Explain Recognition of States pertains

Recognition of States pertains to whether a state exists or not, meaning thereby, the participants of global community should recognize that the new State has fulfilled the criterion for the Statehood. As has been discussed previously, certain requirements  should  be  satisfied  in  order  to  be  classified  under  Statehood  i.e.  territory, population, government and sovereignty. Once, all these requirements are fulfilled, legal sanction is conferred upon that State and formal recognition is extended to it. There are two theories that regulate a State's framework, namely, Constitutive theory - wherein, a political act of recognition is required as a precondition for the existence of legal rights and the declaratory theory - wherein, the recognition of a new State is a political act, which is in principle, independent of the existence of the new State as a full subject of international law. However, there is an anti thesis involved in the theories which states that by virtue of mere non recognition of a state, it doesn't cease to exist, hence, emphasizing the inherent weakness of constitutive theory. In 1988, constitutive theory came into the frontline but after analyzing its flaws, most of the States reverted to the declaratory theory.  For example, Palestinian Liberal Organization (PLO) created a State but, had no control over it. Later, a declaration was issued by other States and recognition was given to PLO even though an essential element was missing in the statehood requirements. The query pertaining to this was whether an act of recognition can make up for the deficiency of an essential element of Statehood.

For example, in 1971 after the Indo-Pakistan war, the issue was regarding the recognition of Bangladesh by Pakistan as an independent State. Similarly, the US recognizes Cuba and that it meets all  the  elements of  statehood. The US along with other States never recognized the statehood of the South African homelands/Bantustans (Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei, etc.) that  the  apartheid  government  of  South  Africa  tried  to  create  in  the  1970s  and  1980s. Furthermore, most Arab countries refused to recognize the state of Israel, believing that the creation of that state was illegal under international law. Greece refused to recognize the state of Macedonia, created from part of Yugoslavia. Also, after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, the problem was to recognize two new States entities under international law. The first state to recognize Pakistan as an international entity was Iran