ceasing to exist

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Right to exist

The Right to exist is a bedrock principle of international law referring to the right of nations to exist. The classic phrasing is "Every nation has the right to exist, and to protect and to conserve its existence. The corralary is that "The right to exist naturally enough implies that each nation also has the right to its own language and culture. The phrase was in widespread use in this manner in the nineteenth century, and was incorporated in the form cited above into the basic principals of the League of Nations and of the United Nations.

As applied to individual nations

Greece

In the Edinburgh Annual Register of 1823, Sir Walter Scott published a long essay in which he endorsed the "right to exist" of the Greek nation.

Lithuania

"The Lithuanian language would become a national languae, not a dialect; Lithuanian culture would become a national culture, not a peasant dialect. No one could ever again deny that Lithuania had a right to exist.

"The Poles deny Lithuania's right to exist as an independent state and claim that it should form part of Poland.

Abkhazia

In 2008 Patricia Flor, German ambassador to Georgia, told the Georgian Times newspaper that, "Abkhaz should feel they can voice their concerns and can be open about their identity... we also say of course that the Abkhaz nation has a right to exist and to decide for themselves how they are going to live and how they want to use the Abkhaz language.

Macedonia

Greek and Serbian intellectuals and politicians regularly challenge Macedonia’s right to exist, “Macedonia is a joke to the Serbs and the Greeks who believe it has no real right to exist.”

“The Comintern ruled in April, 1934 that the Macedonians had a right to exist as a separate people with a separate language, thus aligning the communist party with Macedonian separatists.” “From the very beginning Athens' position has been to accept Macedonia's right to exist as a sovereign nation, but objects to the use of the name "Macedonia. ...”

Turkey

“If Turkey has a right to exist — and the Powers are very prompt to assert that she has – she possesses an equally good right to defend herself against all attempts to imperil her political existence.”

"The aims of the Young Turks are to awaken national feeling in the Turkish nation, train their countrymen to work, free them from the Slav yoke, give them health and national expansion, increase the welfare and prosperity of Turkish countries. In a word, they want to make the Turkish race respected in the eyes of the world and secure its right to exist side by side with the other nations in the twentieth century."

Israel

In late 1967, after the Six Day War, official Egyptian government spokesman Mohammed H. el-Zayyat "stated that Cairo had accepted Israel's right to exist since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice in 1949, but added that this did not endorse the recognition of Israel (raising the distinction, frequently cited since then by Arab leaders, between acceptance of the de facto existence of a state and the establishment of diplomatic relations with it).

Upon assuming the premiership in 1977, Menachem Begin spoke as follows:

Our right to exist--have you ever heard of such a thing? Would it enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for its people recognition of its right to exist? Mr. Speaker: We were granted our right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization four thousand years ago. Hence, the Jewish people have an historic, eternal and inalienable right to exist in this land, Eretz Israel, the land of our forefathers. We need nobody's recognition in asserting this inalienable right. And for this inalienable right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of nations. Mr. Speaker: From the Knesset of Israel, I say to the world, our very existence per se is our right to exist!