Self-determination and recognition

While international recognition is no longer widely considered to be a required element of statehood, in practice the ability to exercise the benefits bestowed on sovereign states contained in the Westphalian sovereignty package requires respect of those doctrines and application of them to the state in question by other states in the interstate system. 

In the context of the EC, such imposition of additional criteria of recognition was used several times by the Badinter Commission, an arbitral body of experts established to deal with the various issues arising out of the Yugoslav crisis in 

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