said by emptywig :

I don't think anyone has unintentionally legitimized anything. If the Chancellor of Germany herself showed up, no one anywhere recognizes a bunch of people living on an old gun platform as an independent nation. The whole idea is a bunch of tomfoolery and humbug that has been given too much weight.

said by »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand#Legal_status :

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In international law, the two most common schools of thought for the creation of statehood are the constitutive and declarative theories. The constitutive theory was the standard 19th-century model of statehood, and the declaratory theory was developed in the 20th century to address shortcomings of the constitutive theory. In the constitutive theory, a state exists exclusively via recognition by other states. The theory splits on whether this recognition requires "diplomatic recognition" or merely "recognition of existence". It is clear that no other state grants Sealand diplomatic recognition, but it has been argued by Bates that negotiations carried out by Germany constituted "recognition of existence". In the declarative theory of statehood, an entity becomes a state as soon as it meets the minimal criteria for statehood, such as those defined by the Montevideo Convention. This asserts that a defined territory, permanent population, government and the capacity to enter into relationships with other sovereign states are the only foundation requirements for a sovereign state. None of these requirements necessarily has to conform to a certain size or standard, but their general characteristics should be taken into account.

On December 6, 2005, The Times claimed that the British government and courts had finally admitted that Sealand "is outside British national territory [...] and not part of the United Kingdom"; however The Times did not elaborate and there has been no confirmation by other sources.

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