STATE

ELEMENTS OF STATE
ELEMENTS OF STATE

 The state as a person of international law should possess

the following qualifications:

 (a) a Permanent Population (people);

 (b) a Defined Territory;



 (c) Government (political authority); and

 (d) Sovereignty; capacity to enter into relations with the

other states (diplomat recognition or sovereignty).
A PERMANENT POPULATION

 A state is an organization of human beings living together as a community.

The population of a state comprises all individuals who, in principle, inhabit
the territory in a permanent way. It may consist of nationals and
foreigners.
 As has repeatedly been pointed out by doctrine, the requirement of a
population is not necessarily an equivalent of the requirement of
nationality.
 The population of a state need not be completely homogeneous in culture,
language, race or otherwise. Indeed, it is even rare, except for Micro-
States, to find a State with a homogeneous people.
 International law does not require a minimum number of inhabitants
constituting a State. The smallest number of nationals in a Micro-State can
be found in Nauru and in Monaco. No reservations made by the
international community with respect to statehood because of the limited
number of nationals of Micro-States, even if the nationals were
outnumbered by foreign residents.
A DEFINED TERRITORY

 The functions of a State, a political and legal community of human beings,

must first of all be exercised in a given territory.
 Territory is a geographical area that is owned and controlled by a government

or country to exercise such state sovereignty.

 Therefore, most of legal professors give and conclude the definition of the

territory that territory clearly comprises and refers to land territory which
belongs to state and individuals, internal waters and territorial sea (straits)
which state claims for sovereignty, and the airspace above this territory.
 It is required that the State must consist of a certain coherent territory

effectively governed and the territory of a State need not be exactly fixed by
definite frontiers.
 “A defined geographical area” the existence of Micro-State with minimum land

territory such as Monaco (1.95 square kilometer), and the Vatican City (0.44
square kilometer) leads to the conclusion that no minimum size is required for
the territory, as this element was never a reason for denying statehood.
 GOVERNMENT ; SOVEREIGNTY

 GOVERNMENT
 The government is the executive branch of the state and has the role to
administer the state uniformly in the following aspects: political,
economic, social, cultural, use of natural resources, environmental
protection, national defense and security, and foreign affairs.
 Form of state is defined depending on the constitution drafted, generally
structure of state can be divided into: unitary state and federal state,
this probably affects the government in exercising limit on its power.
 SOVEREIGNTY
 Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority
over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that
rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be
provided. The definition of “the Sovereignty” is quite similar to “the
Independence” and they mostly used along together.