The Statehood Of The Country Whose Territory Is Completely Submerged

Research shows, climate change causes the sea level rising rapidly in recentyears. If this situation continues, it will threaten the very existence of the territory ofthe small coastal countries and the island countries. If the sea level keeps rising andthe sea water submerges the whole territory of a country, could this country still keepits statehood? Could it still be treated as a country in the international society?In order to answer this question, we need to understand the general rules ofstatehood in international law and understand the rules of the creation of statehoodand the disappearance of statehood. The rules of the creation of statehood bring upseveral standards which are used to determine whether a political entity is a state ornot. The most popular standards are indicated in the first article of MontevideoConvention on the Rights and Duties of States. There are also some other standards,such as effective control, independence, a certain degree of civilization and legalorder. The rules of the disappearance of statehood are just for the countries whoseterritory still physically exist and cannot be used for the situation raised. Ininternational law practice, there are also some special scenarios which are notcomplete follow the general rules. For instance, there are some countries that don’thave territory and population, government or complete sovereignty. However, thesekinds of countries have their specialties and the statehood of each country cannot bedetermined simply by several objective standards.The sea water submerges the territory completely, which is an extremely specialcircumstance. The territory physically disappears from the earth surface. The territory,as one of the statehood standards, disappears as well. But we cannot conclude that thesubmerged country has lost its statehood directly. Because first and foremost, the truereason why the sea water submerges the territory subjects to the whole human being,while the submerged country is just the unfortunate victim. Second, according tosome international law cases, losing one or more standards does not necessarily causethe loss of statehood. Third, the status of the country that does not have a territorial land is temporary. Last but not least, only the territorial land can be submerged by thesea. No matter what the statehood of the submerged country cannot be denied easily.We could consider how the statehood of the submerged country continues fromthe following points: The first point is keeping the sovereignty of the sea territory.Although the baseline of territorial sea will disappear with the territory, we cannotdeny its sovereignty over the sea because what has been submerged is just theterritorial land. Additionally, we cannot deny its sovereignty just because the baselinedisappears. Therefore, the submerged country should still have the sovereignty overthe sea, which it could use as the bargain to exchange some substantial benefits for itspeople and its future. The second point is relocating the people into one piece of land.In order to keep the effective control over its people and other matters, the submergedcountry should relocate the people onto a integrate land, which will guarantee iteffective control and its statehood. The third point is treating the submerged countryas a ’country in exile’. Since international practice has already recognize the’government in exile’, we could treat the submerged country as the ’country in exile’,who has the different reason to be in exile. This would be a special treatment to thesubmerged country. The fourth point is building artificial islands. The submergedcountry could relocate its people to another country, while it is building artificialislands. The most economical and efficient way is to building this artificial territoryon its original territory, which could keep it original sovereignty over the sea and ismore practical and economical than building in the sea.In conclusion, the statehood of one country cannot be determined by just severalobjective standards. Every country has its specialty. Since the whole human beingshould take responsibility for the situation above-mentioned, international law shouldalso improve itself in advance to prepare more for such situation. No one is hopingsuch circumstance would happen, but if one day it unfortunately happens, we hopethat international law and the international society will be ready and can providepowerful and strong protection to the submerged country and its people.