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Irregular States, Or The Semiotics Of Knight-Errantry, Costas M. Constantinou
Irregular States, Or The Semiotics Of Knight-Errantry, Costas M. Constantinou
Costas M. Constantinou
This article examines the transformation of the Order of St John (also
known as the Knights of Malta) from a crusading and piratic entity (periodically in
Jerusalem, Cyprus, Rhodes and Malta) into an irregular state actor without territory
(in Rome). Specifically, it looks at the political rationales through which the Order
has been historically constituted as an international subject and currently enacted as
an ‘‘irregular state’’, and evaluates the function of international legal discourse in
making up for its missing territory, the supposedly ‘hard’ and ‘objective’ condition of
statehood under international law.