A number of geopolitical entities have declared statehood and have sought recognition as de jure sovereign states with varying degrees of success. In the past, similar entities have existed, and there are now entities claiming independence, often with de facto control of their territory, with recognition ranging from complete non-recognition to complete recognition by all states.
There are two traditional doctrines that provide indicia of when a de jure sovereign state should be recognised as a member of the international community. The "declarative" theory defines a state as a person in international law if it meets the following criteria: 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. According to declarative theory, an entity's statehood is independent of its recognition by other states. By contrast, the "constitutive" theory defines a state as a person of international law if it is recognised as such by another state that is already a member of the international community.
Several entities reference either or both doctrines in order to legitimise their claims to statehood. There are, for example, entities which meet the declarative criteria (with de facto complete or partial control over their claimed territory, a government and a permanent population), but their statehood is not recognised by one or more other states. Non-recognition is often a result of conflicts with other countries that claim those entities as integral parts of their territory. In other cases, two or more partially recognised entities may claim the same territorial area, with each of them de facto in control of a portion of it (as have been the cases of the Republic of China and People's Republic of China, and North and South Korea). Entities that are recognised by only a minority of the world's states usually reference the declarative doctrine to legitimise their claims.
In many situations, international non-recognition is influenced by the presence of a foreign military force in the territory of the presumptive, self-declaring independent entity, so to make problematic the description of the country de facto status. The international community can judge this military presence too intrusive, reducing the entity to a puppet state where effective sovereignty is retained by the foreign power. Historical cases in this sense can be seen in Japanese-led Manchukuo or German-created Slovak Republic and Independent State of Croatia before and during World War II. In the 1996 case Loizidou vs. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights judged Turkey for having exercised authority in the territory of Northern Cyprus.
There are also entities which do not have control over any territory or do not unequivocally meet the declarative criteria for statehood but have been recognised to exist de jure as sovereign entities by at least one other state. Historically this has happened in the case of the Holy See (1870â€"1929), Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (during Soviet annexation), among other cases. See list of governments in exile for unrecognised governments without control over the territory claimed.
Criteria for inclusion
The criteria for inclusion means a polity must claim statehood, lack recognition from at least one UN member state, and either:
- satisfy the declarative theory of statehood, or
- be recognised as a state by at least one UN member state.
Background
Some states do not establish relations with new nations quickly and thus do not recognise them despite having no dispute and sometimes favorable relations. These are excluded from the list. Some countries fulfill the declarative criteria, are recognised by the large majority of other nations and are members of the United Nations, but are included in the list here because one or more other states do not recognise their statehood, due to territorial claims or other conflicts. There are 193 United Nations (UN) member states. The Holy See and the State of Palestine have observer status in the United Nations.
Some states maintain informal (officially non-diplomatic) relations with states that do not officially recognise them. The Republic of China (Taiwan) is one such state, as it maintains unofficial relations with many other states through its Economic and Cultural Offices, which allow regular consular services. This allows the ROC to have economic relations even with states that do not formally recognise it. A total of 56 states, including Germany, Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom, maintain some form of unofficial mission in the ROC. Kosovo, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Sahrawi Republic, Somaliland, and Palestine also host informal diplomatic missions, and/or maintain special delegations or other informal missions abroad.
Present geopolitical entities by level of recognition
UN member states not recognised by at least one UN member
Non-UN member states recognised by at least one UN member
Non-UN member states recognised only by non-UN members
Non-UN member states not recognised by any state
Excluded entities
- The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a non-state sovereign entity and is not included, as it claims neither statehood nor territory. It has established full diplomatic relations with 104 sovereign states as a sovereign subject of international law and participates in the United Nations as an observer entity. Although it is not recognised as a subject of international law by France, SMOM maintains official, but not diplomatic, relations with France and also with five other states: Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Canada. Five more states maintain neither and do not recognise its passports: Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Greece.
- By definition, the list does not include uncontacted peoples who exercise varying degrees of de facto sovereignty over the areas under their control, but either live in societies that cannot be defined as states or whose status as such are too data deficient to be definitively known.
- Entities considered to be micronations are not included. Even though micronations generally claim to be sovereign and independent, it is often up to debate whether a micronation truly controls its claimed territory. For this reason, micronations are usually not considered of geopolitical relevance. For a list of micronations, see list of micronations.
- Those areas undergoing current civil wars and other situations with problems over government succession, regardless of temporary alignment with the inclusion criteria (e.g. by receiving recognition as state or legitimate government), where the conflict is still in its active phase, the situation is too rapidly changing and no relatively stable rump states have emerged yet.
- Those of the current irredentist movements and governments in exile that do not satisfy the inclusion criteria by simultaneously not satisfying the declarative theory and not having been recognised as state or legitimate government by any other state.