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Methods of Acquiring State Territory

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with various methods of acquiring state territory. At the outset, author explains that each and every country acquires state territory at the moment of its creation, as the territory constitutes the mandatory prerequisite for state creation. However, author further stresses that the state territory is variable category. With regard to that, author indicates that states generally may acquire new territory in numerous manners, which in theoretical terms might be divided in original and derivative methods. When it comes to practical criteria, we may distinguish a number of concrete methods of acquiring state territory, such as cession, non-forceful occupation, positive prescription and increment. However, it is worth mentioning that due to the absence of strict rules regarding the given methods, there are a number of different approaches to these issues among legal scholars. As basic methods of acquiring state territory, author identifies: enslavement (which was common practice in the past, but nowadays it is not in line with the international law), increment, non-forceful occupation, positive prescription, cession, plebiscite, adjudication and disposal on behalf of international community. This paper particularly elaborates the aforementioned methods of acquiring state territories. The relevant state practices, especially the most recent ones, are provided as well. Finally, author concludes that nevertheless that states, in the long run, may get reorganized to supranational entities, the notion of territory is not expected to lose its importance. It may only happen that the concept of state territories gets overshadowed by the category of supranational territories.

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