The Palestinian Authority defines itself as the State of Palestine and has the outward organs of an independent State. The State of Palestine conducts foreign relations, albeit the Oslo accords prohibited the Palestinian authority from doing so. Some States will not recognise another State if it was created as a result of an illegal action. This may be relevant to the consideration of whether Palestine should be recognised as a State. It is a subject of controversy as to whether the State of Palestine has a sufficiently effective government and defined territory to be considered a State in accordance with classical international law definitions. It can be argued that the large number of States and international organisations that recognise and treat Palestine as a State overcomes such deficiencies. The issue of whether Palestine is, at present, a State remains controversial.

This chapter develops a detailed conceptual framework for micronations to better understand and interrogate their common features and considerable diversity. It does so by comparing and contrasting micronations to recognised sovereign states and other state-like entities. As we explain, a wide variety of entities with more or less effective government, more or less legitimate claims to statehood, and more or less recognition and acceptance by individual states and the international community, exist around the world. By developing a ‘statehood spectrum’ along which a range of state and state-like entities may be placed, these complexities can be unravelled and a clearer picture of what makes micronations distinct emerges. We find that micronations are self-declared nations that perform and mimic acts of sovereignty, and adopt many of the protocols of nations, but lack a foundation in domestic and international law for their existence and are not recognised as nations in domestic or international forums.