A short essay that I did weekly responding to various cases and topics in International Law. This week's topic is about Territory. For questions or any inquiries please contact me at rrah0004@student.monash.edu. Please cite properly and/or avoid plagiarism or any sort of academic misconducts.

1. Responding to International Law
Week Five
How essential is control over territory to the existence of statehood? How
unstable or uncertain does control over territory have to become before the
existence of statehood is called into question? To what extent has control over
territory formed the basis for the emergence of new states in International law?
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Territory is one of the requirements that would determine a statehood of an
entity, this criteria also serves as a filter. A filter between a group of like-minded
individuals who stand on the same part of the earth. To some degree, it also
protects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of existing states. In a big
picture, territory draws a big line of a state’s border and what policies or rules
would run legally within the border in the face of the international community.
What could be the questionable situation to the control of territory is perhaps
when a natural changes happen to the part of the territory (e.g: erosion to an
island that is out of human’s control) or when a foreign occupancy occurs in an
area that belongs to a state. The latter could be defined as an aggression or any
names of the form of external threats, and losing control over a territory could
lead to a failure of a state, as Fund for Peace characterized it.
It is understood that some may argue that the concept of territorial control is
fading over time as the technology arises, but the question still stands; why
having a statehood without having any clear territory?. To this I believe, territory
plays as a very principal factor that relates to the other criteria of the statehood
or sovereignty; one needs to have the independence enough as having a globally
consented place to practice its governance. Another point also being mentioned
beforehand, having a territory would filter individuals as ‘us’ and ‘them’, thus,
this would very much simplify the implications of international law.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fund_for_Peace