ABSTRACT
International law is a set of rules or principles that govern the actions and behavior of states. This chapter focuses on the nature and significance of changing international legal norms with respect to territorial control. The norms of international diplomacy also confirm the influence that the concept of state territorial sovereignty has in the contemporary world. The principle of territorial sovereignty assumed wider formal status with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The broadest and most pervasive evidence that the commitment to state territorial sovereignty has some meaning is the fact that most issues and problems around the world tend to be conceptualized in state terms. The power that the concept of state sovereignty holds in the modern world can be strikingly demonstrated in the role it has played in international territorial conflict. A variety of economic, political, cultural, and strategic motives are behind most interstate conflicts over territory.
