Where do states come from? How do they disappear? How are they constituted? Can war be legal? … Fundamental questions to which Christian Behrendt and Frédéric Bouhon provide precise answers in their Introduction to the General Theory of the State, a book – or rather a total of 600 packed pages subdivided into seventeen chapters – which reveals an educational purpose in addition to its authors encyclopaedic legal erudition (because the work is first and foremost aimed at students in their first year of law and political science). Rigorously developing a succession of legal concepts, and always returning to their philosophical foundations, the authors also express their continuous desire to base the theory on reality and to illustrate their views with numerous examples and cases where the theory has been applied, making this fascinating legal summary as much a history book as a book on political thinking.

“A subject which, in our opinion, has this fascinating quality of being both several centuries old and powerfully up-to-date on a daily basis, in the most varied places on the planet”, the authors conclude. Let’s open the newspaper: every day, states are in conflict worldwide, they are engaged in legal or armed battles against each other, raising international or regional, political or economic issues. They also often sign treaties that peacefully settle their co-operation in precise areas. More rarely, a revolution, for instance, will modify the map of the world, redefining borders by making a state appear or disappear. Jus gentium (from gens, gentis in Latin: the people), i.e. international law, is also a constantly evolving legal subject.

The components that constitute a state: a human community, a territory, a public authority

According to Raymond Carré de Malberg, professor at the University of Strasbourg and author of one of the most famous French treaties in public law (Contribution à la théorie générale de l’Etat, 1920-1922), three components are required in order for a state to exist.

A population, whatever its size: one billion 300 million Chinese, or the mere several hundred citizens of the Vatican (all men, incidentally!). A population encompasses all those people with a particular nationality, whether they live in or outside the country. Thus, on 1st January 2008, the Belgian population stood at precisely 10,031,301, with 9,695,418 Belgian living in Belgium and 335,883 abroad. But without counting the 971,448 foreigners and stateless citizens also residing in Belgium on that date.

A territory, whatever its size, which includes not only the surface and the area underground, but also the atmospheric layer situated above this ground and, possibly, the areas of sea surrounding it.

A public authority, i.e. a sovereignty. A notion invented in the 16th century by Jean Bodin (1530-1596) in his treaty Les six livres de la République: “Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of a republic.” In the 17th century, another English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), endeavoured in his famous work Leviathan, “one of the most important books of humankind” note the authors, to more precisely define the attributes required for sovereignty. Separated into different sections today, these include the law, the army, international relations, fiscal power, the general framework of education, the police, criminal justice and criminal repression, the organisation and attribution of nationality, monetary power and emergency services.

A fourth element is added to these three components that constitute a state, resulting from the 1933 International Convention of Montevideo on the rights and duties of states: the ability to enter into relations with the other states, which assumes their recognition of them.