ABSTRACT
Sovereignty has come to apply as a legal presumption only to territories formally constituted, accepted, and recognized as States by other States in the international system of States. The phrase "group territorial identity" has been suggested to encompass a whole variety of identities—regional, ethnic, tribal, and national. Territory cannot be considered, from a political geographic perspective, without reference to the concepts of identity and control. Attention must therefore be placed on whether "people" with distinct identities have control of themselves within their own territories. Any rights to self-determination by the peoples of those territories were taken from them by the "invading" States. A different challenge to the territorial integrity of existing States occurred recently outside a colonial setting when the USSR disintegrated and some of its constituent territories declared independence. As noted, the territorial integrity of States is commonly held to be more important than any minority claims for self-determination from within a territory.
