Startup States Society Launches How to Start a New Country
The official emblem of the Startup States Society, a Geneva-based Verein dedicated to peaceful new country formation.
New resource sets out how new countries can be founded on dry land through negotiation and consent, not conquest, secession, or speculation.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, July 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Startup States Society, a Swiss Verein devoted to the research, study, and promulgation of peaceful new state formation under public international law, today announced the launch of HowToStartANewCountry.com, an educational resource answering one question directly: how to start a country, and specifically how to start a new country, lawfully and peacefully. Powered by the Startup States Society, the site is a one-stop resource consolidating the Society's research for founders, academics, legal professionals, and governments interested in new country formation.
Founding a new country is often reduced to a name, a flag, and a website, followed by hope, or dismissed as fantasy and relocated to speculative territory: the high seas, outer space, Antarctica, disputed borders, or a blockchain ledger. None of these hold up. The high seas carry no territorial jurisdiction under the law of the sea. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids national appropriation of outer space, and the 1959 Antarctic Treaty freezes new territorial claims. Disputed territories carry contested title of their own. A blockchain or cloud based nation holds no territory at all, and territory is what statehood requires. The workable path runs through dry land and negotiation with an existing government.
International law has long debated how a state comes into being: the declaratory theory holds that a state exists once it has a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government, and the capacity to conduct relations with other states, while the constitutive theory holds that recognition by other states is what completes that existence. Beneath both sits a further distinction: the separation of dominium, meaning title to land, from imperium, meaning authority to govern it. A long-term lease answers secession concerns by disaggregating the two: the existing state keeps dominium, retaining underlying title, while sharing imperium, the authority to govern, with the new state administering the territory. In some cases this instead takes the form of a condominium arrangement, with imperium exercised jointly. Either way, no territory changes hands and no secession occurs.
The clearest use case is land doing little for the country that holds it: remote, thinly populated, and either non-performing or a drain on the public purse. Rezoned as a new, self-governing jurisdiction under the Consensual Theory of Statehood, that same territory becomes a source of rent, indemnities, and revenue rather than a persistent cost: a symbiotic arrangement, closer to a joint venture than to any historical model of territorial acquisition.
For an existing UN member state, the arrangement is straightforward: it becomes a landlord rather than a governor, retaining dominium throughout while collecting rent, indemnities, and potentially dividend paying preferred shares in the new state's economy, all without secession or loss of underlying title. It raises revenue without raising taxes or issuing new debt, and offers the government that negotiates one a rare hand in shaping the geopolitical history of this century rather than simply administering within its confines. For academics, lawyers, and scholars, it is a live and rapidly developing field within international law and governance. For founders and builders, the Society offers access to a growing network of peers, with research support grounded in real legal mechanisms rather than improvisation.
"There is a lawful, peaceful, negotiated path to founding a new country today, built on legal mechanisms that already exist," said Julien Andrew Starr, Founding Director of the Startup States Society. "Our task is to make that path unmistakably clear."
The Society's research is set out in two monographs by Starr, Startup States and How to Build New Countries, both freely available via Zenodo.
The Society invites contact from three groups: founders and builders exploring new country formation, for guidance, networking, and research support; academics and legal professionals working in statehood, international law, or governance, to join its ranks; and governments interested in hosting a new country through negotiation, to open a discreet dialogue.
About the Startup States Society: The Startup States Society is a Swiss Verein (UID CHE-418.101.559) based in Geneva, Switzerland, dedicated to the research, study, and promulgation of peaceful new state formation under public international law, including the Consensual Theory of Statehood and the disaggregation of dominium and imperium. Further information is available at startupstates.swiss and howtostartanewcountry.com.
Julien 'Andrew' STARR
STARTUP STATES SOCIETY
email us here
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn
X
Other
Startup States Society: An Introduction
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
