ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The recognition of States is an institution of public international law by which one or more States record the existence in a given territory of a politically organized and independent society, showing their willingness to consider it an additional member of international society.

Concepts
The recognition of a State is a discretionary act by a State in the face of a pre-existing external reality, that is, recognition by other States is not a necessary condition for the existence of a State, being only a declaration of willingness to maintain cooperative relations.

Recognition implies that a minimum of active cooperation is established between the recognized and the recognized State. Recognition takes place within the implicit limits of its discretionary, voluntary and relative nature; it has effects only between the States it recognizes and the States it recognizes, since as has been said, recognition is at the discretion of each State, not affecting relations with third States.

The relativity of recognition serves as protection against the political use of recognition, such as recognition in cases of civil war or colonial liberation movements. The use of recognition for political purposes is a very widespread practice and in no case determines the existence or absence of a State, which itself produces legal effects.

While recognition does not determine the existence of a State, full cooperation relations if they require mutual recognition, in addition, recognition of a State reinforces its international legal personality, even in respect of those States that do not recognize it.

With the development of international relations and their gradual institutionalization, new issues arise around the recognition of States, the question arises as to whether the admission of a country to international organizations such as the UN implies recognition by the other members; reality indicates that the inclusion of States in international organizations does not imply their recognition, as otherwise the principle of discretion would be violated, thus not being viable for an institutionalization of recognition through international organizations.

Another issue is the concerned recognition by only one country, normally, in order to influence foreign political reality, such as the "Turkish Cypriot State," recognized only by Turkey or the Bantustans artificially created by South Africa to support apartheid.

In some cases the discretion to recognize does not exist, sometimes where international bodies disadvise to recognize certain factual situations, such as invasion