In the second part of this article series, I explored the possible options available to small island states facing submersion, focusing on how they might preserve their statehood. In this final installment, I turn to the concept of a virtual or metaverse state and examine the profound questions it raises – how this concept compels us to rethink fundamental notions of sovereignty, territory, and statehood.

1. The Virtual State as a (Partial) Solution?

The existential threat of climate change is forcing a radical reimagining of one of the most fundamental concepts in international order: the nation-state. As rising sea levels threaten to submerge low-lying island nations, the idea of a virtual state has become a potential strategy for survival. At the forefront of this movement is Tuvalu, a nation that has begun the ambitious process of creating a digital twin – within the framework of “Te Ataeao Nei “ (The Future Now) program – of itself in the metaverse. Tuvalu’s concept of virtual statehood challenges the very definition of territory, sovereignty, and statehood, and also represents a radical rethinking of national identity and governance. This concept would only be a theoretical “solution “ to the islanders’ problem, since virtual space does not provide a real alternative for a climate refugee in physical reality, as they still have nowhere to live.

For centuries, the concept of the state has been inseparably linked to a defined physical territory, a cornerstone of the Westphalian system of international relations. Pacific cultures, on the other hand, show that identity and sovereignty can detach from territory. It is rather expressed through rituals, symbols, architecture, and diplomacy in their eyes.

Tuvalu’s vision for its digital counterpart rests on three foundational pillars designed to replicate the core functions of a nation-state in the metaverse. First, the project aims to digitally recreate the physical reality of Tuvalu’s islands, serving as a symbolic homeland and creating a digital archive of a landscape and culture at risk of being lost. Second, the metaverse state would be a digital community where Tuvaluans, living in diasporas, could interact with each other, practice their customs. Third, the metaverse-state would be sovereign, and the state could practice its sovereignty over the virtual “land “. This is the most complex and debated aspect, and the most incomprehensible according to our current concepts. The virtual state and its associated virtual citizenship could serve as the vehicle for the continued recognition of statehood. If the Tuvaluan community were also able to obtain physical territory, the metaverse state could, under international law, create continuity between the disappearing state and its newly established ‘successor’ in a different location. To achieve this, however – at least in theory – we must definitively move beyond the Montevideo Convention’s criteria for statehood, as the concept of virtuality exceeds its framework. As seen in the case of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, it essentially functions as an international organization that nonetheless exercises sovereign rights, enjoys international legal personality, and whose legal status under international law approximates that of a state. From this perspective, metaverse substitute-states could be compared to the Order: entities that were once ‘normal’ states but, after losing their territory, continue to exercise statehood within new (and novel) frameworks. Why, then, should they not also be able to exercise sovereignty through the metaverse, if international law permits the Order of Malta to do so?

Tuvalu also campaigns alongside other ocean states for amendments to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ensuring states retain rights to their exclusive economic zones despite sea-level rise. This means that, in parallel with having digital sovereignty and being a virtual state, they would like to retain their territories in the sea (territorialize cyberspace while being deterritorialized, except for the seas). This would mean that they might have enough economic resources to run the state.

Moving state functions into the metaverse is not unprecedented. Virtual embassies – like those opened by the Maldives and later Sweden and Estonia in Second Life, or by Barbados in Decentraland, which is a VR metaverse – hinted at nation-branding in cyberspace. Estonia’s e-residency program further exemplifies this by offering digital access to services for non-citizens, creating a parallel virtual national space while maintaining its physical integrity. Tuvalu’s plan, however, goes much further by linking these ideas to a claim for enduring statehood, raising both sovereignty-related and technological dilemmas.

In the age of platform capitalism, the internet constitutes an asymmetrical space where a few platforms serve as necessary junctions for global information flow. This is already determinative in our daily lives, so would it be prominent in a virtual state’s? Would Tuvalu’s sovereignty be compromised by hosting its state functions on servers owned by multinational tech corporations? This could lead to a new form of digital colonialism, where the ultimate powers would be vested in the hands of big platforms. But it’s not only tech companies that stand in the way of sovereignty, but also other states, since the servers of metaverse-states would be located in the territory of another state. The only workaround solution would be – quite sci-fi like – to place the servers on artificial islands, located within the remaining exclusive economic zones.

Despite its conceptual ambition, the virtual state conception faces significant technical obstacles, too. Tuvalu has only approximately 10,000citizens, yet enabling this number of users to interact in real time within an immersive virtual world presents considerable challenges regarding bandwidth and computing power. Furthermore, in the current state of technology, metaverses rely on VR headsets that can be uncomfortable for users, presenting practical barriers. Of course, it is possible that by the time the concept comes into life, there will be much more advanced technologies than head-strapped VR headsets. Moreover, critics argue that creating a metaverse-nation as a response to climate change is precisely the same kind of technological solutionism that got us here in the first place.

2. Conclusion

Tuvalu’s metaverse nation is less a concrete technological plan and more a radical political and diplomatic statement. It is created to counter the assumption that Tuvalu will simply not exist. Therefore, it signals a possible solution for climate-vulnerable states, putting cultural continuity and diplomatic permanence in the foreground. While a digital community may never fully replace a physical homeland, the project is brought to life to preserve a nation’s identity and is a cry for help for the world to recognize that a state is more than just its land.

There are several reasons why I do not believe the metaverse can serve as a fully equivalent alternative to physical space. People are generally hesitant toward technology – at least to the extent that they would spend a significant portion of their day in a metaverse, which, so far, does not appear to be the breakthrough or attract the interest that big tech companies – especially Meta – had anticipated. I therefore agree with those who are skeptical of the Tuvalu digital nation announcement and view it as a diplomatic maneuver. Nevertheless, it was highly effective in raising awareness, and from the perspective of international law, I do not consider it an unacceptable solution to endow a metaverse state with statehood in order to define a bearer of sovereignty – even in the absence of territory.

Gellért Magony JD is a PhD student in law at the Doctoral School of Law and Political Sciences of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest (Hungary). He is a graduate of the University of Szeged (Hungary) with a degree in law, where he worked for many years with the Institute of Public Law in different research projects as a student fellow. His main research interests are constitutional law and media law.