Resumen de Evolution or Revolution? Evaluating the Territorial State-Based Regime of International Law in the Context of the Physical Disappearance of Territory Due to Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise

Catherine Blanchard

• The threat of the perrnanent physical disappearance of the territory of States no longer belongs to the mythical realm, and the situation is particularly imminent for small island developing states, While most internacional legal scholarship has so far focuscd on issue stemming' from territorial disappearance, this article goes one step further. It questions Ihe appropriateness of the classical notion of the territorial state - a socio-cultural and politico-legal entity envolving on a defined territorial area - as the basis for an ínternational legal system faced with new realities created by climate change, sea-level rise, and globalization. After examining the currenL rules on statehood within the context of lile- physical disappearance of states' trritories and looking into the solutions suggested in the legal literature to address tierritorial loss, this article asses es a new way of understanding.