Talk:List of sovereign states

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kahastok (talk | contribs) at 16:27, 10 December 2017 (→‎Puppet states: add). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Estonia, Israel and the USA do also not recognize DPRK

The article states that North Korea is not recognized by three UN Members. According to this section on the North Korea foreign relations page six UN Members do not recognize North Korea as a state. It gives four sources for this claim. These countries are the USA, Japan, France, South Korea, Israel, Estonia. (Taiwan does also not recognize it as a state.)

Is this something which should be changed? I cannot edit it myself. Yuyuhunter 11:10 16 September 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yuyuhunter (talk • contribs)

Catalonia

Now that Catalonia has declared its independence, what should we do? Add it to the list? or hold off until the smoke clears. Note: Spain doesn't recognize Catalonia's declaration. GoodDay (talk) 15:14, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Being discussed at Talk:List of states with limited recognition#Republic of Catalonia Declaration. Probably best to discuss there at this point. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:24, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2017

Armenia - there is a missing dot after the first sentence in the "Further information" column. 89.66.254.10 (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done Though trivial  — Ammarpad (talk) 03:26, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but it was still a punctuation mistake. Thanks. 89.66.254.10 (talk) 03:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Armenia

I don't understand why the information that Pakistan doesn't recognize Armenia is included in the Further information column and not in the Sovereignty dispute one. The lead says: "The sovereignty dispute column indicates states whose sovereignty is undisputed (190 states) and states whose sovereignty is disputed (16 states, out of which there are 6 member states...)", while in the table we can see only 5 red cells. Additionally, in the List of states with limited recognition article Armenia is included as a UN member state not recognised by at least one UN member state (among the 5 other cases). Shouldn't it be changed somehow to make it clearer for readers? Thank you in advance. Jojnee (talk) 12:48, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's because while Pakistan doesn't recognize Armenia, it has no claim for the territory. The Sovereignty dispute column refers to disputed sovereignty with another entity. Your other observation seems correct, I shall amend the text. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:30, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the explanation. Jojnee (talk) 20:41, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Inconsistencies

I quickly checked the Table and can see a couple of obvious logical inconsistencies:

  1. Unrecognized states and a number of recognized states are mixed together in the same section of the Table as "other states". I am not telling that unrecognized states should be removed from the page at this point, but they must be very clearly separated from others. I would suggest placing them in footnotes.
  2. The state of Israel. It is possibly true that some of their annexations were not recognized by the international community, however same was done by some other countries. We should either (a) include all other annexations by all countries into the Table, or (b) exclude them from the row for Israel. Either is fine, but I think (b) would be a lot more logical. It is generally accepted that annexing someone else territory does not make country-occupier not a sovereign state. However, if a number of countries does not recognize the country (Israel in this case) directly, that of course should be included in the Table. My very best wishes (talk) 20:00, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On your first point, if you want to know why the list is organised the way it is, I suggest you start reading here and continue here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. I should warn you, that's about 1.7 megabytes of text.

You will find that all the alternative ways of doing this have been discussed, in great detail, and over the course of many years. I am not sure I want to see that repeated without compelling new arguments, and I'm pretty sure others here don't either. I do not see any compelling new arguments in your text, which seems to consider "unrecognized states" and "recognized states" as absolute and clearly-defined categories. They are not. Those states that are listed that have no recognition are the cases that clearly meet the inclusion criteria based on the declarative theory of statehood. This can be - and has repeatedly been - reliably sourced.

On your second point, I would imagine that the discussion of East Jerusalem and the West Bank comes under "The extent to which a state's sovereignty is recognised internationally" since it is not generally recognised (unlike most other examples). We already mention the fact that several states do not recognise Israel in the "sovereignty dispute" column. Kahastok talk 21:01, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • First point. Yes, I see the problem. This is impossible to read. I also agree this is not clear cut. I thought the states currently marked by yellow/"No membership" are definitely a separate taxon (i.e. they are different from all others also in a number of additional parameters) and therefore should be placed into a separate subsection of the Table. Was it discussed before?
  • Second point. I would suggest to describe the row for Israel exactly as in the List of states with limited recognition, i.e. yes, sure, we are telling that Israel, founded in 1948, is not recognised by 31 UN members and so on (see the "List of states with limited recognition"). Why not? That would be shorter and more logical. My very best wishes (talk) 22:37, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, yes, it was discussed, in quite a lot of detail as I recall. It's all in the archives. When you deal with this discussion, you have to remember that what you regard as obvious or common sense is not universally regarded as obvious or common sense. That's one of the reasons why it takes so much effort to reach a conclusion.
After looking at RS, it appears there are several well defined "puppet states" (named explicitly in the quotation below) that are different from others. They are marked light yellow in the Table. They have very limited recognition and do not take any part at all in UN. I will comment more about this below. My very best wishes (talk) 13:10, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Secondly, note that List of states with limited recognition does mention the Palestinian dispute, whereas your version of this page does not. This is quite a large difference. Kahastok talk 11:01, 9 December 2017 (UTC)#[reply]
Yes, I certainly agree. The Palestinian dispute should be included as in the List of states with limited recognition, i.e. in column "Further information" as territorial claims by other entities. ("Syria claims Golan Heights. Lebanon claims Shebaa Farms. Palestine claims areas controlled by Israel.") That would make the row for Israel consistent with the rest of the Table. My very best wishes (talk) 17:52, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
1. The "other states" is a classification by the UN according to this article, although I can find no source for that. 2. Russia also annexed territory (the Crimea) which is unrecognized but not mentioned in the list, so there is no reason to single out Israel. Why don't we just merge this article into Member states of the United Nations? Note too that there are many dependent territories and subnational states that have some degree of international personality, but are not listed.

Puppet states

I do have one concern, however. Here is a good scholarly source, and it tells:
As Russia’s position with regard to Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia (and Armenia’s position with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh) is similar to that of Turkey with regard to the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, these recognitions are insufficient in order to indicate the statehood of these territories. Like the TRNC, these territories are not independent states. The situation of Crimea on March 17, 2014 was identical [88].
I am sure there are other good RS claiming the same (can be found if needed). And the sources provide an explanation. If I am not mistaken, these "states" are generally regarded as "Puppet states" that could not exist on their own. So, why should we include these countries in the same Table contrary to scholarly RS? What was the answer from the previous discussions? After quickly looking at them, the answer is not at all clear. People were voting for criteria "a", "b", "c", etc., instead of simply looking what reliable sources tell about certain countries. I think such "voting" is hardly consistent with WP:NPOV and can be even considered as WP:OR. Maybe to place these "states" into a separate Table as "states with questionable status" because scholarly RS tell they are not independent/sovereign states? That is what I would do.My very best wishes (talk) 21:46, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A state with limited recognition is by definition a claimed state that not everyone agrees exists. If we were to remove entries on the basis that some reliable source denies their existence as states, we would remove China and Taiwan, both Koreas, Armenia, Cyprus (both sides), Israel and Palestine, along with every other state in the "other states" list. Is that what you propose?
We already place these claimed states into a separate part of the table. The proxy is UN status, because that's the least worst way of doing at (as it happens to work pretty well), but the fact that there is significant dispute over the non-UN members' right to exist is basically the whole point of splitting the list in the default view. Note that the decision as to whether to divide the list, and how to do it, was a major focus of those 1.7 MB of archives I pointed you at
Before you point out the Cook Islands and Niue are not disputed, let me point out that there's another 460kB archive discussing those cases. Kahastok talk 22:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, all disputed states are disputed, but a scholarly source tells they were not states at all. Right now we have Taiwan in the same part of the Table as South Ossetia. If you can give me a quotation from a recent scholarly RS (similar to something above) telling, after analysis, that "Taiwan is not an independent state", I will agree with you immediately. I mean the assertion by the sources that it is not at all a state rather than saying this is "a disputed state", "a state not recognized by such and such countries", a state "claimed by the People's Republic of China", etc. (of course it was claimed by PRC). My very best wishes (talk) 01:24, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we have Taiwan in the same part of the table as South Ossetia. The vast majority POV among states in the world is that South Ossetia is not a state separate from Georgia and the vast majority POV among states in the world is that Taiwan is not a state separate from China.
If there is a difference it is that the one has significantly more support than the other. Four UN member states, including one UNSC permanent member, claim that South Ossetia is a separate state from Georgia. No UN member state, nor even the government of Taiwan itself, considers Taiwan to be a separate state from China. If there is one that needs to be moved to a sub-list of non-states, it is Taiwan, not South Ossetia.
We did discuss how to split this list in excruciating detail before. If you have overriding new arguments, please put them. Yes we've seen these ones haven't got many recognitions before. We've also had not all recognitions are equal so we should only accept those recognised by UNSC permanent members. You are favouring the declarative theory, others view recognition as the key point and want us to ignore the de facto situation.
Regardless, the effect of your proposal seems to be that we would adopt the Western POV in every dispute in the world. Surely it is obvious why that is not appropriate. Kahastok talk 12:00, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Are you telling that Taiwan is not a well established state? The existence of territorial disputes between countries A and B or desire for unification do not prevents each of them to be a well established state. "Western POV"? This is not about "East" against the "West", but about WP:RS and WP:NPOV. But I am thinking one would need an RfC here. My very best wishes (talk) 13:22, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Are you telling me that you think it is neutral and appropriate for Wikipedia to reject the POV of every government on the planet because a single Wikipedian disagrees with it? That's not how Wikipedia works.
The last significant change in circumstance for any entity on the second part of this list came in 2008. We've plenty of sources in this article and others establishing exactly the case you make for Taiwan for every entity you wish to remove. In every case we are talking about a well-established entity that is considered a state by a significant part of the diplomatic, legal or academic community - and not a state by another significant part of the diplomatic, legal or academic community.
And yes, when you seek to remove the entities whose support comes primarily from Russia, and retain the entities whose support comes from primarily from Western governments, then your proposal supports a Western POV in those disputes. I do not suggest that this is intentional - it does not matter. The result is the same. Kahastok talk 13:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, we do not care about East, West, Russia, governments and personal POV. All we care about is WP:RS, WP:NPOV, etc. This is reference work. My very best wishes (talk) 14:06, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why the list is structured as it is. We do not invent splits that don't exist in WP:RS. We do not create rules that systematically favour the POV of one part of the world over another. And we do not overrule the views of the international diplomatic, legal and academic community based on our own personal perceptions of how things are. Which is why I reject your arguments. Kahastok talk 14:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I gave you a quotation from a scholarly source that concludes these specific territories did not achieve statehood. Any scholarly sources that conclude something opposite? I mean an assertive conclusion by a source that "it is not a state" (or "it is an independent state"), as oppose to simply documenting territorial disputes, which is an entirely different thing. My very best wishes (talk) 14:17, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Why am I expected to source the split that I don't want to put in the article? You've demonstrated nothing we did not already know - that the legtimacy of claimed states whose legitimacy is disputed is disputed. There are plenty of sources justifying the inclusion of all these entities in this article and in the list of sovereign states. Frankly, this looks like a big effort primarily aimed at removing an entity not on this list from a completely different article, and the place to do that is there, not here. Kahastok talk 14:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is strange. You do not see the difference between a territorial dispute (Taiwan and others) and the situation when certain territory is simply not an independent country according to 3rd party scholarly RS. My very best wishes (talk) 15:58, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
When you invent a distinction that is not found in the literature, it should not be particularly strange when people call you on it. All of these are territorial disputes. All of them are deemed illegitimate by at least some authorities. If you only choose to look, we have plenty of reliable sources in this article and the other that imply that these belong according to our standards. The only close calls are the Cook Islands and Niue, whose status is not disputed.
Another way of looking at it. You could not justify removing any of them, either to a separate list, or from the article, without changing the inclusion criteria. What specific, unambiguous and objective criteria are you proposing to use to justify defining a difference between Taiwan and Abkhazia, and what reliable sources are you proposing to base those criteria on? Kahastok talk 16:25, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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