The Order of Malta is seemingly one of the strangest entities in international politics.
It possesses sovereignty and a legal personality.
So there's a tendency for people to think of it as some sort of state.
But how accurate is this view?
In this video, I'm going to look at this unique institution
and try to get to the bottom of its real standing in the world.
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Hello. My name is James Ker-Lindsay.
Welcome to Independent Thinking.
A channel dedicated to international relations, independence, statehood and the origins of countries.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta
- more formally the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta -
has a seemingly unique place in modern international relations.
Officially, the order describes itself as a lay religious order of the Catholic Church
and as one of the oldest institutions of Western and Christian civilization.
More generally, it's known for its leading role providing humanitarian aid and assistance around the world.
But what sets it apart, and makes it so unusual and special, is that it's also widely recognized
as being a subject of international law.
In other words, it has legal personalit.
And, as the formal name of the Order makes clear, it also possesses sovereignty.
It's this legal personality and sovereignty, coupled with the fact that it enjoys widespread diplomatic relations,
that frequently leads many to conclude that the order can in fact be considered to be a state
- albeit a very unusual one.
Indeed, it has often been described as the world's smallest state,
or the only country that doesn't have territory.
But is it really accurate to describe it as a state?
Before going any further, it's perhaps worth providing a brief history of the Order.
It originally emerged in Jerusalem, in the middle of the 11th century, to protect and care
for pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land.
In 1113, the Pope officially recognized it as a lay religious order of the Catholic Church.
Following the defeat of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, the Order moved to Cyprus.
In 1310, it then took control of the island of Rhodes - part of modern-day Greece -
where it was formally recognized by the Catholic Church as the sovereign authority, in 1446.
It remained there until 1523, when it was ousted by Suleiman the Magnificent.
In 1530, it set up on the Mediterranean island of Malta, which was granted to it by the Kingdom of Sicily.
It remained there until 1798, when the island was ceded to France.
Four years later, under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, it was agreed to restore the island to its previous status.
However, the Order never returned.
Instead, in 1814, Malta came under British rule
- remaining a British colony until it became an independent country, in 1964.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the 19th century, the Order established its new headquarters in Rome.
Although the Order had lost its territory, it continued to enjoy international recognition by many states.
But does that make it a state today?
It's again worth stressing that there are four accepted criteria for statehood:
a defined territory, a settled population, governance and the ability to enter into international relations.
I've put a link to my video on this above and in the description below.
First and foremost, it's an accepted tenet of international law that a state must have territory.
This is absolutely fundamental.
Here the order falls short.
It doesn't have sovereign territory as we would usually understand it.
While it has a headquarters or seat of government - officially styled the Grand Magistry - in Rome,
and this is recognized by the Italian government as extraterritorial, this really doesn't seem to meet
the definition of defined territory as we would usually understand it.
Secondly, and tied to the absence of territory, the Order doesn't have a settled population.
To be sure, there are approximately thirteen and a half thousand formal members of the order
- termed knights and dames.
However, this membership doesn't constitute a settled population
within the spirit of the Montevideo Convention.
Nor are they even citizens in the usual sense of the word.
There's no such thing as sole nationality of the Order of Malta.
Every member is also a citizen of another country.
And even though the Order issues its own diplomatic passports, these are limited to members of the
Sovereign Council, and to those leading and serving in its diplomatic missions and their immediate family.
Regarding governance, this is where things start to become really interesting.
By all accounts, the order does have a government akin to the governments of states
- albeit with its own terminology.
For example, the order is led by a Grand Master, who serves as the sovereign or head of state.
He chairs a Council made up of officials who serve in roles that correlate
with official positions in most countries.
For example, the Grand Chancellor is equivalent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
And the Receiver of Common Treasure is equivalent to a minister of finance.
However, the idea of government is now understood in more precise terms.
It's not just about having the structures of governance, it's also about exercising fully independent government.
While this element of the order has long been debated, it was given greater significance when, in 2017,
a dispute broke out between the head of the Order and the Pope.
In the end, the Grand Master was forced to resign as his position was seen to violate his oath of obedience
to the head of the Catholic Church.
While the order may describe itself as sovereign, and guard this jealously,
this incident suggests that it is nevertheless ultimately required to be subordinate to another sovereign.
Finally, there's the question of its ability to enter into relations with other states.
This is by far the most interesting element of the Order, and the reason why it is so often mistaken as a state.
The Order has in fact been recognized, and maintains diplomatic relations,
with a 110 countries around the world
- although, interestingly, not with the United States or the United Kingdom.
It also has formal relations with the European Union.
Additionally, since 1994, it's also had permanent observer status at the United Nations.
And while the Order also tries to maintain the trappings of statehood in other ways,
for example it has its own flag and other symbols of statehood, such as postage stamps,
there's no escaping the fact that, in the most fundamental ways,
the Order doesn't meet the criteria for statehood as we now understand it.
While it could, even then arguably, have been seen as a state at one stage,
when it possessed territory and a settled population, first in Rhodes and then in Malta,
this is clearly no longer the case.
By any formal definition, therefore, the Sovereign Order of Malta isn't a state.
And it's wrong to describe it as such - as quirky and amusing as it may be to think of it in this way.
So, if it isn't a state, then what is the Order?
The answer is actually rather simple.
While, on the face of it, the Order comes across as a historical oddity, there is a strange irony that,
as the world has developed, the order has in fact become less and less unusual.
In the modern international system, the Order isn't quite as out of place as it was even a century ago.
To be sure, the Order's sovereignty is certainly unique and fascinating.
However, it's also rather misleading.
It isn't sovereign in the way that fully established states are sovereign.
As the Vatican itself noted, as far back as 1953,
the sovereignty enjoyed by the Order isn't sovereignty in the full sense of the word.
More to the point, while the order formally possesses legal personality,
and it's tempting to think of this as significant,
this isn't actually terribly unusual these days.
While there was a time that states were considered the only entities capable of enjoying legal personality
in international law, those days are really long gone.
In the modern era, all sorts of other entities can enjoy this type of status;
including international bodies, non-governmental organisations, and even companies and corporations.
And herein lies the answer to the status of the Order.
If one breaks down the many features that seemingly make the Order so unique,
one can see that they are now actually enjoyed by a number of other international organizations
- albeit without the claim to sovereignty.
For example, many other international organizations and bodies now issue their own travel documents.
These functions as passports, even if not always officially termed as such.
The same applies to the Order's headquarters in Rome.
The offices and other organisations now also enjoy extraterritorial rights.
These include the UN headquarters in New York, and its main offices elsewhere,
the headquarters of the International Maritime Organization, in London,
and actually the military headquarters of NATO, in Belgium.
Indeed, even the Order's observer status at the United Nations is not terribly unusual.
It lines up alongside other major international organisations,
such as the International Olympic Committee, the International Chamber of Commerce,
and the Committee of the Red Cross.
In fact, if one strips away the confusion over its sovereignty, and accepts that legal personality
is now a widely held status, the reality is that, in essence, the Order of Malta is now really best thought of
as an international organization
- albeit one that has, largely due to its peculiar history, a particular mystique.
So, that is the Order of Malta.
Despite the widespread diplomatic relations, it most certainly isn't a state.
Notwithstanding its important contribution to humanitarian efforts around the world,
the Order is in fact far more prosaic and mundane than it might seem.
Essentially, it's best thought of as a religious order that evolved into a state before becoming
a charitable international organisation
- albeit an international organization that retains unusual and interesting elements of its previous existences.
If you found this video interesting, here are some others that you might enjoy.
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Thanks so much for watching and see you again soon
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