Provides a systematic comparison of legal scholars' views and governments' practice regarding the occasions for, criteria for, and effects of recognition. It traces the evolution from the 19th century practice basing recognition mainly on effective rule to more frequent use of additional criteria in the interwar and early Cold War, to the reassertion of the primacy of effective rule since 1970 and places it in the context of contemporaneous changes in world politics.

"In this world there are some devoted people who are undeveloped in reflection and have not taken pains in studying difficult works, but who nevertheless aspire after the enlightenment that blossoms forth with the descent of Sakti. For their sake the doctrine of recognition is being explained briefly."--Ksemaraja The word pratyabhijna means recognition. All individuals are divine, but they have forgotten their real nature and are identified with their psycho-physical mechanisms. This teaching is meant to enable them to recognize their real nature. It offers the spiritual practice through which they can realize their true Selves. This book occupies the same place in Saiva or Trika literature that Vedantasara does in Vedanta. It avoids all polemics and gives a succinct form for the main tenents of the Pratyabhijna system.

Originally published by Hersch Lauterpacht in 1947, this book presents a detailed study of recognition in international law, examining its crucial significance in relation to statehood, governments and belligerency. The author develops a strong argument for positioning recognition within the context of international law, reacting against the widely accepted conception of it as an area of international politics. Numerous examples of the use of law and conscious adherence to legal principle in the practice of states are used to give weight to this perspective. This paperback re-issue in 2012 includes a newly commissioned Foreword by James Crawford, Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge.

Thomas D. Grant examines the Great Debate over state recognition, tracing its eclipse, and identifying trends in contemporary international law that may explain the lingering persistence of the terms of that debate. Although writers have generally accepted the declaratory view as more accurate than its old rival, the judicial sources often cited to support the declaratory view do not on scrutiny do so as decisively as commonly assumed. Contemporary doctrinal preference requires explanation. Declaratory doctrine, in its apparent diminution of the role state discretion plays in recognition, is in harmony, Grant asserts, with contemporary aspirations for international law. It may seem to many writers, he believes, that international governance functions better in a conceptual framework that reduces the power of states to legislate what entities are states. Grant proceeds from this analysis of the contemporary status of the old debate to ask what questions now take center stage. In place of doctrine, Grant argues, process is the chief issue concerning recognition today. Whether to recognize unilaterally or in a collective framework; whether to acknowledge legal rules or to let recognition be controlled by political calculus—as Grant points out, such questions concern how states recognize, not the theoretical nature of recognition. This is an important analysis for scholars and researchers of international law and relations and contemporary European politics.