State (law)

For the purposes of Public International Law and Private International Law, a state is a defined group of people, living within defined territorial boundaries and subject, more or less, to an autonomous legal system exercising jurisdiction through properly constituted courts. In the majority of cases, countries only have one legal system and no problem will arise. In the case of countries electing to assume federated status, the extent to which each separated regional unit will constitute a state will be determined by whether that unit has a sufficiently significant volume of laws distinguishable from those applied in other units. Hence, in the territorially separated states constituting the United States, the laws are sufficiently distinctive to elevate them to states for this purpose.

Related Topics:
Public International Law - Private International Law - Jurisdiction - Court - Countries - United States

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