Membership in the Sekidean Union

Member of the Sekidean Union
Member of the Sekidean Union
Category	Members 17 member states 16 full members; 1 associate; ; 20 member entities; ;
Location	Sekidean Union
Created	1983/2012
Number	10 countries (Inner Sekidean Union); 7 countries (Outer Sekidean Union)

As defined in the Sekidean Treaty System, the Sekidean Union distinguishes between three terms, the Member state and Member entity, with the Inner Sekidean Union using only a binary distinction between an ISU member and non-members.

History

During the time of the establishment of the Sekidean Union under the articles of the Agreement of the merger of Shanghou Pact and Purple Community into Sekidean Union, no distinction between member entities and member states was made. The treaty, referring to the members, used terms such as "member country", "member nation" or simply "member". This system, although being rather simple, has been found problematic, when Kistolia and Pecia have applied for membership in the Sekidean Union as seperate entities, although they were unified under the Kistolian Union, which, however, guaranteed autonomies the the member states and as such allowed for such a process.

The Sekidean Treaty Court eventually ruled, that in the view of the Treaty, the two are acting as de facto independent entities within the Sekidean Treaty System and should be treated as such. Thus, the name member entity was used. This decision was upheld, when Renia, Monte Blanco and Zhousheng, all member states, merged into the Federation of Mustelaria in 2017, which didn't apply for SU membership, as it was assumed, that all parts of it were already members. The Sekidean Treaty Court ratified the decision and agreed, that despite the existance of Mustelaria, for the purposes of voting within the Cabinet of Leaders, the three former countries remain as official member entities.

However, because of the signing of the Agreement of the Sekidean Union in regards to the defence of the member entities, which specified the need of member state armed forces to take part, the Sekidean Treaty Court made a ruling, that there is a difference between a member state and a member entity. Both the Kistolian Union and Mustelaria are member states and as such must use their militaries in the manner prescribed in the defence of other member states.

In contrast to it, the Sekidean High Court ruled, that within the Inner Sekidean Treaty System, a part of the Sekidean Treaty System, the Kistolian Union and Mustelaria are both considered to be unitary members, and as such should be represented in the Sekidean Parliament.

The Sekidean system has been amended once more to allow for membership of Gassasinia, which has been accepted under a specially amended treaty editing its relation to the Sekidean Charter and the Treaty System as a whole. In this way, the third membership type has been created, named the member associates.