Statehood as Political Community International Law and the Emergence of New States ASIL Studies in International Legal Theory Series

Alex Green argues that states arise under contemporary international law only when two abstract conditions are fulfilled. First, emerging states must constitute 'genuine political communities': collectives within which particular kinds of ethically valuable behaviour are possible. Second, such communities must emerge in a manner consistent with the ethical importance of individual political action. This uniquely 'Grotian' theory of state creation provides a clear legal framework comprising four factual 'antecedents' and five procedural principles, rendering the law of statehood both coherent and normatively attractive.

Introduction: reconstructing the law of state creation; Part I. Political Community: 1. Political ethics and community membership; 2. Political action and valuable institutions; 3. The antecedents of statehood; 4. Five procedural principles; Part II. Stability, Legitimacy, and Democracy: 5. The stability thesis; 6. The legitimacy thesis; 7. Democratic legitimacy; Conclusion: The nature and resilience of statehood.

Alex Green is a Senior Lecturer at the University of York. His publications have appeared in periodicals such as the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the Australian Year Book of International Law, Transnational Legal Theory, and the European Human Rights Law Review. His research has been funded by the Modern Law Review Covid-19 Response Fellowship and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.