The position of the territorially sovereign nation-state as the fundamental building block of the contemporary world order has come under increasing challenge. Historians have long focused on social, cultural, economic, and technological factors to examine the constructed nature of the nation-state. In this article, I explore the role of law, and specifically the concept of sovereignty, in the creation of the unified spatial entity constituting the nation-state. I focus in particular on the decolonisation of South Asia and analyse legal arguments made in two international disputes (over Hyderabad and the river Indus) to understand the process through which the Indian nation-state came into being.

领土主权民族国家作为当代世界秩序的基本组成部分的地位日益受到挑战。历史学家长期以来一直关注社会，文化，经济和技术因素，以检验民族国家的自然结构。在本文中，我将探讨法律（尤其是主权概念）在创建构成民族国家的统一空间实体中的作用。我特别关注南亚的非殖民化，并分析两个国际争端（海德拉巴和印度河）的法律论点，以了解印度这个民族国家的形成过程。