally precisely in this field. He is probably the most qualified congressman to analyze these issues. - Mauco 23:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, Illythr. As I explained a bit earlier in the discussions, I presume that such basic forms of "conflict resolution" cannot count for Montevideo. Why? Because even guerilla movements participate in peace talks (e.g. in Columbia), without being acknowledged as sovereign. Moreover, and as you noted, there is the fact that the source is Russian, closely related to the Duma. BTW, I found a very interesting source on the Transnistrian war on that page: http://www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland/krono.exe?3165. Dpotop 09:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW, it is interesting to see that Zatulin and the on-line Russian source provided by Mauco are very careful, and stop short of saying that "Transnistria is sovereign". They both talk about the Montevideo convention, say that "Transnistria has basic forms of relations", but do not say whether these basic forms qualify Transnistria for Montevideo sovereignty (they do not draw the conclusion that interests us). I find this to be a form of honesty. Dpotop 09:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I also don't know if you followed the threads I initiated here from the beginning, but let me again state that I am simply questioning here the sovereignty of Transnistria (according to Montevideo), not its de facto independence, which is unedeniable. Dpotop 09:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

My position is the following: There are currently no reputable sources saying that Transnistria is sovereign or that it satisfies Montevideo. Moreover, deciding here any of them qualifies as both POV (because there are sensible arguments agains) and original research. Upto now, Mauco didn't manage to present me with reputable sources contradicting it. Dpotop 09:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

He gave you five sources and some of them are scientific, it says ¨Cambridge University¨ on one of them, did you read the sources already? removing Transnistria from the list is POV because it directly denies the possibility that it is not a sovereign state, but including it with a footnote explaining exactly what's going on is neutral because it presents both sides of the story: it is considered sovereign by some criteria by some people but not by others, so the article as it currently stands does not endorse Russian POV because it includes a footnote, and if you think this is not sufficient, then add another, but just don't Transnistria to make the article reflect your POV that it does not comply with the rules for the montevideo convention. this is the same from the old Abkhazia discussion, you have maybe not seen it but it was solved a long long time ago Pernambuco 21:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC) (later was discovered that Pernambuco is a sockpuppet of Mauco)

• I don't have it with me, but I do have what is a reputable source which specifically addresses Montevideo with respect to Transnistria and clearly states that these criteria do not confer legitimacy as a sovereign state. The statement here and elsewhere that Transnistria is sovereign according to Montevideo (and examples cited) at best qualifies as the original research/POV of one person--which does not qualify for Wikipedia even if correct--which I hasten to add, it is not. (Also, the political analysis of any Russian official/politician/analyst is inadmissible as being totally partisan. And let's not get into the "consider the words, not the source" argument again.) With regards to Pernambuco's comments, the PMR is not considered sovereign by pretty much the entire planet of sovereign countries and not even by the country which has a vested geopolitical interest (Russia). People of opposing viewpoints arguing on Wikipedia does not mean "maybe it's sovereign, maybe it isn't, let's footnote that maybe it isn't, that's sufficient." Montevideo is relevant to "sovereignty" only when a government is recognized as legitimate--as Montevideo cannot confer legitimacy, it cannot confer sovereignty.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 05:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Montevideo and the so-called "frozen conflict" zones

From "Engaging Eurasia's Separatist States--Unresolved Conflicts and DeFacto States" by Dov Lynch, the first book I've come across that deals with Transnistria, South Ossetia, et al. in a cohesive fashion... Regarding "empirical" claims to statehood: "The classic definition of an entity that may be regarded as a sovereign state was set forth in the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States of 1933. The Montevideo criteria are that an entity have (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) a government, and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states. The post-Soviet de facto states fulfill the first three of these criteria and claim to pursue the fourth. However, the empirical qualifications of the de facto state cannot make it legal or legitimate in international society. As [Scott] Pegg [academic expert in international relations teaching at Indiana University] argued, it is 'illegitimate no matater how effective it is'.... The de facto state claims both to be sovereign over its territory and people, and to be constitutionally independent of any other state. The key difference for the de facto state resides in its non-recognition. This status prevents it from enjoying membership in the club of states--the de facto state does not have recognized external sovereignty."

• So, bottom line, is Transnistria et al are not sovereign because they are not recognized. Original research by Wiki editors protesting the "latest" A,B, and C "deals" (versus reputable, non-partisan, recognized expert academic sources) cannot change that.
• From http://www.sgpproject.org/experts/dov_lynch.html: Dov Lynch has been Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College, London since September 1999. Prior to this, he was University Lecturer in International Relations/Russian Foreign Policy at the University of Oxford for 1999, and a Research Fellow at St Antony's College. He was also a Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Russia and Eurasia Programme. He received a doctorate in International Relations from the University of Oxford (St Antony's College) in 1997, and a BA in Soviet Studies from Yale University in 1992. In 2001, he was invited to be a Research Fellow with the EU Institute of Security Studies. Dov Lynch is currently Director of a two-year project funded by the United States Institute of Peace called 'Exiting from Volatile Impasses: De Facto States in Euro-Asian Security.' His major publications include Russian Peacekeeping Strategies towards the CIS, (2000) and co-edited volumes on Energy in the Caspian Region (2002) and The Euro-Asian World: A Period of Transition (2000). He has also written Occasional Paper 32 and is writing a Chaillot Paper on Russian-EU Relations. Dr. Lynch’s specialties are EU-Russian relations, security developments in Russia and the former Soviet Union, as well as EU policies towards the region.

Transnistria is not sovereign. Montevideo, as argued here by Mauco and others, does not confer sovereignty on Transnistria; same for the other frozen conflict zones.

• And no commentary would be complete without... "I dispute Mauco's source as partisan." And Mauco's usual "consider the words not the source." ("Do not focus on Zatulin's nationality, please, but on his scolarly credentials in the field. He is the top expert in the State Duma.") Anyone who is a deputy of the Russian State Duma cannot possibly be regarded as non-partisan.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Forgot, dispute Mauco's (et al.) interpretation of his other sources as putting Transnistria over the sovereignty hump.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• And, all of us arguing over Montevideo and the sovereignty of states is the ultimate in original research; any articles of the sort claiming to list "sovereign but unrecognized states" violates No original research  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the already-cited academic works which attest to Transnistria's de facto sovereignty, I should also point out that even Moldovan sources exist which recognize this reality. For instance, http://www.solei.md/en/excursions_md/excursia from Chisinau has the following 'money quote': "Travelers to Transnistria will be stunned while seeing a region, which is very much an independent state in all but name. It has its own currency, police force, army, and its own (unofficial) borders, which are controlled by Transnistria border guards." - Mauco 17:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Now we are postulating that travel brochures are sufficient to argue for de jure sovereignty. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Unrecognized States

Last year it was Abkhazia and South Ossetia that people were removing. This year it is Transnistria that is being removing. Either way it is POV pushing as entries from the unrecognized countries are not being treated the same. Either all should be removed or all should be listed. Even if your interest/knowledge relates to one of the countries, you should be working on what the criteria of what should be listed on this page rather than just removing an entry. Many times when an entry is removed it usually looks silly as the top of the page, which has a count and description, is not updated - making the page inconsistent.

To me there are only three possibilities of dealing with this issue: 1) Remove all the unrecognized countries 2) Leave the unrecognized countries on the list but rename the page List of Independence Countries (or something similar) and remove reference to the Montevideo convention (Which seems to be a source of friction) 3) Leave the page as is

Until there is a consensuses on what to do here in the talk page, the page should not be changed. If it is, it will be reverted. -- (Shocktm | Talk | contribs.) 14:17, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm for option 3, personally; we already make it clear enough that they're unrecognised. —Nightstallion (?) 14:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course, I agree 1000%, the list is very clear. it has the introduction, and the criteria, and if you look at footnote 1, you will see that this list includes de facto states, so the only question here is whether places like Transnistria are de facto states, and the answer is yes, so they can be included. The people who want to delete them, they would be ruling out the possibility that they are not sovereign states, but compare this to including them but saying the exact situation (that their statehood is disputed) and let the reader make up his own mind, that is the most neutral thing we can do, this is why the footnotes are there, and personal POV from someone who maybe is a Transnistria hater does not override WP:NPOV. Pernambuco 18:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

leave the page the way it is.

I'm sorry, but the proposal of Shocktm relies on the false hypothesis that the situation of all the unrecognized states is the same, and that we should either accept or reject them as a group. This is false. There is an obvious difference between entities such as Taiwan, Transnistria, and the Palestinian authority, and we should deal with them separately. The only common decision is the choice of the rules for accepting sovereign states. This has already been done (Montevideo Convention). Now, each of these unrecognized countries must be checked separately against the requirements. To put it otherwise: Don't be lazy, you can't create an encyclopedia through batch processing. Dpotop 15:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a list of sovereign states and it is defined from the criteria in the intro, so the POV push to exclude some areas and allow others, it is not right, the only criteria is from the intro, and this list is not an extended mirror of United Nations member states, so be realistic and face the fact Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Transnistria and those places are currently de facto independent, so Wikipedia has to show the current situation, with accuracy Pernambuco 18:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

As concerns Transnistria, I gave here enough arguments showing that the information concerning it currently qualifies as WP:OR and WP:SYNT, and moreover this original research is POV. Why do you keep re-including it? And why do you do so while refusing to answer my concerns on this talk page? Dpotop 15:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

maybe it is that you don't understand the meaning of "sovereign", because "Sovereign" does not mean "recognized by the United Nations" or anything like that, read the introduction to the article and the definition of sovereign states from the Montevideo Convention Pernambuco 18:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

Is this for real?! Did you at least read what I wrote? Where on Earth did you read "United Nations"? Do yourself a favor and read the posts before answering. What I'm saying here is that Transnistria does not comply with Montevideo. Dpotop 19:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

wiki-pedia can't ignore that these territorities do rule themselves, and are therefore sovereign in a practical way Pernambuco 21:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

But then, this article should not claim that the listed states comply with Montevideo (under Montevideo, self-rule is not enough to define sovereignty). I think that our misunderstanding comes from exactly this point: you think that the criterion should be "self rule", whereas I rely on Montevideo (which is the advertised criterion).

I am not particularly fond of Montevideo, but if we change it we need to clearly state what other criterion is enforced (maybe just our will, but I find this a bit arbitrary and conflict-prone). Dpotop 22:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

---

At List of countries and List of sovereign states, it is clearly written:The listing of any name in this article is not meant to imply an official position in any naming dispute. I understand both lists contain all countries which may be sovereign/ all territories which may be countries, including the ones with uncertain status. In my opinion, if we remove Transnistria from these lists, it is taking side. Dl.goe 19:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I cite from the article:

This list derives its definition of a sovereign state from Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention from 1933. According to the Convention, a sovereign state 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 list includes all states that satisfy these criteria and claim independence.

As you see, the article claims that Transnistria satisfies the 4 Montevideo points. So, it's not just an arbitrary list. BTW: I dispute the fact that Transnistria satisfies point (d), and I claim that including Transnistria here is in breach with WP:OR, WP:SYNT, WP:NPOV. Dpotop 20:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, wouldn't any country's inclusion here then be in breach of these guidelines? sephia karta 21:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I presume that very few states have had their sovereignty explicitly checked against Montevideo in a reputable source. In this case, the solution would be to find the good criteria, not including original research, under which we can create state lists. I presume the sensible thing to do is to take a look to places like the CIA factbook and the likes and list states from there. Or create a list of all states and autonomous territories and mark in several columns its status according to various sources. Dpotop 22:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The currently Montevideo criteria is imprecise, as it refers to which state is sovereign, but doesn't refer to which territory is state. It leads to paradoxes like claiming Transnistria is a sovereign state according to Montevideo, but it is not recognised by major powers that follow Montevideo convention(USA and EU). My suggestion is to split

1. list of sovereign states in
   1. list of recognised sovereign states and
   2. list of territories with disputed sovereign state status
2. list of states in
   1. list of recognised states and
   2. list of unrecognised states

The criteria may be:

1. undisputed/recognised if all Big Powers recognised it
2. disputed/unrecognised if at least one of the Big Powers recognised, and at least one didn't
3. the criteria to determine Big Powers can be the group of eight Dl.goe 08:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC) I don't think so, the UNSCpermanent five should be the criteria since it was established in 1945 and the UN charter prevails over other international agreement. check UN article 103, and canada is not a great power, are you trying to exclude China?

In addition to defining these objective criteria, we should also fix clear rules defining what is not original research. For instance, when talking about "territories with disputed sovereign state status", should it be necessary to have at least one source (not necessarily reputable) explicitly stating that the territory is sovereign? Dpotop 12:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

A prove that there is a dispute, that regional officials claim the territory is a sovereign state is needed to add a territory at that list.
But I have a second suggestion, with changes that are easy to make:

1. We remove the Montevideo criteria
2. We introduce This list also contains territories that claim to be sovereign states, but actually have a disputed status. At List of sovereign states and This list also contains territories that claim to be states, but actually have a disputed status. At List of states Dl.goe 19:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say this solution is not good. The title of the list is "List of sovereign states", and most readers will not read the header of the page. So, readers will think that all the entities claiming sovereignty really are sovereign. BTW: most states have some claim of sovereignty, so why have two lists if we take your solution? :) Dpotop 21:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I don't know any recognised country that in not sovereign, and I think we cannot speak about the sovereignty of an unrecognised one. Than we should have only

1. list of recognised states
2. list of unrecognised states.Dl.goe 21:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Why should recognition play such a huge factor? BTW Dl.goe, we already do have a List of unrecognized countries article. Khoikhoi 22:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Khoi. The problem, as I see it, is that you do need some criteria for including states in this list. Criteria compatible with the rules of Wikipedia, which exclude original research. Several criteria have been proposed:

1. The four criteria of the Montevideo Convention. As I and Sephia Karta noticed earlier, checking countries against these criteria (and especially international relations) qualifies as WP:OR and WP:SYNT, because there are no (reliable) sources explicitly stating the info (editors are forced to draw conclusions, which qualifies as WP:OR).
2. Recognition by other states. Does not cover well states such as ROC, Transnistria, etc.
3. ... (you name them)

After reading much of the posts here, my impression is that this article is and will definitely remain a nuisance. What we need are articles like: "Countries of the UN", "Unrecognized states", etc, and then a nice synthesis article that explains the relations between the various lists and the position of notable elements, such as ROC, Palestine, etc. Dpotop 23:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree list of sovereign states should be deleted, and list of states should be replaced by list of recognised states. Wikipedia cannot get involved in the recognition of one state; we cannot give sovereign state status to any country; all we can do is looking at international recognition.Dl.goe 23:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely disagree with the way this list is arranged. The countries that do not exist de-jure cannot be included in the same list as internationally recognized countries. You cannot equate breakaway regions with the countries that have all attributes of an independent country, including the ability to join international organizations and sign international agreements. And Montevideo convention is absolutely irrelevant here, it was signed by 19 American states and has no binding force to the rest of the world. There are more than 150 countries in the world, as is known. Grandmaster 06:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The discussion here is not about the ratification of Montevideo (which is irrelevant to wikipedia), but on whether we can apply Montevideo to classify states, given that only few of them are marked as "satisfying Montevideo" in reputable sources. Dpotop 07:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

But why Montevideo convention should be used at all in this article as criteria for inclusion? My point is that you cannot use as a sole principle a convention which has no force outside of Americas. Grandmaster 07:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My point is that Wikipedia is not submitted to international law. You cannot reject a criterion because most states don't recognize it. However, Montevideo must be rejected because no reliable sources (a Wikipedia criterion, this time) exist explicitly stating that states like France, Turkey, or Japan satisfy the Montevideo criteria. So the result is the same. But based on criteria which are meaningful to Wikipedia. Dpotop 08:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the criterion should be international recognition and de-jure existence. Listing every breakaway region as a sovereign state is wrong. Grandmaster 08:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How about list of UNO members? It has a criterion that no one can dispute. Grandmaster 08:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you read the discussions on top of this page, you will see that "international recognition" has a problem: Depending on its definition, it rejects states such as ROC, Northern Cyprus, Israel, etc. Also, the list of United Nations member states already exists, so there's no point in creating an identical list here. In fact, there is no way you can create a List of sovereign states without original research, and this is forbidden on wikipedia. Dpotop 09:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My oppinion is that we should remove this article completely (and maybe make it a link to Sovereignty). Then, we need lists of countries grouped on objective, easily-sourced criteria, such as: UN membership, recognized, Disputed international status, etc. Then, all these lists must be commented and put in perspective in the article Sovereignty. Dpotop 09:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that. This list has no reliable criterion and is POV and original research. Grandmaster 10:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I observe a trend here that I find very worrying, I believe some of you take the current set-up of this article for something it is not. Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention has been used for this article for as long as I've known this article to exist, and for good reason. It is not used because it contains a definition of the sovereign state that all states have agreed upon. Actually, states cannot be bound to follow any coherent theory of sovereignity, it is entirely up to their personal whims what they do and what they don't recognise. If president Mugabe of Zimbabwe so desires, his country can set up a "Lunar authority" tomorrow and recognise it as the sole sovereign government of the Moon. Or if Argentine and Brazil get into a row, they are free to no longer recognise each others sovereignity just like that. To this extent, recognition of other states is no more and no less than an opinion. Scientists of international law want to have a definition of the 'highest' actor in international politics (never mind international organisations for the moment), what they call the sovereign state, and for this they can't rely on 'international recognition', because, ultimately, that is based upon opinions only. In concreto: the scientists want to have a definition that correctly indentifies Somaliland as an international actor, because on the scene of international politics it acts, talks, walks independently from Somalia, which 'international recognition' considers it to be part of. And it just happens to be the case that the Montevideo Convention is most used for this definition. Who did or did not sign it is then wholy irrelevant, because Montevideo is not being used to commit or empower anyone, it is merely used as a tool for classification. That Transnistria is included in the list, does not grant it any rights, and it does not in any way guarentee Transnistria's continuing existence next week, it merely means that for all uses and purposes, Transnistria, at this present moment, acts independently. How then is the current approach not objective and NPOV?

As for the guideline against own research, for the cases under discussion, criteria 1-3 of Montevideo are only a matter of straightforward checking of facts. Criterium 4 seems also to involve only the observation that e.g. Transnistria has missions to Russia and Abkhazia and that it is party to the peace negotiations with Moldovia. If these are not diplomatic relations, then what are they? If one wants to claim that checking whether a state satisfies criterium 4 constitutes original research, then one needs to present an alternative hypothesis as to what criterium 4 might mean other than the obvious, namely a state is capable of having diplomatic relations if its diplomats can talk to other state's diplomats. As long as we don't know better than that this is in fact the intended meaning, I don't see any original research. This comes on top of the fact that sources have been provided that confirm that Transnistria does in fact satisfy Montevideo. (One state that may not have satisfied criterium 4 may have been Somalia, when it didn't yet have a government.)

I don't see the problem with the current approach. sephia karta 11:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The current approach is the best by far, it has been that way for a long time from what I can see from the page, then for the countries that should be excluded, there are other lists, for instance there is the list of United Nations member states and the 7 de facto states can not be there, if you want to see a list that excludes them, then go there, but do not deny the reality and Wikipedia must show the reality, that some places are currently de facto independent and de facto sovereign rulers within their own borders Pernambuco 16:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

Well, the mere fact that you decide what is and what is not "international relations" is by definition original research, more precisely synthesis work (cf. WP:SYNT). Dpotop 11:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW: Why do you want to have this article, that is qualified by many as POV? Why not have the clear lists of UN members, recognized states, states claiming sovereignty, etc, and then explaining the differences between them, and the particular cases in an article? This is possible without infringing on WP:OR and WP:SYNT, and it allows the special treatment of each special case, thus avoiding the POV accusations that are bound to happen when considering all these cases equivalent. Dpotop 11:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I can see how you find that this article violates WP:Synt, but I've yet to see any reason why it should violate WP:NPOV. The present article already starts out with a break-down of states acording to recognition, and this can of course be elaborated further still. sephia karta 15:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

From what I know, I would say that Transnistria is not sovereign. And for two main reasons: 1. The borders of Transnistria are still conflict lines, quite different from the actually claimed land, and likely to change if the balance of forces (most notably the Russian involvement) changes. 2. The only international relations Transnistria concern peace keeping talks (any guerilla group, such as FARC does this) and the relation with its Russian protecting power. So, saying that Transnistria is de facto independent and claiming sovereignty (over some territory) is OK. Saying that it is sovereign is POV. Not even the Russian sources provided by User:William Mauco do not draw this conclusion, but let it to the reader. But let's cotinue this discussion on the Transnistria page. Dpotop 15:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My point all along is that sovereign is roughly the same as de facto independent. It just so happens that is what sovereignity means in international law. sephia karta 22:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point very well. I could even argue the same in an original article. My point is that on wikipedia we cannot use juridical arguments, just reliable sources. Dpotop 09:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The artice on the Montevideo Convention mentions that the EU and Zwitserland follow a similar approach, except that their definition requires only a territory, population and a political authority, and this is sourced. There would be no research required to verify that the "de facto 7" satisfy these criteria. What is it that you exactly want reliable sources for? That this is the international standard? sephia karta 10:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

So let's follow the practice of both EU and Switzerland and not recognize Transnistria, South Ossetia, etc as sovereign. :) Unless you can find a source where the EU or Switzerland recognize the sovereignty of the two countries (Otherwise, it's WP:SYNT: The EU says A, some other source says B, and from here we deduce C). Dpotop 12:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't take me bad for being the devil's advocate, but I think that in its current form the article is going to attract criticism. We have to find something to make this article acceptable to everybody, according to wikipedia rules. Dpotop 12:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW: May I ask why you want to have a list including both well-recognized states and states claiming sovereignty? Deciding when some state enters the list will always be difficult. Dpotop 12:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

no, i do not agree, it is easy, just use objective rules. for example, the three conditions from Switzerland and USA or the four conditions from Montevideo, the last is what this article uses, it says so right in the introduction of the article. Then find the sources to back it up, and that is all, the argument is over Pernambuco 16:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

BTW2: If you really want to keep this list, rename it into "List of states that are sovereign or claim sovereignty", and then it's OK. Dpotop 11:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it might not be such a bad idea to rename the article to avoid confusion, but I'm still convinced that the "de facto 7" can objectively be established to posses factual sovereignity.

I saw that you are convinced, and there are many like you. But there are many against (me, on Transnistria), and there are no reliable sources stating that the 7 are sovereign. Renaming the list would simplify things for everybody. Dpotop 15:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How about simply "list of states"? With the introduction roughly as it is now, there would be no confusion as to what states are recognised and what states are not recognised.sephia karta 22:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all, the introduction must change, as we saw that Montevideo cannot serve as an inclusion criterion (not enough sources). Second, the definition given to state on wikipedia includes sovereignty. So, I think that just saying "list of states" is not OK. BTW, I think I found the best criterion for organizing this list: The relationship with the UN states. How many states are not in the UN but claim sovereignty? Few, I guess. Dpotop 09:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

But I don't understand why this convention should be used as a criterion for inclusion in the list. Looks like an original research to me. Grandmaster 11:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Grandmaster. Most of the countries which face separatist problems are not signatories to that convention. It is not an universal agreement and hence cannot be used as an universal criterion.--Kober 12:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

You don't understand. Wikipedia is not bound by international law. Read my answers to Grandmaster several lines above. Dpotop 13:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that wikipedia is not bound by international law, but why exactly this particular convention, signed by 19 American states in 1933, was selected as a criterion? Who says that sovereignty of a state should be defined by this convention? It's OR. Grandmaster 13:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

On Wikipedia you can use any convention as long as you find reputable sources to document its use. So, the question is not "Why Montevideo?", but "Do you have sources explicitly saying that states X and Y satisfy the conditions of Montevideo?". Dpotop 14:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

the sources are on this page, there are five of them, including ¨Cambridge University¨ so this is all that is needed, it satisifies the conditions for inclusion Pernambuco 16:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

To Dpotop, I'm not sure I understand your point. This is meant to be a "list of sovereign states," but it defines sovereign state on the basis of Montevideo/declarative theory of statehood. But there's no clear reason why this should be our definition for the purpose of this page. We could alternately base it on the constitutive theory (probably a bad idea), or perhaps only list countries that more or less meet both the declarative and constitutive theories. That being said, I would agree that the declarative theory seems like the better way to go, if we are to choose, and we ought to be clear on what the declarative theory precisely means, and whether things like Transdnistria and South Ossetia really qualify. To Pernambuco: various sources have been listed. Nobody has yet cited what they actually say about the question at hand. The sources seem largely to be ones on political science, rather than international law, at any rate, so the extent to which, even if they did weigh in on this specific question, they should be considered reliable remains open to doubt. But, in any event, simply listing a bunch of titles, without any explanation of what they actually say, cannot possibly resolve a debate. john k 18:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Is there any way we can try to make some distinctions here? There's the 192 UN member states and the Holy See, which most everyone agrees are sovereign. There used to be more non-member states that everyone would agree on, too. Switzerland, for instance, wasn't a member until 2002. The Germanies didn't join until 1973, and the Koreas until 1991. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was not a member between 1992 and 2000, but at present, there don't seem to be any clearly recognized sovereign states, besides the Holy See/Vatican City, that are not UN members. It's also worth noting that there have also been clearly non-sovereign states that have been UN members - India was a member from 1945, for instance, as were Ukraine and Belarus, but not the other former Soviet Republics. But at present, the UN membership list seems to more or less adequately mirror the list of states that everyone considers to be sovereign. The only problematic entity on the list, I think, would be Somalia, whose de jure government is almost entirely powerless.

I would suggest that the ROC falls into a similar situation with some of these other places that were, usually for political reasons, not UN member states, but nevertheless were generally considered to be sovereign. The ROC not only has complete physical control over the island of Taiwan, but it has done so in a completely stable manner for nearly the last 60 years. It used to be recognized by many more countries than it now is, and was once a UN member state. What changed was not so much its status, but the UN's desire to include the PRC. The ROC is clearly in a much stronger position, state-wise, than any of the other de facto states we are discussing.

Taiwan was never a member of the United Nations. The "Republic of China" in its position as the recognized legal government of China, was a member of the United Nations. At the same time it must be remembered that there are no international legal documents which can show that the territorial sovereignty of "Formosa and the Pescadores" has ever been transferred to the ROC. Hence, without its own territory, the ROC cannot be considered a sovereign nation, and should be removed from the list. Hmortar 09:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Palestine and Western Sahara are rather awkward entities. They're currently not listed, but both are recognized by many other countries, and the latter, at least, controls some of the territory it claims. Palestine also kind of controls territory, but that's actually a lot more complicated, in that the PA is only indirectly connected to the PLO, and it is the latter that is the internationally recognized organization of the Palestinian State, or something. But it might make sense to list these entities in a separate section of the list.

The other group of states, the de facto states that are completely, or, in the case of North Cyprus, almost completely, unrecognized, are more problematic. North Cyprus, which has existed for decades, and is recognized by Turkey, might be a somewhat stronger case. So might Somaliland, which seems to not only be functional, but to have developed independently of outside agents. I would suggest that these probably more or less qualify under Montevideo. But even for these, I'd suggest a separate section would be best.

The ones in the former Soviet Union seem to be pretty clearly the most dubious of all. The fact that Armenia doesn't recognize Nagorno-Karabakh, and that Russia doesn't recognize Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia, seems especially problematic. These states are not entities which, on their own, control the territory they claim. They are states that are propped up by outside armies from countries that don't even recognize them. More broadly, and this applies to North Cyprus, too, I think the fact that these are states propped up by outside militaries makes their sovereign status all the more dubious. I've asked this before, and never gotten a proper answer, but if this were the 80s would you all be advocating listing Bophuthatswana and so forth, without comment, in the lists of sovereign states? I think that would be deeply responsible, and I think more or less the same thing applies here. I'm not opposed to listing them on this page, but I am opposed to listing them, without comment, alongside the rest of the list. Doing this is not a stable thing which the list has always done. It is something which has happened relatively recently. I would prefer discussing the dubious cases in their own sections. At a minimum, there should be footnotes, and possibly a different type face. john k 19:59, 20 January 2007 (UTC) just a minor correction john k the UN member state China is always there, it's not a chang of member ship, but a change of representation of China.

I think I understand your concerns, let me share some of my thoughts.

The SADR and Palestine

Unless something has changed, the SADR is actually currently included, exactly because it does control some parts of the Western Sahara. The State of Palestine is not included, because the Palestine Authorities are a different entity, they do not currently claim independence. Palestinian statehood is one of the ingredients of the conflict and there is talk from time to time about declaring the Palestinian State. If the PA were the Palestinian State, there would obviously be no need for that. The Palestinian State as it was declared in the Eighties is, I would say (without too much knowledge about the issue), an empty legal construct devoid of factual control over any people or territories and does thus not meet the criteria of the Montevideo Convention.

Independent South-African homelands

I've thought about these and I think would actually have included these if they still existed. If you read the article about the Transkei, it sais that between 1978 and 1980 its ties with South Africa had actually been severed over a territorial dispute and that it withdrew (or at least announced to) from a non-recognition pact. Despite the obvious asymmetry in power, this sounds like the mutual dealings of two states. Transkei and the other homelands that had officially been independent (not all had) might in practice have been very dependent on South Africa, but how much more so than San Marino is on Italy?

The ROC

I agree with you that the ROC is by far the most powerful out of the unrecognised states, but when you say that its sovereignity is recognised by most states, you must be referring to its factual sovereignity, because de jure Taiwan is of course considered to be part of the PRC. But isn't e.g. Somaliland in practice recognised as being just as factually sovereign? If the US want something done in Somaliland, are they not forced to deal with Somaliland state authorities?

Be careful with your wording. The US, the UK, and Japan ackowledge/respect/take note of the PRC position that Taiwan is part of China, but they do not recognize this position. So the US, UK, and Japan are unwilling to say what Taiwan is exactly is or part of at this time. Saying that Taiwan is considered de jure part of the PRC is as ludicrous as saying that the PRC wasn't a sovereign state from 1949-1971 because most governments didn't recognize the PRC during that time. Allentchang 16:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is a big difference between "ackowledge/respect/take note of a position" and "recognizing that position as the representing the true legal and political reality." After all, there are no international legal documents which can show that the territorial sovereignty of "Formosa and the Pescadores" has ever been transferred to any entity called "China." Hmortar 09:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The ex-Soviet 4

While I wouldn't say that Russian state support was essential to Abkhazia's independence and I don't know about the other 3, but even they do depend militarily on their larger neighbours, isn't this in fact a rather common phenomenon the world over? Don't South Korea and Kuweit owe their independence to the USA? North Korea its independence to the PRC? Bangladesh its independence to India? Isn't Somalia completely dependent on Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Iraq on the USA? East Timor on the UN? (Etc.)

Representation in the list

It is currently already the case that all entries are grouped according to recognition and that unrecognised states are thus highlighted at the beginning of the article. I think footnotes to explain this and that are fine, and I am not opposed to generally unrecognised states being italicised, as long as they are treated alike. We should also mention incomplete recognition amongst UN members (for one, I believe the two Korea's don't recognise each other, and of course the PRC, Israel and Cyprus are not recognised by each and every country). sephia karta 21:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I am just calling your attention to the question of sephia karta just before this section. The key point is that this list and the "editor's common sense" criteria for inclusion qualify as original research, because they are not backed by sources. Dpotop 22:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

yes, but deal with each country one by one, and find sources for each, and in the case of Transnistria, this is documented, someone posted already five sources to supply the information and some of them are scientific (¨Cambridge University¨ and that kind) so that solved it for me Pernambuco 16:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

(Prior comment deleted) See below. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a sovereignty-ascribing blog.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

i agree with Vecrumbas,and the problem is that what is sovereignty, it looks like some people here are trying to say that sovereignty is only what the Montevideo convention says it is, but it is not, and then it becomes a mess to define it, and then another argument is: sovereignty is only after 100 countries recognize it, but this is also wrong, so please, one simple question: what is sovereignty? Pernambuco 14:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

Why South Ossetia and Abkhazia and not North Ossetia and Chechnya?

I thought last year we were close to settling. When did the proseparatist POV prevail? And why now there is not even a footnote next to Abkhazia, S. Ossetia, Transnistria etc. clarifying their de-facto status?

And since the discussion is still going on, can somebody tell me why South Ossetia is included and North Ossetia is not? Seems to me Montevideo applies to them equally well. Or why aren't US states included for that matter (my one-year-old question)? Which part of the Montevideo convention does not apply? (PaC 04:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC))

The issue is that pro-separatists, whether for good or bad, are pushing that the separatist states meet the 4th Montevideo criteria and are therefore sovereign, merely unrecognized. Having spent some considerable time Wikidebating, not to mention real money on reputable sources, the whole debate here over whether Montevideo applies and to whom we ascribe sovereignty qualifies as original research of the highest order. Blog? Yes. Encyclopedia? No.

     By the debate here, there are African warlords who, if they've set up any sort of governing authority, could qualify as sovereign and merely unrecognized as soon as they enter into any agreement with a legitimate recognized power. An example of a common argument is that the PMR/Transnistria making any sort of agreement with Moldova, the Ukraine, etc. renders it [and people like to throw in "de facto" here and that "de jure" is immaterial] sovereign.

     (And let's not start up with the PMR being democratic: a "state" which produces lists of who voted for whom to prove people voted and that it is therefore a democracy.)

     The POV is that such a thing as "de facto sovereign" exists. It exists only as an oxymoron. The associated equivalent oxymoron is "unrecognized country."

     There are only two entities which we are in a position to list as an encyclopedia, and those are:

1. States which are internationally recognized (and therefore sovereign, and therefore States (capital "S") = countries)
2. Everything else, that is, "Territories whose sovereignty is not internationally recognized." They are not "S"tates whose sovereignty is not recognized, =oxymoron. They are not "s"tates whose sovereignty is not recognized, =oxymoron. (Small "s" properly used to indicate entity within some sort of larger fererated State.) They are not "unrecognized countries" =oxymoron.

     Plain and simple.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Pēters. During last year discussion most of us agreed that Montevideo criteria are extremely vague (especially the 4th one). Everybody here interprets it the way she/he wants. The fact that de-facto states sign some international agreements, may seem to some strong enough evidence that these states "enter into relations with the other states", but not to others. North Ossetia can sign agreements as well as South Ossetia (in fact they are signing agreements with each other all the time), why don't we call it a sovereign state as well? Who says that "signing agreements" and "entering into relations" are the same thing?

Or how does this interpretation of the 4th criteria sound:

Entering into relations with other states at the very least should assume recognition from these other states, and since Abkhazia, S. Ossetia, PMR etc., are not recognized by any state, they automatically lack the "capacity to enter into relations with the other states", and therefore fail to satisfy the 4th criteria.

My point is that this debate is in essence about the interpretation of the inherently ambiguous Montevideo criteria, and it is not what Wikipedia articles should be doing - passing judgment on contraversial issues. Changing the criteria to something more clear, factual, and verifiable (like international recognition) will only contribute to the quality of the article. (PaC 15:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC))

Someone told me that this discussion is flaring up again, so here I am. The danger is that international recognition is a sufficient, but not necessary criterion to determine the existence of a sovereign state. Otherwise, we should state that the PRC was a unrecognized state or non-soverign state from 1949 to 1971 because it was not recognized by a majority of countries in the world and it was not a UN member during that time. We could say that the United States was not a soveriegn state in the early 1800's because the British diplomatically harassed those who tried to cozy up with the fledging American republic. This demonstrates the existence of a temporal POV: that is, a POV that changes with respect to time. What we can do is this: for each entity with controversial soveriegnty, we include a footnote, which says "sovereignty disputed: see so and so article for the different points of view." We should also sample various non-governmental world atlases for the purpose of verification in order to minimize the possibility of political agenda. Allentchang 16:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Er, the PRC had at least as much recognition in the 50s and 60s as the ROC has now, and I don't think anybody is suggesting we remove the ROC. UN membership is certainly irrelevant - nobody would deny that Switzerland was sovereign before 2002, for instance. As to the United States, that's ridiculous - the United States had diplomatic recognition of some sort from most European states starting in 1783. Including, er, the British, who, so far as I'm aware, never made any effort to prevent other states from having diplomatic recognition from them. At any rate, the PRC, which had effective control over the whole of mainland China, is hardly comparable to some dubious entity like South Ossetia or Transnistria, the latter of which, at least, apparently can't even issue its own passports. Of the de facto states, North Cyprus and Somaliland seem like they should potentially be mentioned. The rest seem highly problematic. john k 17:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

In this discussion, I agree with you. But I would go farther and push for the pure and simple deletion of this article. Why? Because the criteria for including states in it is either subjective and/or based on WO:OR (Montevideo, etc), or corresponds to some other clearly-defined notion, such as UN membership, recognition, etc. Ask yourselves this question: What states would you have in this list, and which criterion not involving original research allows their inclusion. Dpotop 19:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Allentchang's "for each entity with controversial soveriegnty, we include a footnote"--this is the entire problem, as everything quickly degenerates into Montevideo Number 4. The only footnoting that should be introduced is where a country is, say, a member of the U.N. (but not recognized by one or several countries) and/or recognized as de jure sovereign by at least, say, 100 (easy number) other countries (and again, not by just several). What we have now is people insisting that "countries" recognized by absolutely NO ONE are "sovereign." Come now, isn't that just a bit ridiculous for an encyclopedia? (Please, I don't want to hear that Pēters is trodding on the democratic aspirations of XY&Z!)

    With North Cyprus, I have not followed that closely, though as I understand it, there is only diplomatic recognition by Turkey. Doesn't meet the 100 watermark, goes on the "Territories whose sovereignty is not recognized" with an asterisk that Turkey does recognize it.

    With Taiwan (ROC), it certainly falls far, far short of the 100 watermark and would also come under "Territories whose sovereignty is not recognized" with an asterisk of the 30 or so that do (still) recognize it, the many more (including the U.S.) who "switched" recognition from the ROC to the PRC (for the sake of completeness if we prefer, to capture the "temporal" nature of recognition). 149 (or whatever the current count is) "back doors" to facilitate economic trade, etc. with an unrecognized entity do not sovereignty make. Sovereignty means everyone uses the front door.

    If and only if we follow a strict definition of sovereignty does a list of "Territories whose sovereignty is not recognized" become meaningful, useful, and NPOV informative (which also requires leaving out all the "sovereign according to Montevideo" conjecture). And even if it means the PRC was an "unrecognized territory" from 1941 to 1971/79. Size is irrelevant.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 20:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the de jure status of the ROC, most countries in the world recognize it as a de facto sovereign state, and often have quasi-relations with it. And it has orders of magnitude more recognition than North Cyprus or the others. It seems to me that this list should include UN members, Vatican City, and the ROC, with the last footnoted. At any rate, recognition should not be sufficient in and of itself - Palestine is recognized by many countries, but is not a de facto state. A state should be both more or less de facto and more or less de jure to qualify. The whole thing is, at any rate, a total mess. I think the definition under customary international law (i.e. Montevideo) is not necessarily a bad way to go, but we ought to be fairly conservative about it, particularly with states that don't have any international recognition. ROC doesn't fall into that category - it clearly meets Montevideo, and also has moderate international recognition. It's in a different category from the others, and it seems to me that we ought to be able to devise criteria that will give us the list that is most commonly given when people make such lists. That list is, pretty clearly, the UN members+Vatican City+ROC, and we should figure out how to get to that. john k 22:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Why wouldn't you have a nice article discussing sovereignty, with the various degrees of recognition/sovereignty linking to the actual lists of countries? Indeed, for UN countries there's no problem, and most countries are there. Then, you have to make special discussions for ROC, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, etc. This way, the article is shorter, and clearer. Dpotop 13:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Define "Sovereignty"

This page is called "List of sovereign states" so back to the most basics: what is sovereignty? Is there somewhere in a scientific book of academics or international law which defines clearly when a government can be considered sovereign over the land and when a government can not be considered sovereign...... find this reference, that will settle all these arguments Pernambuco 14:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

This discussion seems to finally converge. However, I have to point that once we decide what Sovereignty is, we need sources for each state in the list, stating that the state is sovereign (otherwise, it's OR). Dpotop 15:07, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, for God's sake, this is becoming ridiculous. john k 15:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you, please, be more specific? Dpotop 08:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no scientific book, and there are plenty of academics who are even more POV than the POV'ers here, so that doesn't work unless everyone agrees if there is any academic source that says a territory is NOT sovereign, then it isn't. Period. Not, here, I found one in a hundred that says yes, we should trust this guy!

     Anything that involves "agreeing" on what makes a (governing authority + territory) sovereign is doomed to failure after being hijacked by the pro-separatist sovereignty pushers.

     However, taking a cue from the pro-separatists, who are trying to make the empirical case for sovereignty (mainly through a combination of quoting Montevideo sprinkled with a good dose of original research)... let's just make it entirely empirical: a table of all countries recognized by all other countries and a total for each (recognizes X #, recognized by Y#). Now, as tedious as that would be, it could also be interesting and useful if done well.

     The article could be something simple, like, Internationally recognized countries and territories--with no mention or debate of sovereignty or whether some territory qualifies as a country (which is a sovereignty debate just using different words).  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• Note I said "countries and territories," there would be NO mention of either "country" or "territory" in the article; for this to work, only the name of the de facto/de jure governing authority can be used.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"hijacked by the pro-separatist sovereignty pushers" ??!?! = derogatory language to define other wiki-pedia editors. You do not need to do this, this is not Usenet, it can be solved without disqualifying the opinions that others have. Me, I am 100 % neutral, but I respect the right that other people have to try to build a new country if thats what they want Pernambuco 01:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

Well, you see, Vercrumba vs. Pernambuco is exactly why the Founding Fathers of Wikipedia did not accept the scientific method (the "empirical" in Vercrumba's edit) and original research as a basis for article writing. We are not supposed to write here what appears to be common sense to us (to you, for instance, South Ossetia seems to be sovereign). Instead, we should write what is reported in reputable sources, without concluding ourselves. For instance, "South Ossetia participating in peace talks implies International relations implies Montevideo implies Sovereignty" is such an original research. Dpotop 08:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Pernambuco, if you prefer: "Wiki editors who are proposing based on POV original research that separatist states, particularly in the so-called 'frozen conflict' zone are sovereign."

     Regarding your statement: I respect the right that other people have to try to build a new country if thats what they want -- with respect to the PMR, for example, this would be original research concluding that the PMR referenda, etc. are legitimate votes under a legitimate authority expressing a legitimate free will. As the PMR has produced election records of who voted and for whom to "prove" they are a democracy ("Look, we can show you all the people who voted!"), there can be no assumption of free will. Therefore, your "respecting" the will of the inhabitants of the Transnistrian territory to "build a country" is entirely your own POV regarding the situation there and is not objective. Thus, your supporting the inclusion of commentary supportive of any conclusion that the PMR is sovereign is your POV only.

     Only by rigorously noting what authority recognizes what authority will the "sovereignty" list approach anything that is useful as opposed to a pitched battle that provides absolutely no objective information to the reader.

     As compared to debating the applicability of Montevideo, the answer to "who (country/authority) recognizes the PMR as the legitimate authority over the Transnistrian territory?" is perfectly neutral. If you mark the "check-box" that South Ossetia recognizes the PMR (I'm assuming they do given their coffee klutch in Moscow of not that long ago, we would need a reference), then that is non-POV factual.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 15:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• I should note that my use of "empirical" was to make the point to the Montevideo empiricists that if they wanted to quote facts, I could present them with a set of facts whose use and interpretation is non-POV. My personal opinion is that the Montevideo empiricists supporting the viewpoint that certain separatist states are sovereign whether they are internationally recognized or not will never agree to a simple table of who recognizes whom. Checkboxes that clearly indicate the PMR is only mutually recognized within a small set of separatist states is a far cry from "According to the Montevideo criteria of ...insert full list here... the PMR meets the conditions for sovereignty."
• So, Pernambuco, factual checklist or (POV) original research quoting of sources "proving" the PMR is sovereign? Which do you advocate as being the more objective?  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 15:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not enough coffee yet when I wrote the above last question, apologies to Pernambuco for putting you on the spot(!)... but, seriously, I think the only thing we can advocate as informative and non-POV is a simple checklist; we've already proven in the very need to "take sides" that the issue of ascribing "sovereignty" is devisive and, in any event, even if we all agreed, we would still be resolving it through original research, which, of course, runs counter to Wikipedia policy.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

o.k. that is fine, it was not really a problem, you dont put me on the spot. all I wanted was a civilized tone of voice, not the disqualification of others that is on Usenet all the time, please dont bring that here, that was all . Pernambuco 19:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

• I look on Usenet only when someone sends me something of interest; it's a good reminder of what real intellectual anarchy is like. :-)  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with the need to stick to facts. By including "Five states, neither UN members nor recognised by any states that are, but sovereign according to article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, South Ossetia and Transnistria" the editors are actually misleading the readers by passing their own interpretations of ambiguous criteria as facts. I also agree with suggestions of getting rid of the article's present approach and substituting it with a one based on facts instead of ambiguous, open-to-interpretation, and questionable criteria. Or even splitting it in several articles. (BTW, how does that get accomplished? Voting?) PaC 02:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that voting is not the best solution on this article, due to the predictable intervention of all political groups involved in nationalist/separatist claims. Two solutions seem better:

1. Wait that the main editors involved reach a common position on the matter. This may take a lot of time, because some editors are not checking all articles at all times (and some only react to changes to the article itself).
2. Moving through the dispute-solving process.

I tend to prefer the first variant, but it can take an unbound amont of time, with other editors and trolls intervening in the process. Dpotop 14:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the best would be to go ahead and create a table of Mutually recognized countries and territories, which is as NPOV a title and organization as I can think of since International recognition of countries and territories will undoubtedly lead to wailing and gnashing of teeth that "inter" + "national" does not apply to unrecognized territorial entities. We should be able to look up who recognizes whom with a minimum amount of dispute. Meanwhile, the debate on Montevideo can continue...  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

We can't have false statements in the article

As I mentioned above "Five states, neither UN members nor recognised by any states that are, but sovereign according to article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, South Ossetia and Transnistria" is a false statement. As this whole discussion shows, this is just an interpretation of some of the editors of the ambiguous criteria. While the discussion on Montevideo is going on I propose to at least fix it with some wording like "sovereign according to some interpretations of article 1..." This sounds a bit weaselish, and should be just a temporary fix, but it is clearly closer to facts than the current version. The current one is just plain false. We cannot have it. I do not want to get in revert wars, and I'd like to hear other editors opinions about this. (PaC 22:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC))

Alternatively, (and clearly preferred by me) we can get rid of this statement and exclude these entities from the list (again, until a better solution is found). I'd like to take some action soon, so please voice your opinion. (PaC)

• Even the most ardent proponents of sovereignty for the frozen conflict zones et al. (must) quote specific examples which can be interpreted as satisfying the 4th Montevideo criterion (ability to conduct foreign relations). Or they quote "sources" (not legitimate governments recognizing these regimes as also legitimate) that similarly quote specific examples which can be interpreted as satisfying.... At best, it's original research. Then comes the "look at the facts, they are indisputable" exhortation, which, of course, is not actually looking at facts, but trying to draw people into the same "objective" original research conclusion. The Earth is flat according to "some interpretations" as well.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

  I would say that Somaliland probably qualifies under Montevideo. The rest are pretty dubious. I agree with some kind of fix so as to not say that these countries definitely qualify under Montevideo. john k 05:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a source for Somaliland being sovereign? Dpotop 06:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

By way of a source are we talkign about the 4th test? I assume the first three are self evident/easy to source? I would say that Somaliland's statmetns to the effect that they woudl rejoin the rest of the country when/if it gets a stable government again would count as entering into some sort of forgin relation, and be easy to source. But then again some may disagree. Dalf | Talk 08:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I think:

1. Concluding that some state satisfies Montevideo point (4) because some source says the state has some specific economic/political foreign relation is WP:SYNT.
2. Concluding that some state is sovereign because you somehow concluded that it satisfies the 4 points of Montevideo is WP:SYNT.

By source I mean a text not originating on Wikipedia or the state in question and explicitly stating that Somaliland is sovereign, or that it satisfies the 4 Montevideo points.

It is weird to have here on Wikipedia states classed as "sovereign" while no source considers them as such (outside their own propaganda services). For Transnistria (the case I know best), not even foreign NGOs. Somaliland is a bit different (there are official petitions on the British government to grant them recognition) but still, there is no source saying explicitly that Somaliland is sovereign.

Thus, this entire article qualifies as a nice bit of pro-independence political activism, not NPOV. Dpotop 09:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I can agree with that if only because the (4) point in the test is ambiguous enough that it could be argumed, and so you are right and some sort of source for it woudl be neded. I disagree that we need a single source stating that all 4 tests are meet. I think individual sources for each one shoudl be sufficent so long as the sources themselves are actually, without argument, supporting the cleam that the test is passed. I would not object to moving the 5 items down to the list of "specifically not included" though I think they shoudl still be mentioned in that group (to avoid someone simply thinking we overlooked them). Dalf | Talk 00:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• To Dalf's question: whether "self-evident/easy to source" or "not intuitively obvious/requires specific sources," building the case that some regime satisfies Montevideo on any of the four criteria is WP:OR/WP:SYNT. That is why Montevideo should not even be mentioned/used here (or anywhere, for that matter) to postulate a regime is sovereign.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I took a look back at the article and it's worse than I recall: it states the PMR et al. can (i.e., should) be considered sovereign according to just the first Montevideo criterion alone.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well what can I say, I disagree on this and on teh applicability of WP:OR/WP:SYNT, with the exception that I just listed above in response to Dpotop. The only way we can possibly keep with NPOV is to adopt some test that we ourselvs have not made up, though I do agree that we shoudl be applying the Montevideo criterion ourselves (as that woudl be OR) but shoudl be finding sources for them. If we can find sources for them then I do not see hwo using it is bad. The trick is the 4th test which is ambiguous enough as to make the whole thign hard to use in pratice if we limit ourselves to sourcing each application. Dalf | Talk 00:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, "but should be finding sources for them. If we can find sources for them then I do not see hwo using it is bad." is the problem, because people will drag out sources as POV as themselves (e.g., BHHRG and Mark Almond) and cite them as reputable and push twice as hard now thay they have an "objective" (NOT!) reference. Still all WP:OR/WP:SYNT, unfortunately.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well I think, for at least the two of the 5 that I am farmilliar with, that we could find sources we would all agree on for everythign but (4). Four is a problem though and the only thing I think we could agree on would be if htey had exchanged ambasadors with country or somethign like that (which is I suppose reconigition). Does Transnistria have any sort of offical relations with Russia? With the Russian milatary? So I still disagree with the notion that it is automaticaly OR/SYNTH regardles of what the sources are and the specifics of the case. That said they should probably be dis-included. Dalf | Talk 01:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with PaC, claiming that not-recognized states are sovereign is a false statment. We can have a separate list of not-recognized states, but in this list we should include only recongnized countries.--MariusM 12:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems everybody so far agrees that this is a false statement and most believe that using Montevideo criteria here is wrong. Anybody with an opposite opinion care to comment? (PaC 04:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC))

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to follow the declarative theory of statehood, which appears to be more widely held than the constitutive theory. We just need to be careful about it, and about conducting OR. john k 07:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that, but maybe the criteria can be specified more precisely than it is done in Montevideo. Otherwise, it will be always open to interpretation. I suspect that Montevideo criteria were deliberately made vague, to allow the powers to interpret them as they see fit. For example, one might say that if the state is not recognized by any other state, then by definition it cannot "enter into relations with other states". This argument equates Montevideo with recognition criteria, don't you think? I think it would be better if we came up with (may be original) but clear and verifiable criteria and then created a list of states, rather then using Montevideo and come up with our own original interpretations of it. (PaC 15:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC))

Alas, original criteria are, again WP:OR. I still like my idea, tedious as it may be, simply of who recognizes whom. At least the frozen conflict zone proponents could have their mutual recognitions factually noted in a non-POV manner, even if they have no recognition by any widely acknowledged de jure power.
     And speaking of which, I see that the most recent changes clarifying de jure recognition regarding the separatist republics' territories has been reverted, pushing the sovereignty POV once again.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, can somebody revert those? I've already done it twice. These people just keep reverting without any discussion. I am not sure how to deal with that. The de jure status of these entities is not even disputable.(PaC)

I am not sure I can see how Pēters' idea would work. Do you envision a list of states and next to each state we least the countries that recognize this state? (PaC)

It would essentially be a matrix where each country/territory is a row & column (sort of like those distance tables you find in maps). It would need a bit of work to make it Wiki-editable, but I believe it's possible--and it does not require us to establish any criteria. I personally believe that creating any sort of criteria will run into the same kinds of problems as Montevideo. After all, as we've seen, people even come in and revert that, for example, Transnistria is de jure part of Moldova (and same for all the rest), something which is not even factually disputable. I guess what I'm saying is, noble sentiment doomed to fail--although, please, don't let me disuade you, it could just be my skepticism from having dealt with the pro-separatist contingent. We already have articles with unambiguous criteria (U.N. members, the Vatican, and noting that Taiwan swapped recognition/non-recognition with the People's Republic of China).

To add value, the only choices for this article are to (painfully) list who recognizes whom (there's probably some way to "fold" into far fewer columns where recognitions are common), or to speculate on who is sovereign who is not recognized--which is an oxymoron.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

In addition I disagree that original criteria are WP:OR. Picking the criteria is not research. It's a question of choice. Editors make choices all the time. It is certainly less WP:OR than interpreting ambiguous criteria. (PaC 23:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC))

Sorry for not having time to look here recently. You will find that it may not be so easy to create a table cross-referencing who recognises whom, because you would first need to know what constitutes recognition. This may seem trivial, but I can assure you I honestly don't know. Is it legislation passed explicitly stating this? This may be what actually happens sometimes, but it could be the case just as well that Zambia never officially declared it now considers Tuvalu sovereign. Many countries exchange embassies but then again many don't. You may then look at lower level diplomatic missions, but then, Nagorno Karabakh will have a mission to Armenia, so that won't work. In one of the Korea related articles it sais that the two states have not to date recognised each other but the statement is tagged as unsourced. I submit that just as well that you may claim that efforts to show that a country does satisfy point 4 of Montevideo constitute OR, it constitutes OR to propose (without sources) that this point 4 means anything but the straightforward. Why should diplomatic relations mean anything different from exchanging diplomats unless there are sources to the contrary? It can't possibly mean recognition as this is explicitly ruled out in Montevideo.

A list based on recogniton is useless because it will mirror the UN members list. There is a very common practice in the science of international law and politics where the sovereignity is unrelated to recognition and solely concerns the de facto existence of states. This is the list for that sovereignity.

I diagree. I believe the frozen conflict zone territories recognize each other. The very point of having a table is that such data would be factually reflected--with no POV'ing on the legitimacy or sovereignty of the regime.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I agree that would be useful. But it would be the content of another article. sephia karta 11:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

For those of you that are so keen to see Somaliland, Abkhazia and the likes go, but do want to include the ROC: on what objective basis? I take offence at the infuriatingly lazy thinking that labels me a pro-seperatist sovereignity pusher or anything similar. Seperatism is a legimate political aspiration without which most of the worlds states including among many many other former colonies the United States would not exist today. But that is not at all relevant to this article. The desirability of the existance of any of these states or goverments is not the issue at stake here. I am commited here to the fact that say Somaliland is just as real a state as Taiwan, and that they are both just as real states for their inhabitants (the only people really concerned) as is say the aforementioned Zambia.

Again, the table would show the ROC is not recognized where Taiwan and the People's Republic of China "swapped" had their recognition/non-recognition status by a recognizing state, for example, the U.S. (I believe it was in 1974 or thereabouts?). Plain and simple.

Good. sephia karta 11:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, separatism as a legitimate political aspiration is one thing; taking us all on the leap that separtist "states" are therefore expressing legitimate political aspirations (and can be regarded as legitimate to some degree) is WP:OR at best.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I did not say that these states' existence is legitimate (i.e. whether they are de jure sovereign), this is a matter of juridical opinion: the states themselves thinks so, most of the rest of the world does not think so. sephia karta 11:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The offence you take would be from me. I can assure you it was not intended as an offence, but as a remark on the current status of the article. And I assure you I respect the aspiration to freedom of those people. However, as you note yourself, all these aspirations are only relevant here if reputable sources can be found on the matter. Also, there's a difference between saying that "Transnistria wants independence" and "Transnistria is a sovereign state". I am sure we can find sources on the first statement (probably listed at Transnistria). However, I have not yet seen a source stating that Transnistria is sovereign. Dpotop 10:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess exactly that is what I've been trying to argue all along: there is no difference between independence and the sort of sovereignty used in this article. I appreciate the fact that this may not be sufficiently clear at the present moment, and the article's title and introduction can b modified to the effect that it becomes clear, but if people want a list based on another definition of sovereignty, another article should be created for that.

And I apologise for my harsh reaction to your statement, I guess I infeliciously took it more to heart than I should have. sephia karta 11:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Now, as it seems we are going nowhere, I propose the following:

A qualified list of states alledged to be sovereign in a table. Everything that is to be said about the sovereignity of a specific state will be. The form of the beast could be a table, a list, a grouped list, anything. sephia karta 00:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Sephia karta, the objective basis is that ROC is recognized by many states and Abkhazia by none. I do not think we should be completely discarding recognition from the criteria. This would create a clear bias of one approach vs the other. The problem of course is when the criteria start contradicting each other, but at least,despite your legitimate concerns, recognition is a much more verifiable criterion than ambiguously stated Montevideo. For the purpose of making this list Montevideo is completely useless, because everyone interprets it as she/he wants.

I'll go for the list of allegedly sovereign if we fix rules fro inclusion that do not include WP:OR or WP:SYNT. I mean, for a state to be included, some source should explicitly claim that the state is sovereign. Otherwise, who alleges sovereigny? We, the users? Dpotop 10:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Any allegation is WP:OR if there is no official recognition by anyone. "Wikipedia editors based on XYZ allege that South Ossetia is sovereign" doesn't fly.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the OR if we include South Ossetia with a link to a statement passed by their parliament, e.g. sephia karta 11:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Montevideo is not ambiguously stated. Point out the ambiguousness, please. sephia karta 11:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

In addition, I do not think we should be afraid that the list will mirror the UN members list. First of all they would not be identical. Second, it is not our fault that most of the sovereign states decided to join UN. It's just a coincidence, I do not see a problem here.(PaC 01:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

Why would you list all UN members here, and not simply link them as a list? Why do you complicate issues, when the only interest everybody sees in this article is to list the problem-states? Dpotop 10:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Most of the U.N. states can probabably be consolidated into some sort of mutual recognition block. The point is, for a table to be NPOV, it needs to list "everyone". Where the problem states are concerned, it's important to note which of those "recognize" each other and equally important to note that they are not recognized by anyone else.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not insist on recognition being the only criteria though. I do insist, however, that saying that the entities in question definitely qualify under Montevideo criteria is a false statement. You'd agree with that, wouldn't you? (PaC 01:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

And a single criterion at that...  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The status and history of the ROC and that of Abkhazia are so different that I don't see much of a consistency problem. The ROC was the recognized government of China before 1949, and after that, when the PRC got control of almost the whole of the territory of China, the ROC continued to be recognized as the legitimate government of China by a large percentage of countries for two decades thereafter. It has also been the undisputed de facto government of Taiwan (and Quemoy and Matsu) for the past five and a half decades. The change from being widely recognized to not all that widely recognized had nothing to do with any kind of de facto changes in the actual situation on the ground, but with political considerations of people wanting to deal with the PRC. And, of course, several countries still recognize the ROC. Abkhazia, on the other hand, has never been recognized by anybody in its fifteen year history. Abkhazia, Somaliland, and so forth are unrecognized separatist regimes. This is quite different from the ROC, whose relation to the PRC more closely resembles that between the two Germanies before Ostpolitik - each state claims to be the sole legitimate China, and states can only have diplomatic relations with one or the other. This is a weird situation, and quite distinct from that of the separatist areas. Another point worth noting is that while right now the UN members list is a good marker of sovereign states, treating it as though it is as a rule such is problematic. Switzerland didn't join until 2002. Kiribati, which became independent in 1979, didn't join until 1999. The Vatican City, of course, is still not a UN member. The current near congruity of the list of undisputed sovereign states with the list of UN members should not lead us to assume that this is a natural congruity that will always be around. john k 15:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If we are simply being factual, then the ROC suffers as being not recognized by a majority of countries. It can have an annotation in the box saying when it lost recognition/recognition was transfered to the PRC, if that was the case. Sticking to plain recognition eliminates any special "sovereignty" cases, and this is a necessity—as otherwise everyone will clamor to line up for their "fair" share of "special case" sovereignty.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

On the continuum of sovereignty, it seems to me that we have pretty clearly UN Members...Vatican...ROC...North Cyprus...the others. I don't see why it is at all obvious, or why it would reduce dispute, to draw the line between the Vatican and the ROC, rather than between the ROC and North Cyprus. john k 23:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, "significant recognition" deciphered as "several countries" may allow for a clear cut. One country recognition is certainly potentially debatable, as this country may be simply an occupying force. (PaC 14:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC))

Reverts of de jure status

While we are discussing possible changes to the approach used by the article I added (next to the names of the unrecognized states) clarifications of their de jure status. These are facts. Nobody really disputes that, and it gives the reader quick idea about the de jure status of these entities. However, user User:Pernambuco keeps reverting these changes without any explanation or discussion. It seems he is trying to hide these facts from the reader (I do not know what it is if not blatant POV). Does anybody else think we should hide de jure status from the readers? If you do, please explain here why, before reverting. If you don't, help me deal with Pernambuco's disruptive reverts. (PaC 05:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

Welcome to the fun. There is no reason to hide what authority is recognized as de jure over a territory. And after all, Transnistrians do vote in the Moldovan elections, for example. (That would be that part of Moldova where they don't keep a record of who voted for whom.)  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is "funny". Somehow the page got protected on the version, that nobody in these discussion pages even defends. There are hundreds of lines of discussion here, and nobody seems to disagree with these changes. How are we supposed to "resolve the dispute" if nobody really disputes. They simply reverted and requested protection. Does anybody have any suggestions on the matter? (PaC 19:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

the "de jure" notes are arbitrarily on 4 states. to be fair, one must list all diputes such as China, Somaliland, Cyprus. It then makes the whole page too political. there is enough discussion on the standard preamble. Ybgursey 19:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If you think more "de jure" notes should be added, why don't you add it? Instead of reverting the ones I added. You seem not to deny the "de jure" status of these territories. Then what is the reason for your reverts? You just do not want the readers to see it?

And no, there is not "enough discussion on the standard preamble". Show me where this information is reflected in the preamble? Where can the reader see that Abkhazia is "de jure" part of Georgia? (PaC 21:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC))

In this edit of Mauco he reverted the mention of de jure status of unrecognized countries on the ground that changes were not discussed. Is amazing to see this as I see in this talk page a lot of discussions on this subject.--MariusM 21:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Ybgursey, you force me to be rather blunt here. Don't you mean:

"To be fair, one must list all diputes such as China, Somaliland, Cyprus. It then makes the whole page too factual"?

 —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

facts are inthe reswpective texts. this is supposed to be an inclusive list, not a political forum on what is de jure or not. very least such things must be listed as footnotes. 71.235.97.40 22:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You may be misinterpreting here, it's not whether Transnistria, for example, is de jure, it's that de jure it is still considered part of Moldova. Being "political" is NOT indicating who the de jure authority is. And I have made a suggestion on how to make the list both inclusive and non-POV.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You are still cluttering the listings with such comments. Ybgursey 03:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I am supposed to be on a sort of a wikibreak, but I support Ybgursey, Pernambuco and the others (yes, there are others - see the history) who reverted the POV edits which Papa Carlos is pushing. This is a list. Keep it as a list. Don't make it political. If someone wants to find out more, just click the links. Meanwhile, the status of the Montevideo entities is very clear for anyone who can read. It is both in the intro and the footnotes, as someone pointed out. Enough, guys. Mauco 04:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Hold it. Mauco really thinks that "de jure" status of these territories is my POV?! Interesting. (PaC 14:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC))

How can a list like this be anything but political? john k 09:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

:) I could not have said it better. Indeed, this list *is* political, and it shouldn't. :) Dpotop 11:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

:( Uh ... I think that John K means to say that by its nature, it is already political no matter what we do. And that the only way to avoid that is to delete the list. All 3 of us appear to have different definitions of 'political', with John K being the most precise of us; taking the strict, legalistic dictionary definition. Still, if we concede that it is already political, I would argue that my statement still holds: let us not go overboard by making it even more polemic than it already is. There are plenty of explanations of these entities already, both in intro and in footnotes. That is more than enough for a list of this type. No one who reads it can be in doubt. - Mauco 13:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

No, this list does not need to be political. If you count "UN states" there is nothing political about it because there are reputable sources about it. If you count "States recognized by at least one UN state", it's not political, either. On the countrary, if you count "Sovereign states", it's political and POV, regardless of the criterion you choose. And that is because there are no reputable sources explicitly documenting sovereignty. Dpotop 21:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course it would be political to use any of these criteria, as they would include or exclude states, and this would have political meaning. Including only UN members or states with diplomatic relations with a majority of UN members would exclude the ROC, which has political implications. Using any of these criteria as a definition of "sovereign state" is clearly to take sides and have a POV. What we need to do is not to embrace any single definition of a sovereign state, but to be clear about why the various disputed states are disputed. How exactly we do that remains an open question, but I don't see how simply unilaterally adopting a definition that excludes Taiwan, or that includes Taiwan and North Cyprus but excludes Somaliland, et al, is going to help make this article NPOV. john k 16:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

People who keep saying that "there are plenty of explanations of these entities already" i keep asking the same question: Show me where this information is reflected in the article? Where can the reader see that Abkhazia is "de jure" part of Georgia? I am asking it again: Mauco, Ybgursey, Pernambuco and the mistical others, can you show me? (PaC 14:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC))

This is a list, not an article. You click on the link for more info. The Wikipedia principle. - Mauco 01:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You just cannot find excuses for your desire to hide the facts. First you say that this info is already in the article. Now you insist that three words next to the entity (e.g. "de jure part of Georgia") will somehow turn this list into an article. You know perfectly well that inclusion of these entities on the list is highly questionable and deliberately trying to hide even the traces of evidence from the reader. Anybody without a POV can see that the inclusion of these three words does not overbear the list at all and is a necessary clarification that provides a consise way for the reader to grasp a larger part of the real picture related to the sovereignty of these "states". (PaC 04:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC))

Table Strawman

File:IsraelAsSample.gif

Who recognizes whom sample

I just thought I'd post this as an example. I took the U.N. members list, defaulted all to recognizing each other (easier), added in a few non-members (like the Holy See, Palestine...), then adjusted Israel to indicate who does not recognize it. I've uploaded a small sampling of the spreadsheet.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 22:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I applaud your compiling this table and I think it can be a great asset, but I do have to ask: how do you actually know who recognises whom? Do you know whom North-Korea is recognised by? sephia karta 23:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe what Vercrumba did is the only NPOV thing that can be done if this article is to be NPOV. Dpotop 11:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There is, of course, a distinction to be made between having diplomatic relations with a country and recognizing it as a sovereign state. There is also a distinction to be made between not recognizing the ruling regime of a country, and not recognizing a country itself. For instance, many countries took a while to recognize the Bolshevik regime in Russia after 1917. But none of them ceased to recognize Russia as a country. They just didn't recognize any regime there. Afghanistan under the Taliban was a similar case. Almost no countries recognized the Taliban regime, but a few did (I believe it was just Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE). Others recognized the old Rabbani government that controlled a tiny fraction of the country, and still others did not recognize any government. But everyone recognized Afghanistan as being a de jure sovereign state. The situation in Somalia today is somewhat similar. The situation of China might be considered similar - just about everyone recognizes that a country "China" exists. But there is disagreement as to which regime represents that state - the ROC in Taipei, or the PRC in Beijing. We should be careful about these distinctions. john k 05:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Dpotop, that is not an answer to my question. john k, I agree. sephia karta 11:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

To john k, an authority is recognized as de jure or not. In the case of China, PRC is now the majority-recognized authority, the ROC is not, over Taiwan. Again, our mission here is not to determine who is "right" in the disagreement over who is the "appropriate" authority, it is to just report the facts. Basing an encyclopedia article about the sovereignty of states on wishful interpretations of Montevideo and declarative theories of statehood is a vast disservice to Wikipedia's readers. Who recognizes whose sovereignty is the only NPOV solution. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article promoting Russian POV?!!! (or are we back to where we were a year ago)

Inclusion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in this list is a clear promotion of Russian POV. Neither of these entities is a sovereign state but rather is piece of Georgian territory occupied by Russia. This should be clear to anyone who follows the news. They are run by Russian-backed governments (in SO over half of high level officials are on active military duty for Russian army); their borders are protected by Russian soldiers; they have even less autonomy in making their decisions than any autonomous region in Russian Federation (Chechnya anyone?); SO regime stated numerous times that they do not want to be independent – their aim is to be a part of Russia; the separatist governments do not even control all of the territory they want to separate from Georgia (both Abkhazia and SO are divided into parts with pro-Russian and pro-Georgia factions). How can anyone, especially after the events of the last year, claim that Abkhazia and SO are sovereign states?! Irakliy81 05:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The apparent patchwork nature of the territory controlled by South Ossetia speaks against their fulfilling the Montevideo requirements, I think. I know less about Abkhazia, but its and Transnistria's status seem largely similar. It's worth noting that even Russia does not actually recognize these "states", despite their status as its clients. john k 05:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Abkhazia's president is elected by its population rather than being appointed by the Russian president (as Russian regional heads are). Last time the Russian-backed candidate (Khajimba) actually lost the election to Sergei Bagapsh. These are the arguments in favour of the de-facto independence (sovereignty) of Abkhazia. Alaexis 19:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You again demonstrate the lack of information you have on the problem. Bagapsh was "elected" by 1/5 to 1/4 of the population of Abkhazia. The rest of people who are Abkhazia's residents and property owners are forcibly restricted from entering the territory by Russian forces and the local regime, just because of their ethnic origin. It is neither legally nor morally correct to speak about "elections", when majority of the population are ethnically persecuted and have no part in the process. Pirveli 18:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not propose this article for deletion?

There are arguments for this: The absence of clear and/or NPOV inclusion criteria, the absence of reliable sources on most problematic entries, and the continuous fuss around these entries, and the fact that most pertinent and factual information is already compiled into lists such as the one of UN members.

Question 1: Am I the only one to think that this article should be deleted? Dpotop 11:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Question 2: If you are against deleting this article, may I kindly ask what factual information is provided by this article? Dpotop 11:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be against deleting this article. - Irakliy81 17:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I would. List of UN members is not the same as List of sovereign state. A state can be sovereign without being a UN member. In fact, under international law, a state can be a sovereign state even if no other such sovereign officially recognizes it as such. - Mauco 22:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Mauco, we are not here in a court of law, and we are not supposed, on wikipedia, to do the work of lawyers. We are here to report what reputable sources say. Do you have a source saying that the disputed states are sovereign? No! Nobody here has. So, there is no factual information to report. Dpotop 09:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)\

Sources were provided when asked for. sephia karta 11:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No, all problematic states are put in this list based on original research. There is no source stating that they are sovereign. BTW, I presume there are actual UN members for which such sources exist, so they should not be in the list either. Dpotop 11:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Transnistria, the following sources below have already been provided nearly a month ago as for why that particular unrecognized country merits inclusion on this list. In addition to these, there are also others:

• International Society and the De Facto State' by Scott Pegg, Ashgate Publishing (1999), ISBN: 1840144785, pages 30 - 43
  
• Fragmentation and the International Relations of Micro-states: self-determination and statehood by Jorri C. Duursma, Cambridge University Press (1996), ISBN 0521563607, page 122
  
• De facto states: the Quest for Sovereignty, by Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, Henry Felix Srebrnik, Routledge, UK (2004), ISBN 0714654760, page 112
  
• I would also include The Sustainability and Future of Unrecognized Quasi-States, by Pål Kolstø, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 43, No. 6, (2006) DOI: 10.1177/0022343306068102, of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, Pages 723-740, although it does not enumerate Montevideo directly. It does go to the heart of all four criteria, however, and sustains this (narrow) sovereignty argument. - Mauco 19:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I should have noticed sooner. Regarding "sustains this (narrow) sovereignty argument"... the entire notion that we're sustaining an argument (WP:OR) that part of part of Montevideo decides sovereignty (WP:OR) is WP:OR on top of WP:OR. That's certainly an interesting topic, but it is a theory. And here it's being said that according to this very narrow interpretation of what sovereignty might be, Transnistria fits. If this isn't cooking the lab experiment to fit the results, I don't know what is.

Perhaps we should just (more accurately) rename this article to "List of states speculated to be sovereign." That's all this is right now. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In practical terms, this article currently lists all the world's de facto independent states. sephia karta 11:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, but "List of de facto independent states" is different from "List of sovereign states". Dpotop 11:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose deleting this article. Whatever issues we have about various unrecognized states being listed, it would not be solved by deleting this list. As I've noted before, numerous undisputedly sovereign states have not been members of the UN in the past, and today the same is true of Vatican City. These issues can be ironed out by having clearer guidelines about what exactly we're looking for, not by deleting this article. john k 16:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No it is not. The sovereignty meant in this thread means de facto independence. sephia karta 21:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Lack of recognition does not necessarily equal lack of sovereignty

There seems to be some confusion as to the declaratory principle. Just to be clear for those here who are new to public international law: A lack of recognition may be an indicator of a lack of sovereignty, but it does not follow automatically that a lack of recognition means that a state lack sovereignty.

In fact, even a state or government with no recognition still has the ability to engage in international relations. A de facto government requires no diplomatic recognition to conduct itself under international law. Both United States and international courts have repeatedly accorded legal standing to de facto governments.

De facto governments may conduct foreign relations with sovereign states which have not extended de jure recognition to them. Section 107 of the Restatement (Second) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States 119651 states that: "An entity not recognized as a state but meeting the requirements for recognition specified in § 100 of controlling a territory and population and engaging in foreign relations], or an entity recognized as a state whose regime is not recognized as its government, has the rights of a state under international law in relation to a non-recognizing state..." See also Article 74 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which states that "The severance or absence of diplomatic or consular relations between two or more States does not prevent the conclusion of treaties between those States". - Mauco 22:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

All of this has no relevance for this discussion. Declaratory principle you like so much does not give any clear criteria for the list that could be easily checked. It just acknowledges that the state can exist without recognition. It doesn't say that any entity without recognition is a state.

Recognition, on the other hand, is a verifiable criterion and I do not see why we should completely discard it. (PaC 04:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC))

Untrue. E.g. the Badinter Arbitration Committee of the EU gave as criteria population, territory and government, all 3 are a matter only of straightforward fact checking. sephia karta 11:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to interrupt you (Mauco, PaC, Sephia), but we are not in a court of law. Your arguments, be they super-well constructed, should have no influence on this article, because they are based on original research, not on explicit statements of reputable sources. Dpotop 12:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

what do you mean, this is not correct answer dpotop. For instance mr Sephia Karta gives an example of the Badinter Arbcom, this is something that can be checked, they published their criteria, it is not something he made up, there is a record of this so what he says is not original research. The same for what mr Mauco says, he refers to United States law and Vienna Convention, you can check this, and international law, it is not him that makes up international law, everything can be confirmed with the sources so it is not original research, I think they have a very good point Pernambuco 14:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

You persist in not understanding that international law does not govern Wikipedia editing. Wikipedia has its own laws, which are more strict than what you define as "international law". Normally, nothing enters Wikipedia until a reputable source saying exactly that is found. And when I say "exactly that", I mean that deducing things is forbidden, per WP:SYNT. Therefore, all your arguments since you came here are fundamentally flawed. Dpotop 15:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

BTW, since you keep talking about "international law", why don't you take your arguments to the International court of justice, and ask them why the UN does not recognize Taiwan and the other territories as "sovereign". If it's that obvious those countries are sovereign according to international law, get this sovereignty recognized there, and then we have a reputable source, and we can finish this damned article. Dpotop 15:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Ha-ha. Good point Dpotop! All separatist lovers, hiding behind made-up international-law-excuses can take it with international courts and when you present here positive results we can continue this conversation. Meanwhile, separatist states are out of the list. (PaC 16:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC))

Actually, I have nothing against "separatist states". But this is Wikipedia, there are some rules, and this article does not respect them. Dpotop 21:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The same argument can be put in reverse (but without the "ha-ha"): Has there been a ruling by the International Court of Justice to the effect that the Montevideo entities are NOT sovereign states? It would be hard to see how, if the meet the requirements for statehood under international law, that an international law court can fail to recognize this. Objectively speaking, and I think that everyone with knowledge of these issues are well aware of this, tTheir lack of recognition is due to political factors - as opposed to an empirical lack of sovereignty. - Mauco 19:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Right. So the Klingon empire is sovereign, too, because there was no ruling of the International Court of Justice saying the converse. :):):):) Frankly Mauco, you can do better as bogus argument. Dpotop 21:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Straw man retort. Numerous academic and peer-reviewed sources (as provided) indicate that Transnistria meets the requirements for sovereignty as enumerated by Montevideo. No such sources exist for the Klingon empire. - Mauco 23:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not propose this article for deletion? part 2.

I see Mauco is again trying to drown a decent question under a flood of irrelevant and/or redundant text. My questions being quite important, as I see it, I kindly ask you to give it try two sections above. Dpotop 09:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I am hardly alone in believing it wrong to delete this list, as can be seen from this page's discussion. I also feel that I have answered why; in backing up the argument of those who state that sovereignty is not the same as UN membership. This is the answer to your question, Dpotop. If you felt that it was irrelevant, I apologize. - Mauco 19:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

From another list: The unrecognized countries exist. No they don’t. Yes they do. No yes no …. How long is this going to go on? I don’t really get what all the fighting is about. No strike that – I do know. But I have a strong feeling it’s not really about the factual accuracy of this article, but rather about whether we want these places to exist or not.

From a neutral point of view : These places exist. Within the constraints of being unrecognized diplomatically, they operate pretty much like completely independent countries. Whether we like that or not, whether it’s “right”, legal, illegal or the result of an illegal usurpation – it’s still a fact. Changing the wording in this article or deleting them from lists where they otherwise satisfy all objective criteria doesn’t change that.

The lack of recognition is motivated for political reasons for all of these places, from A (Abkhazia) to T (Taiwan, Transnistria and TRNC). But Wikipedia can not be governed by geopolitical riders. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, and it is edited based on facts. Anyone who proposes to include nutcases like Sierra Leone and Somalia on the list, and exclude much better-run places like Taiwan and Somaliland, must better be prepared to explain very well and convincingly just how the former are more "states" and more sovereign than the latter. - Mauco 19:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Mauco, sovereignty and recognition are two political concepts. It's good you understood this. And saying that some nation is or is not sovereign is motivated by politics. There's no a priori notion of sovereignty. And you should write to the point, and not clog talk pages with redundant text. Everybody knows your arguments, and mine. Now, it's time for some action. Dpotop 21:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. Sovereignty is a concept from Political Science and from the science that studies International Law. Whether or not a state is sovereign is a question answered in these fields of science, it is not motivated by politics. Checking whether a state is sovereign is similar to checking whether the Caspian Sea is a lake. You are right to ask for a sourced evaluation, but using a definition that involves only straightforward fact checking satisfies this. Even better, when you asked for additional sources, these were provided. sephia karta 21:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Mauco, I'm very dubious about the extent to which a place like South Ossetia operates like a completely independent country. The article on it suggests that it only controls a crazy patchwork within the area that it claims sovereignty over, with the Georgian government controlling its own crazy patchwork. john k 18:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I get the same impression from reading the same article, John. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about the real situation in South Ossetia. I support those here who say that each inclusion on the list must be sourced, regardless of whether we use Montevideo or some other criteria. It is possible, then, that South Ossetia will not make the list. At the same time, the Wikipedia article on the place is of course not a reliable source. I doubt that there are any South Ossetian editors on Wikipedia, or involved in the article. However, I do know that Wikipedia has quite a few Georgian editors. It would therefore not surprise me that the current Wikipedia article presents the situation in a light not entirely favorable to the South Ossetian claims to statehood, and quite possibly includings statements which, when closer examined, turn out to not have any support or factual basis. - Mauco 19:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, the wikipedia article is not a reliable source. But there ought to be an affirmative obligation to provide sources to support inclusion, I think. This really ought to be where we start. Sources on Somaliland as a sovereign state; sources on Abkhazia; sources on Transnistria; sources on South Ossetia, and so forth. UN membership should be sufficient to qualify the 192 members, and it shouldn't be hard to source either the Vatican or Taiwan/ROC. The rest need sourcing. john k 19:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the fact that Wikipedia is not reliable source is proved by the current contents of this list:). It is result of such ignorant policies that university professors cry "Please, no Wikipedia!!!" when talking about reference sources for the students' works:) Pirveli 05:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

All that this article currently claims is that the states listed possess a population, territory, government and the capacity to enter into diplomatic relation with other states. You don't seriously dispute this, do you? (At least except for South-Ossetia.)sephia karta 13:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all South Ossetia is also included, which is totally ridiculous and absurd. Secondly, these entities (at least part of them, like Abkhazia and Transnistria) CANNOT enter into diplomatic relations with other states. For other states do not enter into diplomatic relations with the entities, which they do not recognize. And Abkhazia and Transnistria are NOT recognized by ANY state on planet Earth. Thus, they have no capacity to enter diplomatic relations with the states. Pirveli 01:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to nitpick, but I don't think that Montevideo limits itself to only diplomatic relations. It merely talks about a capacity to enter into relations with other states. These relations can take a variety of forms. In history, the misnamed German Democratic Republic and puppet state Manchukuo were trailblazers. Back then, there was a debate over their sovereignty, much like we are now debating the Montevideo 8. But few at the time denied that they at least held the capacity to enter into relations (in different forms) with other states. - Mauco 02:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

1.Arisona and Alaska also have capacity to enter relations with other states by such criteria. 2. Manchukuo was never listed as a sovereign state in the contemporary encyclopedeas of that time.3. South Ossetia is still total and non-debatable nonsense. This list's content is result of mere forcing and not of discussion results. It is not formally compatible with the term "encyclopedia":) Pirveli 19:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That you would compare Abkhazia to the GDR is a bit distressing. Among other things, the latter was, after 1973, a UN member. Looking at the UN alone is problematic. The fairly clear distinction between the situation of Abkhazia or Transnistria and that of the ROC is even clearer when you look at regional organizations more broadly. Under one name or another, Taiwan is a member of APEC, the Asian Development Bank, the IOC, the UPU, and the World Trade Organization. Not as many as it might be, but nonetheless, considerably more recognition than any of these other places. Taiwan is a state where it is pretty damned clear that even states that do not de jure recognize it, do, de facto consider it to be more or less a sovereign state. With the others, there is no comparable status, and the question of whether they can enter into relations with other states seems highly questionable unless one can really point to a scholarly consensus. john k 21:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

john k, while it is only fair to be critical of the sovereignty of South-Ossetia, it would be unfair to judge all of the Montevideo 8 by this one case. I agree with Mauco that we have to judge the cases each on their own basis. It would be equally unfair though to restrict arguments to only one case if they also apply to others. If dependence upon Russia speaks against South-Ossetia, dependence upon Italy must equally speak against the Vatican. sephia karta 13:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The case of the Vatican, which is recognized by most states around the world, and which is dependent on Italy only in the sense that it is really tiny and inside Italy, is not at all the same as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, which are unrecognized separatist regimes in states neighboring Russia, propped up by the Russian military, and not diplomatically recognized even by Russia. They are puppet states. I don't think anyone would accuse the Vatican of being an Italian puppet. I'm going to ask again, as I have several times, whether you all would have, prior to 1995, supported us listing Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda on this list. To me that seems nearly indefensible, and I don't see how these Russian puppet states (or North Cyprus or Nagorno-Karabkh, for that matter) are much better. john k 20:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I really hate to dodge a valid question, John, but personally I know too little about these cases to give you a qualified answer. In the case of Transnistria (which I do know about) it would be wrong to subscribe wholesale to the argument of Transnistria's opposition, which claims that it is Russian puppet state. The reality is much more nuanced than that. In the mid-1990s, Transnistria got very little help from an increasingly antagonistic Russia, and oriented itself towards Ukraine for its survival. Today, Russia invests in Transnistria and supports it financially. It is not the only one to do this, but the largest of several countries (largest in terms of investment and aid). At the same time, Russia repeatedly defends the territorial integrity of Moldova. This is not the case of Turkey vis-a-vis TRNC/Cyprus, or Armenia vis-a-vis Nagorno-Karabakh/Azerbaijan. - Mauco 21:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enoughon Transnistria, but what we really need are sources for all these in general. I'd also prefer that sources be provided with some paraphrasing to indicate the content. Just listing books isn't very helpful, as it doesn't really explain what they say, and there's no reason to know whether the sources are actually on point. john k 22:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Russia defend the integrity of Moldova as it defend the integrity of Georgia. In both cases Russia didn't formally recognized the puppet countrie (S. Ossetia, Abkhazia or Transnistria) but it created them with all kind of support, including military support. Russian Army was directly and decisively involved in the War of Transnistria and Russian troups are still present in Transnistria. No difference compared with S. Ossetia or Abkhazia, is the same Russian expansionism.--MariusM 23:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I see Mauco is again trying to drown a decent question under a flood of irrelevant and/or redundant text. My questions being quite important, as I see it, I kindly ask you to give it try two sections above. Dpotop 09:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. There are different ways to define sovereignty. At the current time, this list explains (in its introduction) that it uses the criteria of Montevideo. This is probably what is closest to long standing practice of international law, although the fourth criteria of Montevideo appears to be a bit iffy and not solidly grounded in international law (which might explain why later restatements of the principle often repeat just the first three). - Mauco 00:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

From you? You must be kidding. Given the sheer amount of prose you wrote on Transnistria-related issues, you are an experienced editor. And it's not like these issues were not discussed before 1000 times. Dpotop 08:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not kidding. I am politely asking you - again - to please assume good faith by me as well as by any other Wikipedia editor. To assume good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. Your participation here is very welcome. But if you can not abide by this fundamental principle of Wikipedia, perhaps you should consider becoming a reader rather than an editor. - Mauco 13:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I cite from WP:AGF, which you seem to interpret to your ends:

• This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary.
• Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice.
• Accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith, without showing reasonable supporting evidence, is another form of failing to assume good faith.

So, look at yourself in the mirror before talking about good faith. And stick to the article here. Dpotop 13:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

How about we move this mutual mudslinging to our respective user-talk pages? The whole "No they don’t. Yes they do. No yes no" is marginally relevant when it pertains to countries. But this WP:AGF "No you are not. Yes you are. No yes no" is not. - Mauco 14:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't agree more, given that it's you who invokes WP:AGF every other dispute. Dpotop 14:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Would different definitions of sovereignty help?

Right now, this list is using the Montevideo Convention as its yardstick for sovereignty. There are also other ways to define what is and is not a sovereign state, however. Stephen Krasner, in his book "Sovereignty" (ISBN 069100711X), lists four other definitions. Would it help to add those to the list? Perhaps by listing four + Montevideo, and making a ruleset for this list that if a country meets two out of four, sourced of course, then it can be deemed sovereign as regards inclusion in this list. Krasner is an authority on the matter. He is currently with the United States State Department and a big part of his work relates to the shaping of policy for issues involving questions of sovereignty. - Mauco 00:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

No, they wouldn't, unless you have reputable sources stating that those disputed entities are sovereign, in which case the definition of sovereignty is not important. Dpotop 11:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but this is wholly unscientific. There is no ultimate truth according to which a state is or is not sovereign, definition is everything. If a source sais that a state is sovereign then it it is either using a certain concept/definition of sovereignty and has found it to apply in the case of that state, or it is merely voicing an unfounded opinion. sephia karta 13:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope, you're on wikipedia here, not in some research institute. The scientific method is not Wikipedia's rule, which instead has its own set of rules. Original research is rejected, even though it may be done in accordance to the scientific method. So, if everybody believes that 1=2, and if all reputable sources say so, then Wikipedia must report it as such. Dpotop 00:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The key here is that Wikipedia must quote what reliable source have to say on the matter, rather than making up our own minds about which states fit which definition. See WP:ATT. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Stephen Krasner is considered one of the world's top sovereignty experts. Princeton scholar, State Department expert, etc. I am taken aback by User:Dpotop's kneejerk rejection of every proposal or suggestion made by me. But we can of course just stick to Montevideo, which is quite close to the classical treatment of sovereignty under international law. - Mauco 01:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And I've already produced an expert source on the frozen conflict states who has written about Montevideo specifically and that sovereignty cannot exist without legitimacy. Until de jure sovereign countries begin recognizing the separatist states, you cannot claim sovereignty. Your contentions (and 1 out of four, or 2 out of four plus 2 out of some other 4 criteria are sufficient to represent an authority as sovereign) is all WP:OR. If you would like a de facto autonomous or de facto independent list, that's fine, but de facto sovereign, which is what you advocate, is a fundamental and untenable contradiction in terms.  —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 01:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, we cannot stick to our own interpretations of Montevideo or any other legislation; that is the very definition of original research. Rather, we must quote experts who state whether or not these areas are "sovereign states". Jayjg ^(talk) 01:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Palestine?

I've just visited this page - so I'm not really about its history - but shouldn't Palestine be on here? According to the standards (population - check, defined - check, negotiate - check) it seemingly should.Daniel()Folsom ^T|_C|^U 23:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see there's been some discussion - in that case I feel the only debatable thing would be the land, but this article proves that some land does belong to Palestine (note: it's from the Washington Post - which has to be reliable). The population is fairly obvious given the reason for withdrawing and the existance of land (why would you withdraw from an empty space?) and the negotiations are obviously going on per the conflict.Daniel()Folsom ^T|_C|^U 23:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The de jure State of Palestine controls no territory, while the de facto Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign entity. john k 05:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The de jure state of Transnistria controls no territory (and its very existence is not accepted internationally, which is different from PLO/etc), and de facto the Transnistrian government is not sovereign. So, why do we, editors, discriminate here between these states? Dpotop 07:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

My understanding was that Trasnistria was a de facto state which de facto controls territory, even if internationally that territory is considered to be part of Moldova. This is not at all comparable to Palestine. john k 15:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok now that I've looked up de jure - than who legally controls the Gaza Strip - I mean how can one country give land to another - but the latter not legally own the land? It'd be like if the United States didn't own California or anything west of the mississippi (I can't think of any English examples because my studies have focused on America -but I'm sure there are some)Daniel()Folsom |\^T/|\_C/|\^U/ 12:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank are controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which is not a sovereign entity. The State of Palestine, a de jure entity, is controlled by the PLO, which is a distinct organization from the PA, but controls no territory. john k 15:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

this list includes both de facto and de jure states, so if Palestine fits one of these two it can be on the list. but what I am not sure of, does it have defined borders? because I read somewhere that there are some of the groups in Palestine who claim all of Israel as theirs, it is similar to how there were groups in Taiwan until recently and they said that all of China was theirs, AFAIK the official position of Taiwan has backed away from that claiming now. But back to Palestine, what is the border situation, remember one of the requirements is a defined territory Pernambuco 14:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC) (sockpuppet of Mauco)

Borders. You mean, the borders revendicated by the Palestinian Authority, as compared to those revendicated by Transnistria? Because, mind you, Transnistria controls certain territories outside Transnistria and does not control certain territories inside Transnistria. Like any normal sovereign state, you would say. Dpotop 14:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

i was asking about the borders of Palestine, anyone know please? Pernambuco 14:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Palestine does not have defined borders. I would think that they at least claim all of the territory of the former Palestine Mandate that was not controlled by Israel before 1967, but I don't think they've specifically renounced all territories beyond that. The exact borders of the State of Palestine are to be determined by final status negotiations with Israel. john k 15:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

minor change during page protection

Can someone please change the flagicon template {{SERBIA}} to {{SRB}} (removing redirect) as the redirect will soon be updated with a new unrelated template.

Thank you. // Laughing Man 02:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please help? // Laughing Man 21:39, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Picaroon 22:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. :) // Laughing Man 01:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Montevideo does not use the word "Sovereign"

I noticed that in Montevideo Convention the word sovereignty is not used. Dl.goe 10:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I beefed up your remark. It's far too important in this case. Dpotop 10:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Montevideo, again

There's a good, and fairly balanced, run down of Montevideo at The Head Heeb blog from a couple of years ago. Jonathan Edelstein, who writes the blog, probably doesn't qualify as a reliable source by wikipedia standards - he's a lawyer, but doesn't seem to have any academic credentials or non-self-publications, but he's a smart, well-informed person on these kinds of subjects. Edelstein's discussion would suggest that a place like Somaliland more or less fits all four Montevideo criteria, at least de facto - he calls New Caledonia a 3.5 on Montevideo, and surely Somaliland's capacity to engage in foreign relations is considerably greater than that of New Caledonia. But I'm still not sure what to make of Transnistria and the Caucasian entities. Anyway, it's interesting reading, and sheds some light, I think, on how the Montevideo criteria are conventionally interpreted, and on the ways that the whole determination, especially of point 4, is becoming more difficult due to the increasing rights in foreign policy given to entities that are not considered sovereign states. john k 20:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

What about Aruba?

Why isn't Aruba included in the list? Eliko 15:12, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Because Aruba is a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Netherlands.It's not sovereign, just autonomous.Dimts 15:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

So the article about Aruba includes some wrong information: in the tabulation in the right side - the year of independence is indicated as 1986...Eliko 01:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Aruba's infobox is wrong.Now this is a quote from the article about Aruba on Wiki:

"Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles on January 1, 1986, to become a separate,self-governing member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands."

'Self-governing member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands' means antonomy within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.Dimts 12:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria based on territoriality, population, government

In the case of disputed terriotories, the legitimacy of a government is not determined by recognition as much as by its effective control over a territory claimed. This is a key part of what makes such a government sovereign over a territory. See e.g. Yaël Ronen: Transition from Unlawful Territorial Regimes: the Power of Human Rights over Status [1]. The underlying feature of international law in this matter states clearly that territory and population are the building blocks of an internationally-effective territorial state (Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States of 1933, 165 LNTS, rt. 1.) Britlawyer 15:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry Britlawyer, but control of territory = de facto. Sovereign = de jure. There is no legal basis for indicating that the frozen conflict zone breakaway territories are sovereign. Having a "Sovereign nations" article which ascribes sovereignty based on some parts of something—and pretending there is no difference between de facto and de jure by ignoring the distinction completely by introducing an alternate scale of evaluation—is little more than POV pushing. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Er, no, that's not true. One of the main legal theories of how to determine what is a sovereign state basically says that a sovereign state is one that has control over its territory. See Declarative theory of statehood. john k 17:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Applying legal theories to theorize on what territories might be considered to be sovereign = WP:OR versus a list of sovereign nations acknowledged to be such by the international community. The frozen conflict zone territories, for example, have no real ability to conduct foreign policy (that is, only engaged by their direct role in their conflict), one of the other requirements for sovereignty. Postulating a state can be "sovereign" without being able to engage in de jure relations with other sovereign nation-states is WP:OR. That is de facto independence at best. The notion of de facto sovereignty which is argued here is a contradiction in terms. Either the content here needs to change or the article title needs to change. I've read Badinter in detail (refering to Declarative theory of statehood) and applying it as you are doing is WP:OR. You are building your case on a self-referential WP:OR base. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't like blind revert of others. --Des Grant 08:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Currently listed states present on List of unrecognized countries merit inclusion here equally well, as per Montevideo ("The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states") and customary international law. Absence of recognition does not invalidate sovereignty, with reference to 29 Va. J. Int’l L. 473, 476 n.10 (1989) Britlawyer 16:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You are insisting that unrecognized countries are "de facto sovereign." This is a basic and untenable contradiction in terms. Sovereignty can only be de jure, and only one sovereign entity can have de jure authority over a given territory. Therefore, taking Transnistria as an example:

• the PMR is the de facto controlling authority over the Transnistrian territory;
• the PMR functions autonomously of Molodova and can be factually described as de facto independent (note, however, Transnistrians are still citizens of the sovereign Moldova, vote in Moldovan elections, etc.);
• the PMR is not sovereign as Moldova is the de jure sovereign authority over the Transnistrian territory;
• the argument that unrecognized states are listed here "because they deserve to be" is also WP:OR;
• "political existence" is not a synonym for "sovereignty," it is a synonym for "autonomous" or "de facto independent".

Any territory requiring clarification regarding its alleged part of part of Montevideo criteria sovereignty does not belong in this article. (There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth that Taiwan is therefore not sovereign either, but facts are facts.) —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean n. 21: H. Lauterpacht, supra note 14, at 7-25; T. Chen, supra note 14, at 28-29; but see 1 D. O'Connell, supra note 10, at 132. The Convention on Rights and Duties of States, supra note 17, incorporates the idea that those communities fulfilling the conditions of statehood are entitled to recognition regardless of the political interests of other states. “The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states....” Id. art. 3. “The recognition of a state merely signifies that the state which recognizes it accepts the personality of the other with all the rights and duties determined by international law....” Id. art. 6. Lexicon (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

There are remarks that clarify the status of the unrecognised countries so they should be in the list. Alaexis 16:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

We have a separate List of unrecognized countries, we can put this list at a "See also" section, but we don't need OR for sovereign states.--MariusM 18:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Source?

Ok - so us determining what states are sovereign based off a critera seems likes it's not working. Why don't we get a list of sovereign states (there has to be one somewhere) and cite the entire thing with that.danielfolsom © 05:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestion, but it is not an essential requirement for Wikipedia: See numerous other lists of everything else. It is enough that the arguments can be substantiated on a case by case basis, and its no requirement that whole list exists in identical form elsewhere. Britlawyer 14:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I know it is not a requirement, but I'm just saying ... the page is so controversial that perhaps here we should require one.danielfolsom © 14:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

ok how bout this - if you want a country listed here, you have to get a Notable source to confirm it (not say that it should be here, but confirm it)danielfolsom© 21:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a minimum requirement, and it would be advisable in contentious cases to require more than one source and request that such sources are peer reviewed. Britlawyer 01:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Nono, not more than one - just one - right now there are nonedanielfolsom© 03:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Part 1. Is Abkhazia really independent?

Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not sovereign states - they are Georgian territories occupied by Russia. I am tired of trying to prove this obvious point. Why does this article continuously support Russian POV?! Irakliy81 18:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

How would you prove this (Russian occupation, that is)? Russian forces are there as peacekeepers. There was a UN resolution a few days ago that confirmed it. Alaexis 18:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Are we talking “de facto” here or “de jure”? If “de-jure” then yes, you are correct Russian forces are there as peacekeepers, but if we are talking “de facto” then they are nothing but an occupation force of Russian army. In both Abkhazia and South Ossetia the so called peacekeepers oppress local Georgian populations, support separatist regimes, and supply Abkhazian and South Ossetian “armies” with weapons. Not to mention that these separatist regimes are completely dependent on Russia and have less true sovereignty than many autonomous regions inside Russia. Irakliy81 18:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Try to prove all the statements you've written.

1. oppress local Georgian populations
2. and supply Abkhazian and South Ossetian “armies” with weapons
3. these separatist regimes are completely dependent on Russia
4. and have less true sovereignty than many autonomous regions inside Russia

We should remember that Russian-backed candidate lost the last presidential elections in Abkhazia (while in Russia region's heads are appointed by the president with the consent of local legislature). Alaexis 18:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The statements I've written are not difficult to prove:

1. Abkhazian militia and Russian forces almost always act together. Russian forces do not interfere with the movements of Abkhazian military in the demilitarized zone that they supposed to control. Moreover, there were several examples of Russian “peacekeeping” forces surrounding Georgian villages in Gali region and letting Abkhazian militia to enter those villages to rob and at times murder their inhabitants. In the last 10 years more than 2,000 Georgian civilians were killed by Abkhazian militia in the “peacekeeping” forces’ zone of responsibility.

2. A lot of the weapons that are brought into the conflict zones for the “needs” of the “peacekeeping” forces somehow end up in either Abkhazian or Ossetian armies. From time to time you can see stories of Georgian forces intercepting such transactions surface in the media.

3 & 4. In South Ossetia most senior members of separatist government are people who are on active military duty in Russian army and who were directly appointed to those positions from Russia. In Abkhazia after the loss of Moscow-backed candidate in presidential elections (which in themselves were illegitimate) Russia instituted a total blockade. The blockade wasn’t taken down until the candidate who had lost was made vice-president. This effectively split the government into two factions and significantly reduced the power of the elected president. Irakliy81 05:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Irakliy, where are the references? You can't ask everyone to believe in what you're writing. Please present neutral (that is, not Russian, Georgian or Abkhazian) references supporting your claims. Alaexis 05:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

What neutral references are you talking about? Most of these events are not of interest to the western media. Almost anything that is written about the subject is going to be either Russian or Georgian POV. Why should the burden of proof have to reside with me? Why Russian POV does not need any proof and is accepted apriori? Why don’t you prove that the current vice-president of Abkhazia did not loose the presidential elections and that he wasn’t made vice-president only after Russian blockade? Or could you present neutral sources that say that the defense minister of South Ossetia is not a colonel of Russian army? Or please explain to me why do Russian “peacekeeping” forces need air-to-ground missiles when they are not allowed to have aviation? And while you are at it please give me one example when Abkhazian forces were prevented from entering the demilitarized zone in Gali region, or when Russian “peacekeepers” protected the local Georgian population? Irakliy81 00:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

A lot is written in Western sources about this conflict. I didn't quite understand what do you want me to prove about the elections. Here(notice the neutral bbc link) Khadjimba is called pro-Kremlin candidate and it's written that electoral commission declared Mr Bagapsh the winner. Alaexis 16:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, that is correct, however, there is a lot that isn’t mentioned in this short article. Specifically, that after Bagapsh was declared the winner in the first election Russia enraged that the Khandjimba had lost instituted a blockade of Abkhazia. Only when Bagapsh agreed to hold the second election the blockade was stopped. The second election was a complete farce. There was only one candidate – Bagapsh running together with Khandjimba as vice-president. Thus, the winner of presidential elections was forced to take the looser as a vice president. Now, does this comply with your definition of sovereignty? Irakliy81 21:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I know about these events. If they demonstrate anything they demonstrate that Abkhazia is not de facto part of Russia. I cannot imagine Kremlin blockading one of the Russian regions after "wrong" elections. If Russia were an occupant it would've forced the right man but that didn't happen and these events resulted in compromise (Bagapsh+Khadjimba). Alaexis 04:23, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

That’s exactly what I was talking about – Abkhazia has less sovereignty than any autonomous region in Russia. The “compromise” as you call it, was nothing more than Kremlin forcing its defeated candidate onto Abkhazians. The choice Bagapsh had after the blockade was in place was either: (1) starve to death or (2) accept Khadjimba as vice-president. He chose the latter. I am rather puzzled that you see any attribute of sovereignty in his actions… Irakliy81 16:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, if Russia controlled everything in Abkhazia what would prevent it from installing Khadjimba there? Alaexis 18:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

No, Russia does not control everything but it does control enough to make Khandjimba a vice-president against the will of current Abkhazian population. Again, in my book that implies lack of sovereignty. Look at it this way, the occupation is not as open as with, let's say, Germany occupying Poland but the dependence of Abkhazian "government" on Russia is very clear. They can hardly do anything without getting Russian approval first and if they don't they get a blockade and in the end are forced to accept Russian will anyway (even if in slightly modified form). Irakliy81 18:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course you are right that Russia has some control/influence in Abkhazia. A lot of countries have been influenced by other countries in some degree. It's quite hard to make a clear boundary. Sanctions are also imposed fairly often by many countries. I don't endorse 2004 Russian sanctions (in fact I think it was quite a foolish action) but they can't prove anything imho .Alaexis 19:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Sanctions are one thing, telling people how their government should be shaped and succeeding is another. If the blockade had no effect I would not be arguing with you on this point, but it did – Abkhazia had to submit to Russian will. A good example of sanctions are the US sanctions against Cuba. If after those sanctions Castro agreed to have a vice-president or prime-mister be the one appointed by the US I would say that Cuba is not sovereign either. Irakliy81 19:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

He simply wants others to see that. :) Those who are more familiar with the situation in Abkhazia, know perfectly well that Bagapsh’s capitulation drastically reduced his popularity and strengthened Khajimba’s clan. The “government” of Abkhazia straddles severe internal division, the fact which is carefully masked by Abkhaz/Russian media, and the fragile “Bagapsh+Khajimba” unity is only kept by almost a fanatic fear of the Georgian comeback and, of course, by Russian military officers assigned to the Abkhaz separatist government.--Kober^Talk 16:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Russian military officers assigned to the Abkhaz separatist government? Reduced Bagapsh's popularity? I'm already slightly tired of asking for sources. Alaexis 18:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Part 2 - Miscellany

We digress. Neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia are internationally recognized. They are not sovereign--and apparently cannot even continue to exist without Russia's support. Engaging in a bit of WP:OR, if Russia accuses the Baltics of smuggling arms to Georgia--a blatant lie--then you know Russia is smuggling arms to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
     Their presence in the list here makes it, once again, "List of states speculated to be sovereign." The criteria for inclusion--a narrow definition of part of part of Montevideo--is preposterous as defining sovereignty. The only purpose of that definition is to claim that all the frozen conflict territories are sovereign, and even then the arguments (Smirnov made agreements with Russia == foreign relations) are specious at best. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I really don't care about who is right in that edition war, but there is a way to do things and you didn't do it right. Souris2005 20:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

What is the right way to do it? Irakliy81 05:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Irakliy, you can't just remove Abkhazia and South Ossetia and keep all the other unrecognized countries. That doesn't make any sense. Currently, the article says, "Five states, neither UN members nor recognised by any states that are sovereign according to some interpretations of article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, South Ossetia and Transnistria." If you would like to change the criteria for inclusion, please get a consensus first. Khoikhoi 03:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I modified the introduction too. Now everything reads correctly. I do not wish to change the criteria for inclusion but neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia satisfy criteria put forth by Montevideo Convention and thus should not be on this list. Irakliy81 21:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Where is Kosovo? Why didn't Mr Alex include other de facto independent places such as Kosovo? Also Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which is not yet fully under Russian control and has alternative Government of President Doku Umarov? Ahh don’t want to include own separatists but why not those enclaves which their own country want to devour? And this is not POV? Ldingley 17:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

For the record I didn't include anything here.

Afaik Kosovo is ruled by UN now so they can't be called independent/sovereign yet. After they'll have declared independence we'll put it in the article (even if they aren't recognised by UN). It's a sad (for Serbs) story but I think it's the only solution and it'll happen sooner or later.

If it were 1998 now I'd have no objections to putting Chechnya here also. Check the criteria for inclusion at the beginning of the page. Alaexis 17:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Ichkeria doesn't have defined territory as it's completely "occupied". Who constitute its permanent population, btw? Alaexis 18:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Part 3. Montevideo applied to RA and RSO

Khoikhoi, please stop reverting the article. Neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia fit the definition of sovereignty of Montevideo Convention. If you or anyone else thinks otherwise please state your arguments before reverting. Irakliy81 16:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Abkhazia and South Ossetia fit (a), (b) and (c) qualifications of the MC quite nicely. There could be argument about (d) (because it's formulated less clear than the first three) so it's written in the article that these states are sovereign according to some interpretations of article 1. Alaexis 18:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree - neither (a) nor (b) are clearly satisfied and (c) is clearly not satisfied:

(a) - Abkhazia

(a) Is rather argumentative when 2/3 of Abkhazian population has been displaced and remains in temporary refugee camps. The situation is even less clear in South Ossetia which is a mosaic of Georgian and Ossetian villages.

Irakliy, check the Soviet 1989 census data (Abkhazia#Demographics). Georgians constituted 240,000 out of 525,000 in the republic then. That's less than half and not two thirds already and we should remember that some Georgians have returned to Gali district. Anyway the current population of Abkhazia is permanent. Alaexis 19:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Not only Georgians left Abkhazia after the war – tens of thousands of Russians, Armenians, Greeks, and even Abkhazians themselves no longer live there. The ‘current’ population of Abkhazia is temporary and it will remain temporary until the refuges are allowed to return. Irakliy81 20:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Russians, Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Abkhazians left the republic voluntarily. There are no neutral sources stating that there was an ethnic cleansing of any of these peoples. A lot of people (Georgians, Russians and others) voluntarily left Georgia also. In both cases the current population is permanent. Check the dictionary for the word's meaning. Alaexis 20:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

You are correct, there was no ethnic cleansing against Armenians, Greeks, Russians etc. – only against Georgians. This does not negate the fact that current population of Abkhazia is barely 1/3 of what it before the war. And out of that 1/3 almost 30% are not subjugated to Bagapsh/Khadjimba regime. I don’t want to argue here about the definition of “permanent” but understand this: people who are temporarily displaced are as much ‘population’ of Abkhazia as those who live there now. This fact would have had no relevance if the number of such people was small but given that it is over 50% I hesitate to say that territory controlled by Bagapsh/Khandjimba regime has permanent population. Irakliy81 03:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

According to the 2003 census (it's not recognised by Georgia but I don't think there's more reliable information about Abkhazia's population) there were 215,000 people in Abkhazia. That's not 1/3 of the pre-war population. Anyway the population of Upper Abkhazia is about 2,000 according to the Georgian census so it can't possibly be 30% of the total Abkhazia's population. The people who were forcefully displaced account for less than 50%. The amount of people who left Abkhazia voluntarily has nothing to do with this issue. Alaexis 07:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The 215,000 figure is quite exaggerated. I could easily prove to you why but don’t want to be sidetracked into a separate discussion. I believe that the actual number is somewhere between 160,000 and 180,000 which is roughly 1/3 of the pre-war population. When I said that about 30% of the current population do not accept Bagapsh/Khadjimba regime I meant not only the residents of Upper Abkhazia but also those of Gali region as well (about 40,000 people). True, Gali region is not under control of central Georgian authorities but Abkhazian control over that region is also rather nominal – basically the region is controlled by local Georgian population. Irakliy81 18:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd ask for sources proving your claims again. UN, for example, criticised Abkhazian authorities for the human rights abuses in Gali district ( Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin - Mission to Georgia). So their control is sufficient to make UN hold them responsible for what's happening there. Alaexis 18:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

(a) - RSO

Virtually all the Ossetian population of South Ossetia don't submit to Georgian authorities. They constitute the permanent population of SO.

Again, SO is a mosaic of different villages: you may have an Ossetian village and then 2 kilometers down the road you have a Georgian village, and then again Ossetian, and then Georgian. Are you saying that you can selectively pick which villages constitute ‘permanent’ population of SO and which don’t? Irakliy81 20:10, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Those that are subject to Georgian authorities cannot be called citizens of S. Ossetian Republic, don't you agree? Alaexis 20:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

So half the people currently living in SO are not counted as it’s permanent population? Irakliy81 20:25, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

We are talking about the entity "Republic of South Ossetia". It has absolutely no control over Georgian-populated areas of former SO Aut. Republic. Alaexis 20:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

“Republic of South Ossetia” has no single government. Currently there are two presidents – Kakoyti and Sanakoev. The only thing Kakoyti regime controls is Tskhinvali and some of the Ossetian villages along the road to Russia. As you correctly noted, Georgian villages are not controlled by Kakoyti but neither are many Ossetian villages. A lot of Ossetian villages are not controlled by anyone – neither Georgians, nor Kakoyti, nor Sanakoev. Irakliy81 03:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

quote: during the course of 2007 the central authorities of Georgia decided to give it official status and on April 13 was announced the "Provisional Administration of South Ossetia".[2]

They don't want independence, do they?

Besides, could you name several Ossetian villages controlled by Provisional Administration of South Ossetia/Georgia? For example the main towns of Tskhinvali and Dzau/Java are controlled by RSO. Alaexis 07:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I’m afraid you don’t understand how things work there. How do you imagine one or another government ‘controlling’ a village? Do you think they station tanks there or set checkpoints? If you take checkpoints as the criteria of control then only a few villages (mostly near Tskhinvali) are controlled by anyone at all. 20 km from Tskhinvali (in any direction) people in villages (both Ossetian and Georgian) are rather politically apathetic. Nobody sets checkpoints there and nobody minds if Ossetian (or Georgian) convoys pass though their villages. People move freely from one village to another – Georgians go to Ossetian villages and Ossetians come to Georgian villages. There are simply no authorities to interfere with that. Now, near Tskhinvali and in Java region things are quite different and everyone is much more politically charged but that is a very small part of SO. Irakliy81 18:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

(b)

(b) Neither Abkhazia nor South Ossetia controls the territories they claim. Abkhazian regime controls less than 70% of pre-war Abkhazia and South Ossetian regime controls even less (around 50%). Irakliy81 20:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

That's not mandatory. India, Cyprus and Serbia also don't control all the territory they claim. The (b) qualification requires the entity to have a defined territory. Alaexis 19:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Don’t call it “Abkhazia” then, call it Lower Abkhazia. Same thing for SO – call it Tskhinvali region because most of territory of former SO is not controlled by Kakoyti regime. Irakliy81 20:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, we are talking about the entities "Republic of Abkhazia" and "Republic of South Ossetia". The territory they control is easily defined. Alaexis 20:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Try defining it. The territory that is under ‘de facto’ control of those regimes is pretty difficult to pinpoint. Irakliy81 03:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

In Abkhazia it's not difficult at all. Basically it's all the territory of the Abkhaz ASSR with the exception of Upper Abkhazia. See this map for the territories controlled by Georgia and RSO. Alaexis 07:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

In Abkhazia, the Bagaphs/Khadjimba regime does not really control Gali region. In SO, the notion of ‘control’ outside of the conflict zone near Tskhinvali is rather ambiguous (see what I wrote above). Irakliy81 18:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I've written about Gali higher. Even though you don't understand how could the authorities control a village the International Crisis Group ngo apparently does (see map). And the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth (see Wikipedia:Verifiability). Alaexis 19:06, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

(c)

(c) The “governments” of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not sovereign – they depend on Russia in almost anything they do. Moreover, South Ossetian “government” never even said that they want to be a sovereign nation – all they want is to integrate into Russia (which they stated more times than I can count). Why do we assign “sovereignty” to entities that explicitly say that they don’t want to be “sovereign”? Irakliy81 18:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

See my arguments about Abkhazia higher. It's true that Mr. Kokoyty expressed the desire to unify both Ossetias inside Russia [3] but it has not happened yet. Could you bring some neutral references that prove that S. Ossetia's government depends on Russia in almost anything they do? Alaexis 19:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Kokoyti refused multiple times to have peace talks with Georgian government directly without Russian intermediaries. Morevoer, Kokoyti is not the only SO president. There are actually two SO governments working in parallel. Why do you disregard that fact? Irakliy81 20:20, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you bring some neutral references that prove that S. Ossetia's government depends on Russia in almost anything they do? Alaexis 20:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, there would be no ‘neutral’ references to show that. Such things are usually not made public and when they are there is not enough interest in ‘neutral’ countries to record them. If you want to see that RSO government is completely dependent on Russia just read the names/biographies of its ministers (prime minister, defense minister etc.) They are people who were born and grew up in Russia and never even visited SO before they were appointed to their posts. Irakliy81 18:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

That's not true (about neutral sources). I've already gave quite a few references to various neutral sources like ngos, UN, bbc etc. Otherwise your arguments would be original research. Alaexis 19:11, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Transnistria

Agree with Iraklyi81 about the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but same situation is for Transnistria. Separatist government there is not even wanting independence, it want to join mother Russia (who created this "country").--MariusM 20:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

May I ask for references? Alaexis 20:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

You may ask whatever you like and I'm always glad to fulfill your requests :-). In 2006 there was a referendum organised by Transnistrian authorities where people allegedly voted for "free association with the Russian Federation". Independence and "association with Russian Federation" are two incompatible things. Even one of the founders of Transnistrian separatism - Vasily Yakovlev - remarked that "The declared purpose of referendum - accession to Russia - is neither politically nor is legally founded" [4]. I am surprised that at Moscow the "desire" of transnistrian people to join Russian Federation is not yet known.--MariusM 20:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Your reference may prove that Transnistrian authorities want to be associated with Russia but it doesn't prove anything about the current situation. Alaexis 21:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realize you are not informed about it. Russian troups are still in Transnistria. The leadership of the region is composed mostly of Russian citizens, the majority of them not being born in Transnistria (from above discussions I see the situation is same in South Ossetia). Money from Russia are supporting the separatist regime (either as a direct aid, either as gas supplies which are not paid). Without this money, the regime will colapse.--MariusM 22:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The majority of them came to Transnistria many years before the war.

American troops are all around the world but that doesn't make any country non-independent. A lot of sovereign countries support other sovereign countries in various ways (financially also). USA, for instance, supports Georgia financially. I don't think that makes Georgia non-sovereign. Alaexis 06:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

If you don't see the difference between the US-Georgia and Russian-Abkhaz relations, I don't see any point in arguing with you. It was Russia that bombed Sukhumi and sent Basayev to massacre Georgians, not Americans. I'm sorry but your attempts at illustrating the Russian-controlled separatist entities as abodes of democracy and examples of statehood are simply ridiculous. You can mislead only those users who have remote knowledge of the issue, but not Moldovans/Romanians or Georgians who have suffered at the hands of Russian imperialists.--Kober^Talk 06:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I've never said Abkhazia, Transnistria or South Ossetia are abodes of democracy. I've used the US-Georgia relations as an example to demonstrate that financial support itself does not imply non-sovereignty of the receiving side. If you want I could give you more examples. Alaexis 09:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The fact that a country wants to be part of another country does not change whether it's sovereign. For examples, see Republic of Texas and Republic of Hawaii. The more pressing issue is that these countries' independence is maintained entirely by the presence of foreign armies, as I understand it. john k 16:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Summary

I don’t want this discussion to slide to defining what ‘permanent’ means or what ‘control’ means – which it probably already has. Both regions are divided into factions pro-Russian and pro-Georgian. Pro-Russian factions in Abkhazia are represented by the Bagapsh/Khajinba regime. It does control some territory (which can hardly be referred to as ‘Abkhazia’) and there are some people living on that territory (who can hardly be referred to as ‘Abkhazian population’). Those people though are all Russian citizens and they all have Russian passports. They use Russian Ruble as currency. The retired people receive their pensions from Russian treasury. Their government is completely dependent on Russia for military/economic aid and protection. Moreover, as the presidential elections in Abkhazia have shown, Russians can disregard the choices these people make in trying to govern themselves.

The fact that Abkhazian or Ossetian population have Russian citizenship has nothing to do with the inclusion criteria. The Russian currency also doesn't prove anything - Montenegro, for example, uses euro, although it's not part of Eurozone. Alaexis 10:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The fact that parts of Abkhazian and Ossetian populations are all Russian citizens together with other facts I’ve presented above demonstrates that so called separatist regimes are nothing more than occupation governments installed by Russians and as such are not sovereign. Why isn’t Tatarstan listed here? It satisfies Montevideo Convention much better than either Abkhazia or South Ossetia, however, it is a part of Russian Federation and as such cannot be considered sovereign. In the similar manner, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are ‘de facto’ parts of Russia – they are not sovereign. Irakliy81 01:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry but you can't just say all the facts presented by you prove something. I've answered your posts higher and brought some references supporting my claims. On the other hand you've brought only one reference (about Mr. Barankevich) during the whole discussion. Alaexis 16:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, let’s consider my statements separately and you tell me for which of them would you like me to present reference:

1. Pro-Russian faction in Abkhazia is represented by Bagaph/Khadjimba.

2. Most people living on the territory controlled by Bagapsh/Khadjimba are Russian citizens and have Russian passports.

3. Pensions and other social support payments to people living on the territories controlled by Bagapsh/Khadjimba are paid from Russian treasury.

4. Russian Ruble is used as currency on the territories controlled by Bagapsh/Khadjimba.

5. Khadjimba became a vice president as a direct result of Russian blockade of Abkhazia.

These facts are more or less true (one could argue about the wording of 5.). They do not amount to the proof that Abkhazia is de facto part of Russia, though. For instance they have no direct connection with the inclusion criteria. I've also given a few examples of the same situations happening in other countries. I admit that the situation when one country closes borders to facilitate a compromise in another country is kind of unique - at least I cannot remember anything of that kind. However there is a lot of examples when one country somehow meddles in the internal affairs of another one and even forces the change in government. Anyway, how is that related to the inclusion criteria? Alaexis 20:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It is related to the inclusion criteria by proving that Abkhazia does not have an independent government and as such cannot be sovereign. I agree, that none of the facts taken separately proves a complete dependence but if you look at them jointly and also consider many other facts of unparallel dependence of Bagapsh/Khadjimba regime on Russia the picture becomes very clear. Irakliy81 04:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, I would like to hear your answer to my earlier question: Why do you think Tatarstan or Krasnodar are not present in this list? Which part of Montevideo don’t they satisfy? Irakliy81 18:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I could've listed quite a few differences but I'd like to point out the following: The list includes all states that satisfy these criteria and claim independence. No part of Russia claims independence now. Alaexis 19:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, fair enough, but South Ossetia does not claim independence either. Would you like me to give you a reference where Kakoyti says that South Ossetia should be a part of Russia? Irakliy81 19:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I wouldn't object. I'd like to show you something also - [5]: Как сообщила агентству Гаглоева, на референдум вынесен следующий вопрос: "Согласны ли Вы с тем, чтобы республика Южная Осетия сохранила свой нынешний статус независимого государства и была признана международным сообществом?". Apparently they claim independence. Alaexis 20:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, here is the link: http://www.vz.ru/politics/2006/6/2/36010.html where Kokotyi himself says that "South Ossetia is already de facto part of Russia." Irakliy81 00:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a valid point. Now as we have contradicting sources I propose to make a remark for South Ossetia that would clarify this matter. Alaexis 05:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Given such contradictions and taking into account that this is not a clear cut case I think it would be better to mention South Ossetia in the introduction along with other disputed territories. Irakliy81 04:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

In South Ossetia the pro-Russian faction is headed by Kokoyti regime. It also controls some territory (primarily around Tskhinvali and in Java region) with some people living on it. Again, all those people have Russian citizenship and receive pensions from Russian government. They also use Ruble as their currency. Their government, with few exceptions, is comprised of Russians who were neither born nor raised in South Ossetia and who moved to South Ossetia only after they were appointed to their posts. Moreover, this government never expressed the desire to be independent but only to become a part of Russia.

I know about the birthplaces of Messrs Kokoity (Tskhinvali) and Morozov (Sterlitamak, Russia). If you have the information about other RSO officials please present it. Alaexis 10:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Anatoly Barankevich, retired colonel of Russian army, who has never been to South Ossetia before 2004 is now the defense minister. I hope you can read in Russian: http://lenta.ru:8083/lib/14164877/ Irakliy81 14:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Here and here are the dossiers of two other SO officials. One of them was born in SO and another one is apparently ethnic Ossetian. There is plenty of local people in the SO government. Alaexis 15:12, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they couldn’t replace the whole government with Russians. Ossetians are not stupid people, you know. However, that does not change the fact that 2 out of 3 most powerful people in South Ossetia are Russians who have never been to South Ossetia prior to being appointed to their posts. Moreover, one of them ‘retired’ from Russian army just a few weeks before moving to South Ossetia. Irakliy81 01:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

So the only thing one could say is that there are some people in the RSO government who are not locals. What does it have to do with the inclusion criteria anyway? Alaexis 16:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, not ‘some’ but, as I said above, 2 of the 3 most important officials have neither cultural not ethnic ties to South Ossetia. And what it proves is that SO does not have a ‘sovereign’ government. What would you say if for example prime minister and defense minister of Russia were German citizens who never lived in Russia? Or better yet, imagine Iraq: let’s say the new government of Iraq has American ex-military people as prime minister and defense minister. Would you say still say “all that proves that there some people in Iraqi government who are not local”? And would you think that such a government is a true Iraqi government and that it is sovereign? Irakliy81 18:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Both regions also have factions that gravitate back to Georgia and which are being supported by Georgian government. Only for some reason they are not being taken into account by anyone. For some reason those who are supported by Russia and want to join Russian Federation are ‘sovereign’ but those who are supported by Georgia and want to re-join Georgia are not. It is almost like in the recent Ossetian ‘referendums’ where one of the questions read as:

“How do you see the future of South Ossetia? (a) Independent as part of Russia. Or (b) dependent as part of Georgia.” Irakliy81 07:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you bring some references proving that this question is formulated exactly like you've written? Alaexis 10:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I have seen it on television. Naturally, it was written in Russian and what you read is my translation of it into English. The meaning is exactly the same though. I will try to find any references to it on the internet, however, I doubt they are readily available. Irakliy81 01:26, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Create two lists on this page

I propose we create two lists. The first for all countries recognized by the United Nations, the second for every other state with disputed sovereign status, with a note explaining the reason for this status.Souris2005 20:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Not necessary, there is already a List of unrecognized countries. Editors have been busy trying to duplicate that list here as "sovereign" countries using the WP:OR part of part of Montevideo criteria. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:49, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Original research is not required to interpret the Montevideo Convention or the concepts of international law upon which it rests. This is an area already well covered in the literature (references upon request). Britlawyer 15:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

To follow up on this, Montevideo has been amply covered in legal literature precisely because it was ratified by, inter alia, the United States. Even a small law library will have at least half a dozen sources. For purposes of defining inclusion criteria for a list such as this, an adequate source is "International Law", Third Edition, by Barry E. Carter (Professor of Law, Georgetown University) and Phillip R. Trimble (Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles), page 462, section A, part 1, entitled What Is a "State"? Britlawyer 23:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Do these texts refer explicitly to the cases under discussion here? If not, we'd still be left with original research. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Nagorno-Karabakh / Somaliland / Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

There seems to be some inconsistency if the list includes Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus but not Transdniestria and Abkhazia. Britlawyer 15:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

All of them are not states and as per UN resolutions (latest SC Resolution) and recognitions Abkhazia is part of Georgia for good (de facto or not), as per the rest, the article title is "List of sovereign states." None are sovereign and none are even close to be sovereign. They all should be removed. Ldingley 16:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Ldingley that all unrecognized countries should be removed from this "sovereign states" list and I propose to have a "See also" section where we will link to the List of unrecognized countries.--MariusM 19:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I would not object to removing these states from the list as well. Although, I should point out that do not know enough about Nagorno-Karabakh / Somaliland / Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to make an educated decision (as I can in case of Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Irakliy81 18:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

All of them should be dealt with separately taking into account the inclusion criteria. Alternatively you could create a list of states recognised by UN. Alaexis 20:27, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion in the list means the entity is a "sovereign state". Is Wikipedia setting the criteria for what constitutes a "sovereign state"? Sounds like WP:OR and POV pushing.--Ploutarchos 21:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

No; no. The states that satisfy the inclusion criteria are listed here. Alaexis 05:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

And who decides if a particular entity satisfies the criteria? You? That's original research. Unless we have a reliable source saying that Transnistria etc are "sovereign states", they have no business in this list.--Ploutarchos 10:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

This is easily settled. If it quacks like a duck, one needs merely apply the test of qualifications. Doing so is not original research, or how else would one be able to compile a similar list. However, on 9 April 2007 and 14 April 2007 I wrote on this page that a source should be required for each contentious edit inclusion. Britlawyer 23:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Ploutarchos on this one. It may be just a duck test, but it's an original-research duck test all the same. And sorry, Britlawyer, your last argument doesn't hold: If you need original research in order to compile such a list, then the logical consequence is not that you should tolerate original research, but that you shouldn't be compiling the list. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Qualifications for sovereign statehood

Reading the comments on this page it seems that there is some confusion over how to interpret the Montevideo Convention as well as a belief that it is recognition by other states which makes a state a state in international law (the discarded "constitutive" theory of statehood).

The qualifications set forth in Montevideo adhere to the body of international law, inasmuch as they now form the basis for foreign relations law of most states in the world today. For example the Restatement of the Law Third, Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, repeats the Montevideo qualifications, and its Comment elaborates on them. I refer to Restatement Section 201:

• Defined territory: An entity may satisfy the territorial requirement for statehood even if its boundaries have not been finally settled, if one or more of its boundaries are disputed, or if some of its territory is claimed by another state.

• Permanent population: To be a state an entity must have a population that is significant and permanent.

• Government: A state need not have any particular form of government, but there must be some authority exercising governmental functions and able to represent the entity in international relations.

• Capacity to conduct international relations: An entity is not a state unless it has competence, within its own constitutional system, to conduct international relations with other states, as well as the political, technical and financial capabilities to do so.

It would also be appropriate to mention Comment h of the Restatement Section 201: "Even if a state does not recognize another state, the Restatement agrees that the state is required to treat an entity as a state if it meets the standards of section 201." As it usual in public international law, enforcement is a different matter altogether, yet for the purposes of compiling a list we need not concern ourselves with enforcement but merely with the appropriate legal theory. Britlawyer 23:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Until sources are produced which specify that this applies to Transnistria etc, WP:OR applies. Either you have sources or you don't, are you going to be wasting our time for much longer? Or am I disrespectful for believing that you are not competent to decide whether individual regimes satisfy those criteria? I could easily interpret those as proving that Transnistria etc are not sovereign states - you wanna see how creative I can be?--Ploutarchos 08:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I am a legal expert on international law. I don't have the time to assist your debate here BUT I can confirm under international law criteria Transnistria IS a sovereign country. The dispute is over its recognition and the rightful territorial ownership which the vast majority of countries believes that the territory currently controlled by the administration ( government) in Transnistria should be under the governance of Moldova. For now it is a sovereign state operating independently of its de-jure claimaint Republic Of Moldova Buffadren 08:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

And I am the Pope of Rome incognito. (this is not meant as a personal attack, but as a reminder that Wikipedia already has a history of people lying about academic credentials). Dpotop 10:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I think you forgot that being an "expert in international law" should be useless on Wikipedia unless you have citations for your statements. Dpotop 10:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you any citations that "Transnistria is a sovereign country"?--Ploutarchos 08:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This is just appalling! We have all these self-proclaimed "experts" in international law prancing around, who all seem to be totally oblivious to the basic concept of citing one's authority. Despite the grandiose appeals to "customary international law" and all the ill-applied "legalese" that Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia etc fulfill those criteria, until sources are cited, it remains your opinion and falls under WP:OR. Nothing remotely resembling a source has been cited - an article in a good journal or a book by a respectable author, something, anything; just stop wasting people's time. Either you have sources or you don't. Now Buffadren has been blocked yet again so we'll have to wait for him to answer; and judging from the general attitude of most editors on this page (revert first then answer questions later only if I feel like it) this'll take forever... what's one to do, revert war?--Ploutarchos 08:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe that, in fact, sources have been cited, at least for Transnistria. john k 17:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No. No source was cited saying explicitly that "Transnistria is sovereign". Dpotop 17:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

A source was cited which argued that Transnistria fulfilled the Montevideo criteria for statehood, iirc. The fact that "sovereignty" was not mentioned in Montevideo (also said below) is irrelevant. The use of "sovereign" in this article is merely disambiguation to distinguish sovereign states from states which are administrative subdivisions, like the states of Australia or the United States. john k 18:57, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I still don't understand why you say Montevideo=sovereignty. On one hand, the text of the Montevideo convention does not even contain the word "sovereignty". On the other, from "A implies B" and "B implies C" you should not deduce "A implies C" according to Wikipedia rules. Dpotop 19:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Montevideo provides a definition of a state. But what it obviously means is a "sovereign state," since it's not defining things like Brazilian or US states. That's all that "sovereign state" means - a state that isn't a subnational division. The use of "sovereign" is entirely to disambiguate. List of states would be ambiguous, since it would imply that Alabama and New South Wales and Minas Gerais and Sarawak should be listed. That is the only reason that "sovereign" appears in the title, so harping on the fact that Montevideo doesn't discuss "sovereignty" is silly. john k 19:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

You still don't get it, do you? "Obviously" means nothing here, and "truth" or "common sense" or "common law" mean nothing unless you find sources to support it without making syllogisms. Dpotop 19:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

What source? Tiraspol Times?--Ploutarchos 19:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall. It was above. john k 19:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

---

This page is a non-sense. In Montevideo Convention the word sovereignty is not used.Dl.goe 16:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Obviously that is what is being dealt with, however. john k 17:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

As Mauco (one of the chief "Transnistria is sovereign" protagonists) has written in here, according to the "very narrow" definition of how "sovereignty" is described at top--a completely WP:OR fabrication--the frozen conflict zone "states" are "sovereign." The contentions of self-described experts on international law ascribing sovereignty to these territories (based on their expertise) is equally WP:OR.
    Who legally recognizes whom is the only legitimate litmus test, as sovereignty is about recognized legality of authority over a territory and its inhabitants. (Not about whether a territory is autonomous from its sovereign authority). There is no "de facto" sovereignty, again, WP:OR, which is what is being argued here.
    Sovereignty must be assigned or inherited to have a basis in international law. Moldova is sovereign over the Transnistrian territory until it formally cedes sovereignty over that territory to some other authority. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

No, who recognizes whom is absolutely not "the only legitimate litmus test," and sovereignty is not about recognized legality of authority. All sovereignty means is "supreme and independent power or authority in government as possessed or claimed by a state or community." It means the same thing as List of independent states. Again, I'm not going to say that Montevideo should be the way we do this, but it sums up one of the two main ways that states have historically been defined, and it is apparently the more broadly used one. The claim that recognition is the only valid way to define statehood is ridiculous. And the basic issue we are debating here is the question of statehood. john k 00:03, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Correct, as recognition is merely an indicator of sovereignty but one which in itself does not confer sovereignty onto an entity,. Nor does it follow that a state is necessarily absent of sovereignty in cases where it is, temporarily or permanently, absent of recognition. In other words, while there is a link, the link can clearly not be applied in factitious manner to make recognition a criteria for sovereignty as this would be inconsistent with international law. I shall provide references if requested. Britlawyer 16:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

"Sovereignty"

I just wanted to note more fully here what I mentioned above, which is that far too much of the discussion here resolves around definitions of "sovereignty." This is basically irrelevant. This article could just as easily be titled List of states, save that that title would be ambiguous, in that it would imply the inclusion of subnational entities called "states," like those in the US, Brazil, Australia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Venezuela, India, and so forth. The use of the word "sovereign" is entirely in order to indicate that we are not talking about such entities. We should not be arguing about the meaning of "sovereignty", because that word is there solely in order to distinguish what meaning of the word "state" we are using. And the key word here, then, is "state," not "sovereign." These constant attacks on Montevideo as a valid description of the customary theory of statehood, and so forth, are becoming quite irritating. (And I say this as someone who is by no means all that supportive of listing South Ossetia, et al, on this page). john k 20:03, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Then rename the list. Dpotop 21:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no need to rename the list. List of sovereign states merely means List of states, where "state" is limited to refer to sovereign states, as opposed to things like Alabama. I'm not going to prejudge whether South Ossetia or Transnistria is a state under Montevideo. And I'm not going to say that Montevideo should necessarily be the criterion for determining what is a sovereign state in this article. All I'm going to say is that Montevideo's definition of a "state" is clearly a definition of a "sovereign state," and any attempt to claim otherwise is pure sophistry. john k 23:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The whole reason this article is not called "List of states" is because of the WP:OR contentions around the "sovereignty" of arguably autonomous but in no way legally sovereign regions. As long as the title remains, we will continue arguing: one camp insisting that conforming to a narrow interpretation of part of part of Montevideo constitutes meeting the "requirements" (and in what sphere are they, even? certainly not any legal sphere) for ascribing "de facto sovereigny" to a territory; the other camp insisting that sovereignty has its basis in law, and that sovereignty over a territory/people cannot be ceded by/taken from a sovereign authority without due process of assignment or inheritance (ex injuria non jus oritur).

    P.S. On the related topic, differentiating between "States" and "states" would address the ambiguity mentioned. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand your first sentence. john k 23:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Nagorny-Karabakh ARE NOT sovereign states and they don’t belong to the list. Its definitely a POV attempt and therefore should be treated seriously. These self proclaimed states, separatist enclaves and regimes can not be treated as sovereign states. Please see the title of this article. To include them as such is a POV and completely disregard to jurisprudence and international law. Abkhazia for example has legal authority which does not recognize that separatist flag so to show only separatist flag of Abkhazia is POV. Same story for South Ossetia. Therefore, to avoid further confrontation and violation of NPOV and also of international law, these separatist regimes or enclaves should be removed from the list of sovereign states. I think many people don’t understand the term sovereign state. Ldingley 21:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the list of petitoners. We also petiton for sources designating them as sovereign states - we are ignored in both cases.Ploutarchos 21:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Ploutarchos, There are no sources designating these enclaves as separate states or sovereign states. Take Abkhazia as an example. Abkhaz separatist regime does not have any official foreign relations with any country (even Russia). This regime does not include all population of Abkhazia, the majority of the population was ethnically cleansed and all of 300,000 people are now outside of that region. Latest UN SC resolution on Abkhazia proves every point which has been discussed before, they are not states and they even don’t have a single chance to become one. All members of UN including SC recognized and urged other UN countries to respect the territorial integrity of Georgia. Therefore, this list of sovereign states is attempting to legalize the separatist claim which is POV and violation of our NPOV policy and total ignorance of international law and UN resolutions. Moreover, nobody will take this list as serious and the integrity of data accuracy of Wikipedia will suffer just because some users want these regions to be sovereign. Ldingley 14:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

While a statement about the motives of some contributors might well be true in individual cases, it should not be applied to all contributors who hold a diverging opinion from your own, nor should it be applied to broadly characterize the list or article itself. It is of essential importance to have begin with the accurately defined premise of what makes an entity sovereign under international law, and as such, the Montevideo Convention is one appropriate source. It should not, however, be the only source, and where other sources diverge from Montevideo this needs to be addressed. You can contribute more to this discussion by bringing reliable sources than by questioning the motives of the creators and contributors to this list, because only once the established criteria for sovereign statehood have been defined in accordance with accepted sources will it be possible to determine the extent to which Abkhazia et el may merit inclusion on this list. At such point, further sources will be required and no entity should be included without sources that certify how it meets the established criteria, the threshold for inclusion if you will.Britlawyer 16:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for Mediation

I'd like to put on a mediation request concerning the appropriateness of "List of Sovereign States" as a title for this article given its current content. I would like to focus on the difference of POV between me and JohnK, which seems to be the main supporter of the name. In particular, JohnK says, I cite:

There is no need to rename the list. List of sovereign states merely means List of states, where "state" is limited to refer to sovereign states, as opposed to things like Alabama. I'm not going to prejudge whether South Ossetia or Transnistria is a state under Montevideo. And I'm not going to say that Montevideo should necessarily be the criterion for determining what is a sovereign state in this article. All I'm going to say is that Montevideo's definition of a "state" is clearly a definition of a "sovereign state," and any attempt to claim otherwise is pure sophistry.

I claim this does not correspond to Wikipedia rules, for at least two fundamental reasons:

1. Wikipedia explicitly forbid the use of original research in articles. So, "Transnistria is a sovereign state" only if you found a reference for it.
2. The fact that some international convention should be interpreted or not in some way is not the problem of Wikipedia, whose purpose is not politics.

So, JohnK, do you accept to go to mediation? Dpotop 07:33, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree not only its original research but strong negative POV which will lead into more confrontation and dispute. None of these “states” are sovereign according to any convention. And there can be no reliable source which will say otherwise. Ldingley 14:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What about renaming the article if it's the word sovereign that makes so much people unhappy? Alaexis 14:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

List of states would be alright with me, I guess, although it seems unnecessary. I don't think it would actually solve anything, though, and the word "sovereign" would still have to be used at some point in the introduction to indicate that we are not discussing sub-national divisions like Alabama or dependent territories like Gibraltar. This is all much ado about nothing. You guys are not all disputing whether or not South Ossetia is a sovereign state or a non-sovereign state. You are arguing about whether or not it is a state at all. Removing the word "sovereign" from the title would do no good, and the focus on the word "sovereign" is a way to get around arguing the actual merits, which would consist of either a) trying to demonstrate that South Ossetia, et al, do not constitute states under Montevideo/the declarative theory of statehood; or b) trying to demonstrate that the declarative theory of statehood is not the proper test for this list. I am sympathetic to a, and not entirely out of sympathy with b, but this argument over the word "sovereign" and attempts to claim that Montevideo is not merely an inappropriate criterion, but that it's an irrelevant one, are pointless. I don't know that I'd accept mediation, because, as I said, this is a sideshow. john k

Imho, the word sovereign could be avoided. What about replacing it with independent and mentioning that unrecognised states are only de facto independent? All these entities are frequently described as such (refs upon request). Alaexis 16:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the basis for the claim that "sovereign" means anything different from "de facto independent"? As far as I can gather, they mean more or less the same thing. john k 17:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The difference is that unrecognised countries are often called de facto independent but they are almost never called sovereign. Would you support the renaming? Alaexis 18:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I would not oppose a move to List of independent states, but I don't think it would actually resolve very much. john k 19:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I see no mediation request, only a link to notability. Mediation can be a solution. We should define the subject of mediation. I would suggest the exclusion of the 5 unrecognized stated (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Somaliland, Nagorno-Karabagh), also of Northern Cyprus, which is recognized by only one country (Turkey) from this list.--MariusM 15:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The title "List of sovereign states" is helpful and should not be changed, insofar as it is a descriptive which helps distinguish the list content from other (non-sovereign) states. Apparently there is confusion among contributors as to what qualifies as a state under international law, so it will be helpful to define this issue first, and then deal with the second issue afterwards. It may be that after the definition of sovereign statehood has been clarified, some entities which are currently included on the list will be excluded, but this will be impossible to do if not a proper definition of sovereign statehood has been settled upon prior. As such, I oppose mediation at the current point in time, as it would be a case of acting prematurely while the proper premise for the article is not yet defined. Specify the criteria for sovereign statehood first as it is commonly defined in international law.--Britlawyer 16:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm aware what the criteria are. What I'm disputing is that Transnistria, TRNC etc actually fulfill those criteria, and without a source saying they do (or otherwise designating them as such), I oppose including them. As for the title, I'm neutral.--Ploutarchos 17:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This stated clarity on criteria definition does not appear to be shared by all. Please read John Kenney's comment on sideshow in this section, and the statements of contributor Dpotop questioning the Montevideo criteria, which he also included in a box on the list itself. Similar concerns have been raised in recent days by contributor named Pēters J. Vecrumba. Seeing how this is so, it would be appropriate to first define the criteria and then examine, with sources in each case, the extent to which Transnistria, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, etc., may meet these qualifications and thus merit inclusion on this list. I am not familiar with mediation but it would appear that defining the inclusion criteria would be straightforward, and that a subsequent point by point examining in questionable cases will also be a task that can be settled merely on the basis of the sources provided. -- Britlawyer 17:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Guys, here is about sovereign states not about unrecognized dictatorial regimes. --ARISTOKLES 20:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Sovereignty may also not be expressed through some form of de facto control as contrasted with de jure international recognition. Taiwan, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Transnistria (TMR), Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Somaliland and Kosovo are some examples of political entities, which find it difficult to fit into the international legal framework. Most self-proclaimed pseudo-states are the end products of partition rather than simple degeneration of the ways at which one political entity becomes two or more new states, each or one of which may see itself as the legitimate heir to the raison d’étre of the unit, which existed prior to partition.

For me partition is the solution of ‘last resort’ because of the way it brings about sovereignty changes. I consider partition as a meeting point between the needs for selfdetermination and the territorial expression of some of these needs whereas without the intervention of outside forces it is likely that the sovereignty dispute will either be solved by some less drastic measure or not at all.

Once partition has occurred the host states seek to gain territorial control over the part that seceded. One potentially successful way of dealing with these types of conflicts is federalisation with the attempt to pool sovereignty and disperse territoriality. Should one destroy territory and territoriality? Should one withdraw the grounds on which politicians perform securitisations and thus continuously reify identities?

Or should one make conflicting parties believe in win-win games while external actors force them to accept the peace deals? Yet, sticky questions of territoriality and sovereignty continue to be at the core of conflict resolution schemes.

For example, let's take Cyprus and Moldova. Why Cyprus and Moldova? I have strong reasons to believe that these cases are comparable since the conflicts demonstrate similar patterns. First, both conflicts evolved from the same ground: Turkish Cypriots being dissatisfied with Greek Cypriots irredenta with Greece, seceded, whereas the formation of TMR was a reaction to the Moldovan language law and to the lack of self-determination guarantees in the event of Chisinau deciding to rejoin Romania. Second, both conflicts involve influential external players: TRNC relies on Turkey and TMR is supported by Russia. Third, both conflicts have been frozen for decades and various federalisation plans have contributed very little to peace making. My argument here is that both internal (zero-sum perception) and external (geopolitical interests) forces work against conflict resolution and even if parties to the conflict have the best intentions to agree on shared sovereignty, territoriality and de facto control over the territory remain of primary concern for both parties in the conflicts.

Sovereignty and territoriality are concepts not to be taken for granted but instead to be perceived as in flux. Sovereignty is not only dispersed or pooled but also accumulated. Territory makes sense as long as there are attempts to strive for new nation-states or to maintain the territorial integrity of the old ones. One may argue that the less important territoriality nowadays is the more complex and multifaceted the issue of sovereignty becomes. Hence, all polities carry the idea of a single governmental jurisdiction over a single territory and look jealously on power-sharing with others. This reveals the very notion of territoriality, or a spatial strategy, which is based on affecting or influencing people and resources by controlling the territory.

1955 marked the start of the serious bi-communal clashes when Greek-Cypriot guerillas began their struggle against the British and their close allies – Turkish-Cypriot police forces. After the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960, violence erupted again in 1963, when about 200 Turkish-Cypriots were killed by Greek- Cypriot extreme nationalists. The following UN intervention resulted in physical separation of the two communities by the Green Line. The Turkish-Cypriots were driven into enclaves where they continued to live intermittently until 1974, after the Turkish military intervened and took control of the northern part of the island. During a short (20 July–16 August 1974) and bloody conflict around 3,500 people were killed and 2,000 were reported as missing. Out of the total community of 574,000 some 180,000 became refugees.

1989 signifies the beginning of the emancipation process from the Soviet Union during which pro-independence Moldovans conflicted with so-called soyuzniki with a different ethnic mix (Russians, Ukrainians and Russified Moldovans) residing on the left bank of the river Dniester. The first armed clashes between the Transnistrian separatists and Moldovan police units occurred in November 1990. Fighting intensified on 19 June 1992 when a large-scale military operation involving the Russian 14th Army took control of the city Tighina/Bendery, situated on the right side of the Dniester but claimed by the TMR authorities. The fighting caused several hundreds of deaths and some 100,000 refugees and led finally to de facto partition.--ARISTOKLES 21:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

External actors

Geopolitical incentives of external players have favoured partition in Cyprus and Moldova. This brings us to Turkish interests in Cyprus, which aim at protecting the Turkish Cypriots against the much larger Greek Cypriot community It is equally important to secure the country’s southern coastline as Turkey’s only ‘secure supply line’. With plans to build a pipeline to carry oil and gas from Azerbaijan and Central Asia to the southern Turkish bay of Ceyhan, the strategic importance of Northern Cyprus for Turkey has increased. The key outside player in Moldova is Russia and to a large extent, the continuation of Transnistrian secession will depend on the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and Romania. Russia is interested in keeping Moldova in its sphere of influence that has traditionally served as Russia’s gateway to the Balkans and remains vital considering the events in former Yugoslavia.--ARISTOKLES 21:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Could you present your arguments in a more concise manner? See also the discussion about the renaming of the article above and seek the consensus before making substantial changes. Alaexis 21:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

To present my arguments in a more concise manner: there aren't any recognized, sovereign states the one that I delisted. Good bye.--ARISTOKLES 21:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that those states are not recognised that doesn't mean they are not sovereign/de facto independent (I prefer the second term, see discussion above). See Montevideo Convention, for example. If you want I could give the examples of these countries called de facto independent in neutral sources. Alaexis 21:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No sources that the Montevideo criteria are fulfilled in the cases of these entities. Clear case of WP:OR.--Ploutarchos 21:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I know Montevideo Convention by heart, what exactly are you trying to say? Be more concise please, if you can. ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 21:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Is the debate here whether the TRNC can be referred to as a state, or whether it is sovereign? --A.Garnet 22:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not know much about some of the ‘de facto’ independent states listed in this article but I know a lot about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. By no means should these entities be considered ‘sovereign’ or any kind of states. They are not ‘de facto’ independent. If anything they are ‘de facto’ part of Russia. The best way to refer to them is “disputed territories.” Irakliy81 01:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Mediation, part 2

I still don't have a clear answer from JohnK and the others concerning the proposed RfM. I saw that JohnK proposed the transformation of "List of Sovereign States" into "List of States". I think this is a good first step if you want to preserve Transnistria, Abkhazia, and the likes in the list. If you all accept this step, I see no need for mediation. Dpotop 07:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am actually against preserving Abkhazia and South Ossetia on the list. They are not states; neither "sovereign" nor any other. Irakliy81 16:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I sort of agree with Irakliy. Not about whether Abkhazia or South Ossetia should be on the list - I remain agnostic about that. But I do agree that the key question is whether or not they are "states". If they are states, then they are by necessity sovereign states. If they are not states, then they're not. That's the real issue. If List of states or List of independent states would make people happier, that's fine with me, but it doesn't resolve the issue. john k 17:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

What sovereign states are Abkhazia or South Ossetia or Transnistria or TRNC? That's the worst joke. --ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 19:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

No its a funnies joke Ldingley 20:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is a subject of debates for long time, I don't see anything new appearing in the debates, only repetition of old arguments. I agree with Irakliy, states without any recognition must not be in this list. I am confused about Taiwan, which was an UN member for a time (it had international recognition), but even in this case if we keep it, we need clear explanations about its status (Taiwan itself never officially asked secession from China, it claims being the "true" representant of entire chinese nation). I understand that there are people with other views, instead of revert warring maybe mediation can be an option. Let see for the begining the opinion of editors, to see if mediation is necessary, and if yes, how we start it.--MariusM 19:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, TRNC, Nagorno-Karabagh, Somaliland. Neutral about Taiwan. Add a "See also" section with links to disputed territories.--MariusM 19:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, TRNC, Nagorno-Karabagh, Somaliland. Ldingley 19:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, TRNC, Nagorno-Karabagh, Somaliland.--ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 20:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

If the purpose of this article is to list independent entities of the world de facto independent ones should be present (with appropriate footnotes). How to name this list is another question (List of states, List of independent states, List of independent countries or something else). Alaexis 20:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You're being disruptive. How can you name Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, TRNC, Nagorno-Karabagh, Somaliland independent, sovereign countries?--ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 20:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't we list the de facto countries in a separate section? Why is there absolutely no will to compromise here? And one can "name them independent, sovereign countries" because they act in most ways like independent countries. john k 20:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Because that's extremly bias and POV what you support and you lack reliable sources. --ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 20:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

About sovereignty

Existing theories of state formation struggle to explain such practices, as they overlook the crucial role that the construction of collective interests and identities plays in state formation. Materialist accounts explain the development of states and the states system as a function of the world economy, and regard the ‘homogenisation’ of peoples as a necessary function of this process which is driven by economic interests. Institutionalist accounts also take the economic motivation of actors as a given, though from a position of methodological individualism. In both accounts the construction of interests and identities within the state is left unexplored. Power-based explanations take for granted the interest of state-builders in the accumulation of the means of violence within the sovereign state. Although such explanations pay attention to the processes of internal pacification that were an important part of early modern state-building, they see this as a function of the administrative centralisation of states, rather than a phenomenon that needs further explanation.

The central argument of my explanation is that state formation has a crucial cultural dimension, a dimension overlooked by other theories of state formation, which regard culture, if they mention it at all, as merely an instrument of either economic or procrustean interests. State-builders must establish their right to rule, as well as the legitimacy of the political order they seek to establish or consolidate. This involves two tasks: the construction of a unified political community within the bounds of their territorial rule – a community with a single, cohesive identity – and the identification of the monarch or the national government as the political embodiment or representative of that unified community.

State-builders cannot do otherwise than draw upon the prevailing cultural resources available to them as they seek to build a unified collective identity, and in doing so mark out the boundaries of the sovereign state as the boundary of a moral community.

In drawing on the available cultural resources, state-builders contribute towards changing the very framework on which they draw. For example, early modern state-builders drew on the prevailing religious world view when defining insiders and outsiders, but in so doing they contributed towards the development of the secular world view as they rearticulated religious beliefs which no longer had universal normative purchase across Western Europe.

What is sovereign state

There are many aspects to the modern sovereign state. The term is used by me here in two ways: the first to denote the state as government, ‘the collective set of personnel who occupy positions of decisional authority in the polity’. The second is to denote a ‘normative order’, which, in turn, elites play an important, though by no means exclusive, part in constructing. The term state-building refers to those practices which elites have more or less consciously employed to consolidate and centralise power within clearly demarcated territorial boundaries. As we shall see, these practices draw on symbolic as well as material resources. For example, early modern state-builders, such as Ferdinand and Isabella, who in the fifteenth century laid the foundations for the Spanish state, were much less consciously engaged in ‘state-building’ than contemporary leaders such as Slobodan Milosevic, who was intent on building a strong (and expanded, to take in all Serbs) Serbian state in the wake of the breakdown of Yugoslavia. Yet the Spanish monarchs and modern nationalists have been involved in similar projects of political consolidation, and the strategies of symbolic manipulation they employ as they attempt to legitimate their authority have much in common.

Despite their many differences, these two cases share the use of what I term ‘pathological homogenisation’ as a means of state-building. This refers to the methods state-builders have used to define the state as a normative order and to cultivate identification through targeting those designated as outsiders for discriminatory and often violent treatment. According to current international standards of human rights and legitimate state behaviour these means are unacceptable. No such standards existed in the earliest phases of state-building, as Christian universalism lost its normative purchase and state-builders abrogated the authority of the Church, but to describe such methods as ‘pathological’ is not anachronistic. Such practices have without exception damaged the body politic, despite the benefits that state-builders may perceive, and they have invariably caused human suffering on a vast scale. From very early on in the development of the international system, voices have been raised to question policies so destructive in human and other terms. For example, in the early seventeenth century, Cardinal Richelieu described the expulsion of the Moriscos (Christianised Moors) from Spain as ‘barbaric’, giving voice to misgivings felt by many at the time about the methods used in this action by the Spanish monarchy, including taking small children from their families.

I use the term ‘pathological homogenisation’ to designate a number of different strategies that state-builders have employed to signify the unity of their state and the legitimacy of their authority through the creation of an ostensibly unified population. These strategies range from attempts to legally exclude minority groups from citizenship rights, to strategies of forced conversion or assimilation, expulsion and extermination. Although these strategies have had very different impacts on those unfortunate enough to be subjected to them, they are all a means to the end of creating a ‘homogeneous’ population within the boundaries of the sovereign state. For those who pursue such policies, they serve to symbolise and create a ‘purer’ and thus more unitary sovereign identity within the state, a more unified ‘imagined community’ to use Benedict Anderson’s phrase.

In the pursuit of a homogeneous collective identity within the state various assimilatory policies have been practised. Forced religious conversion is one means of forcibly assimilating a minority within a dominant identity. Such policies often result in the mass movement of people attempting to avoid forced conversion, as occurred in late seventeenth-century France, when French Protestants fled their homeland when their religion was outlawed. In some cases, forced conversion may be posed as a choice: convert or leave. This was the ‘choice’ presented to Spanish Jews in the fifteenth century. Many did convert to Christianity while others who wished to maintain their Jewish identity were expelled from the state, resulting in the end of the official existence of the Jewish community in Spain. Expulsion may also be ordered with no ‘choice’ of any other alternative, except perhaps death or imprisonment. In 1609 the Moriscos were not presented with any other alternative but to leave Spain and numerous examples of expulsions can be found in the history of the international system. These include ‘population exchanges’ such as those between Greece and Turkey early in the twentieth century; the massive displacement of ethnic Germans in Europe following World War II; and the exchange of populations between India and Pakistan at partition, to name just a few. In the twentieth century, as the bureaucratic and technological capacity of the state has increased, mass murder and genocide have increasingly been used as pathological means of homogenisation by state-builders. The intent here goes beyond expulsion to the wholesale removal of the targeted group through obliteration. Forced conversion (though by no means an attractive option) has become less thinkable in the age of national criteria of identification, linked, as these often are, to notions of racial or ethnic identity as inherent in the individual and therefore unchanging. In the case of the genocide of the Armenian people of 1915– 16, there were cases of Christian Armenians converting to Islam in order to avoid death (particularly children who were taken into Muslim families), but few were given this option in a genocide in which religious criteria had become inextricably bound up with national criteria of identification. A conception of racial identity as inherent in the person was also behind the Holocaust. A similar view of ‘ethno-national’ identity as inherent in the person and unchanging, ironically marked out through religious affiliation, informs the virulent ethno-nationalism seen in action during the attempts at statebuilding which followed the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. From such a viewpoint, expulsion or extermination become much more likely policy ‘options’ than conversion.

I have sought to trace the role this process plays in the construction of the boundaries of states as moral boundaries. Where a number of scholars investigate how the sovereign state is ‘written’, through the practices of theorists and diplomats.

State interests are considered relevant but the most basic interests are assumed to be identical for all states and driven by the nature of the system: all states have an interest in survival in an anarchical system, which is best pursued through strategies of self-help based on zero-sum calculations. Neoliberal theorists, though interested in how states cooperate under anarchy, accept the realist model of states as self-interested, rational and unitary actors. As a consequence, they too explicitly bracket off the role of collective identity construction in state-building as they also take the identities and interests of actors on the international stage for granted. Over the last two decades of the twentieth century mainstream approaches have been subjected to criticisms from a number of different perspectives. Once the state was ‘brought back in’ to both social theory and international relations theory in the 1980s, this opened up consideration of how states, rather than being pre-social ‘facts’, are constituted through social, political and cultural practices. From this perspective, the state is seen as a normative order, and it is intersubjectively constructed normative values that provide the unifying standards and symbols that legitimate authority and allow us to perceive the state as a unitary and sovereign actor. Thus, sovereignty ‘is negotiated out of interaction within intersubjectively identifiable communities’ and it is this institution which legitimates ‘the state’ as an agent in international social life.

Cyprus, Abkhazia, Transnistria, South Ossetia

Why, then, was a homogenised population deemed desirable as sovereign states emerged from the breakdown of heteronomous and imperial structures of authority? To answer this question a different understanding of ‘interests’ that recognises that they can be constructed in different ways, is necessary. This allows consideration of how the perceived need for an unambiguous unitary identity could become the highest priority of state-builders, despite the economic and political costs this might entail. This question will be taken up at greater length in the section below on the role of culture in political life, and will be returned to in each of the case studies on pathological homogenisation.

If we look at the competitors to the sovereign state we see a great many differences. City leagues had no internal borders, no hierarchy, no agreements on weights or currency, and diverse legal codes. Sovereign actors benefited from the leagues’ lack of unity. Importantly, lack of a clearly defined sovereign authority made it hard for the leagues to credibly commit to international agreements.

Of particular importance in understanding this widespread culture of various forms of abuse is one central and overriding fact: virtually all governments regarded how they treated those under their control and the policies they pursued as a matter exclusively within their own jurisdiction. Emperors, pharaohs, caesars, khans, sultans, tsars, kings and eventually prime ministers and presidents all argued that they and the territory they ruled were completely independent and sovereign. How they treated their own people and how they advanced their own interests, including the use of violence and the waging of war as the final arbiter of disputes, were considered their own business and not subject to any outside international standards, scrutiny, criticism or interference.

The Treaty of Westphalia signed in 1648 following the Thirty Years War provided recognition, in law as well as in fact, of the power and the authority of sovereign, independent states. Only they could be considered subjects of international law and no international jurisdiction existed to hold individuals criminally responsible for their actions. They recognized no universal authority, such as that of an emperor or a pope or an international organization from above, and no claims from feudal barons or subjects from below. The publication of Leviathan only three years later provided even further theoretical justification for the doctrine, particularly when Thomas Hobbes addressed what he described as ‘‘the essence of sovereignty’’. Here he left no doubt about his belief that the sovereign powers of the state and the absolute monarch who acted in its name ruled without challenge, doing ‘‘whatsoever he shall think necessary to be done’’. This is my full explanation of what 'sovereign state' is and is not. --ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 19:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Abkhazia violates even the so called Montevideo Convention and does not meets its standards of the state. The population of Abkhazia (majority of it) was expelled by force by the small well armed separatist insurgency. This separatist regime has no “foreign relations” with any state officially (even with its political master, Russia). Anyway, you cant harmonize all so called de facto “independent” “states” because all of them differ radically. UN resolutions which emphasize the territorial integrity of Georgia for example, OSCE, EU Parliament, EU Counsel and NATO proclamations and resolution go hand in hand with UN. There is attempt on this article to say otherwise due to some allegiances for separatist causes. This is unacceptable for encyclopedia web. There are no valid and reliable sources (primary or secondary) which indicate that those de facto “independent states” are sovereign countries. Primary source which are UN resolutions put Abkhazia within Georgian jurisdiction. Therefore, this claim which is not only dubious but extremely biased and controversial should be removed from this article. Ldingley 20:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Aristokles, please, cease adding all this text. You are disrupting the discussion here, because the dispute is not theory of statehood against theory of statehood, but legal theory vs. Wikipedia rules. Dpotop 20:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules are against original research, not to mention POV pushing. Not only this article violates international law, jurisprudence but also Wikipedia guidlines. Ldingley 20:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not governed by international law, nor jurisprudence. The only rules that apply here are the rules of Wikipedia. Dpotop 20:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Changes

I see that all the replies are all either against keeping SO, NK, and T, or neutral. I will remove them from the list, which makes the list correct from a technical Wikipedia point (I believe). The changes were already made by someone else. Dpotop 20:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

All de facto regimes should be removed from the list. Nobody has intention to recognize them as sovereign, please refer to UN resolutions. If someone takes over and declares independence over some territory, it doe snot mean they are sovereign. There were no valid sources or references to support the sovereign status of these regimes. Ldingley 20:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a very strong chance that Somaliland will be recognized at some point - the sticking point largely arises out of the fact that Somalia at present, has no de facto government which could negotiate Somalilander independence. And, once again, "sovereign status" is a red herring. All sovereignty means is independence. john k 20:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You're being disruptive. We are not talking about the future here or the chances that one political entitiy will be or not be a sovereign state. Please stop being disruptive. --ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 20:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Please, cease this dispute, because it is pointless according to Wikipedia rules.? Whether the country will or will not be recognized is not important. The only thing that matters is the lack of decent sources saying that those countries are sovereign. Please, recall that this is Wikipedia, and we are only supposed to report what sources say, not to make original research.

Once the BBC says that Somaliland/SO/NK/T is sovereign, I will support including it in this list. Dpotop 20:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Until now it's a clear case of WP:OR. I can't accept inclusion of TRNC, Somaliland, Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia in the list of sovereign states. I can't agree with extreme bias and POV pushing. I know Montevideo Convention by heart and I can't be fooled around easy.--ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΛΗΣ ^{(πείτε μου)} 20:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)