Description
This paper seeks to contribute to a largely state-centric literature on recognition by conceptualising the different ways in which international organisations are important for the recognition of independent statehood claims. I do so by surveying the responses of international organisations to state independence claims in the post-1945 environment in order to construct a descriptive typology of the different ways in which international organisations are important for recognition: recognition, titular recognition and non-recognition. I look at both successful attempts at state creation (recognised states) but also cases where independence was not recognised but a group persevered with statebuilding activities (unrecognised states), therefore forcing international organisations to contemplate a recognition stance. While the purpose of the typology is to conceptualise ideal types of stances of international organisations relevant to recognition rather than classify cases across different types, I draw on various examples throughout for illustration purposes. By doing so, the paper makes the following contributions to the literature: enable analysts to formulate new knowledge and organise information about state recognition and international organisations, b) contribute to a more theoretically-grounded discussion and the broader discussion by widening our understanding of the agents of state recognition to include international organisations and c) cross-fertilising the literatures on recognition and on unrecognised states, allow the discussion of recognition as a spectrum and explore the ways in which it is granted but also denied.
