State Succession

It is said that a state succession is when one country takes the place of another or annexes part of it and takes responsibility for the predecessor state’s sovereign territorial rights. Since the start of modern civilization, large territories have transferred from country to country countless times. Empires have fallen, and other countries have risen from their ashes. However, a majority of the time the actual state succession never goes as favorably as the definition suggests. State succession comes with its share of problems as well. During the time of the Greeks and the Romans, those considered stateless were generally slaves and captives or residents of captured territories. The stateless did not enjoy the right of citizenship and were considered lower class than actual citizens. The fact that they were stateless did not affect them much, as the government during this time did not provide many social services, but it did prevent them from getting married, voting, running for office, and having the right to a trial. From then until the 20th century, the most notable stateless people were the slaves. The slaves had no rights at all within any government and were generally discriminated against. Governments still did not provide many social services, so actual citizenship did not include things that altered survival severely, so even if one wasn’t a citizen, it would not impact them severely. The major issues of statelessness emerged at the end of the First World War and the collapse of Romanov, Habsburg, and Hohenzollern rule and the restructuring of Europe. When new state boundaries were drawn, many of Europe’s ethnic and linguistic groups found themselves separated, causing many people to lose their nationality and all the rights that came with it. An estimated ten million refugees left their native countries and found themselves unable to settle anywhere else. These refugees ended up finding themselves constantly moving with no place called home. The