Andrew, about the Linked In article of yours on maritime law: if ships can swap the flag, that means that can trade in foreign port. So what’s the problem? If a state is not recognized, but it has a ship carrying goods, it can swap the flag, finish the export and import, then go back. The lack of recognition does not impede free trade. @participant-4603
It doesn’t. At the same time, there was a time when, for example, a ship flagged by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would get denied the ability to dock or port in Paphos in the Republic of Cyprus, so that can be problematic, and I would imagine, on a bigger scale, an Israeli flagged vessel might have issues in Dhaka.
The ships can meet at sea for trade, the other ship will have the right flag. It will be from some country that is recognized, and it will take some fee bringing things across which will be embedded in the trade costs.
Also, I doubt the often mentioned requirement that United Nations, or some countries must recognize the new state. There is no such requirement. The whole world is now against Israel, including the UN. The whole world doesn’t recognize the northern part of Cyprus .
Who cares? It’s there. It’s there for one and simple reason. It can defend itself. In case of Cyprus, there is Turkey that will defend it. Israel can defend itself, as we have seen. So the idea that some states need to recognize it, and is a false idea which libertarians try to achieve with all their projects. But
what matters is what they do not want to see: defense. And if you do not have that, no recognition in the world will help you.
And even if it is recognized, it won’t amount to much. Argentina is recognizing Liberland, kind of through Milei (and also that was something he said before he was President). But nothing helps there, because Liberland hasn’t secured recognition from one of the neighboring states, which would be its defender.
This already happens with tankers that are filled with sanctioned Russian or Iranian oil, and what happens is they will often defuel on the high seas, and the paperwork for the sanctioned oil gets swapped around, so it is no longer sanctioned Iranian oil, it is now from the UAE, for example.
Sure, there is zero requirement to have or receive or even seek out de jure diplomatic recognition from other existing States.
The trouble is, without it, it is not so easy to join international bodies or organisations. I mean, it is possible, it is just a lot harder, and it is a lot harder to access international institutions, assuming any of that stuff really matters in the first place.
I tend to think it does far more than meets the eye, but I also understand many of the counterpoints.
If you have the monopoly of force and violence over a given territory, then in all likelihood you are the state, and if you are able to defend that same given territory, then to a large degree you have sovereignty or independence or both, and it does not matter if France does not recognise you, for example.