Chapter 1. Introduction recognized states also exist in Europe, e.g. in the context of Cyprus and Kosovo, this is not considered further in this research. 1.4.3. NATIONALITY, STATELESSNESS AND ADMINISTR ATION An important observation that should be made after discussing both statelessness and nationality, is the undeniable link that exists between these concepts and the state, and that identification, administration and registration also play a role in shaping states’ approaches to nationality and statelessness. This has a background in the history of the modern state. The 17th century witnessed, according to many, the birth of the modern state, in particular through the Westphalian peace treaties of 1648 that “introduced the idea of sovereign equality among the states of Europe”.72 A clear and agreed upon defi nition of what a state is, is hard to fi nd. However, for the purpose of international law, a well-known defi nition is found in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States.73 According to this defi nition, a state is characterized by a permanent population, a defi ned territory, government and capacity to enter into relations with other states.74 States thus need a population, which would primarily be made up of its citizens – those who ‘belong’ to the state and have a particular connection with the state. However, the “Westphalian Europe was a long way from the modern international order in which the citizenship law we recognize today emerged” because it was about sovereignty of monarchs and the “territorial scope of the sovereign’s realm”.75 Revolutionary thinking76 made the replacement of the sovereign with ‘the people’ possible: “Only when the idea took hold that the sovereignty of states was (if only rhetorically) based on the consent or authority of their people, did it become important to identify the members of particular states as against each other”.77 In particular after the First World War and with the process of democratization, a closer connection between the citizen and the state was evident – 72 73 74 75 76 77 Randall Lesaffer, ‘The Westphalia Peace Treaties and the Development of the Tradition of Great European Peace Settlements prior to 1648’ (1997) 18 Grotiana 71, 72. Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (Inter-American) (adopted 26 December 1933, entered into force 26 December 1934) 165 LNTS 19 (1933 Montevideo Convention). See also Karen Knop, ‘Statehood: territory, people, government’ in James Crawford & Martti Koskenniemi (eds), The Cambridge Companion to International Law (Cambridge University Press 2012) 95. Art 1 1933 Montevideo Convention. Helen Irving, Citizenship, Alienage, and the Modern Constitutional State. A Gendered History (Cambridge University Press 2017) 32. Cf the French and American revolutions of the 18th century. Helen Irving, Citizenship, Alienage, and the Modern Constitutional State. A Gendered History (Cambridge University Press 2017) 32. That is not to say that identification of individuals was something exclusive to more recent history: already in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe we saw official, written systems of registration, see for instance Valentin Groebner, ‘Describing the Person, Reading the Signs in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe: Identity Papers, Vested Figures and the Limits of Identification, 1400–1600’ in Jane Caplan & John Torpey (eds), Documenting Individual Identity. The Development of State Practices in the Modern World (Princeton University Press 2001) 15–27. Intersentia 21