Can a State continue to exist under international law once its territory disappears beneath the sea? Tuvalu’s answer is the Digital Nation Initiative: a Digital Ark that preserves archives, legal identity, governance mechanisms and cultural heritage, and a national digital ID that keeps citizenship alive for a population that may become dispersed.
The article tests that experiment against the classical criteria of the 1933 Montevideo Convention, the precedents of the governments in exile, the 2025 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice and the 2023 Falepili Union with Australia. The question it leaves open is whether sovereignty remains anchored to territory, or whether it can be understood as a functional and relational construct — one in which a State survives through governance, recognition and the continuity of its institutions.
