This conclusion briefly summarises the argument of the book before considering its implications for two connected questions: the 'nature' or 'essence' of statehood under international law and the principle of state continuity. In relation to the latter, it advances a tentative additional principle for political membership that might be taken to explain the presumption of continuity as it applies to contemporary states. It also considers, albeit briefly, the current position of small island states, many of which are at risk of losing their inhabitable land due to human-caused climate change. As regards the nature or essence of statehood, the conclusion takes a somewhat sceptical view of attempts to characterise states in relation to one or more discrete concepts, arguing that not even statehood as political community should be viewed as an exhaustive account of what states 'really' are.

This chapter captures the controversy on ‘state extinction’ through climate change. Sea-level rise and changing weather patterns, among other impacts of climate change, are likely to cause some low-lying Small-Island Developing States (SIDS) to be uninhabitable in the coming decades, even before SIDS territory ‘sinks’ out of sight. Academic debates have offered various proposals on what might happen to the remnants of the states concerned, if they continue to exist at all, and the rights of these territorially orphaned entities under various regimes. Sharon concludes that there is one and only one legal avenue for the—very slight—possibility that statehood would continue after the land is gone.