Apeople is any plurality of persons considered as a whole. Used in politics and law, the term "a people" refers to the collectiveorcommunity of an ethnic groupornation.[1] The term "the people" refers to the publicorcommon mass of people of a polity.[1] As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty.
Chapter One, Article One of the Charter of the United Nations states that "peoples" have the right to self-determination.[2] Though the mere status as peoples and the right to self-determination, as for example in the case of Indigenous peoples (peoples, as in all groups of indigenous people, not merely all indigenous persons as in indigenous people)[clarification needed], does not automatically provide for independent sovereignty and therefore secession.[3][4] Indeed, judge Ivor Jennings identified the inherent problems in the right of "peoples" to self-determination, as it requires pre-defining a said "people".[5]
Both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire used the Latin term Senatus Populusque Romanus, (the Senate and People of Rome). This term was fixed abbreviated (SPQR) to Roman legionary standards, and even after the Roman Emperors achieved a state of total personal autocracy, they continued to wield their power in the name of the Senate and People of Rome.
The term People's Republic, used since late modernity, is a name used by states, which particularly identify constitutionally with a form of socialism.
Incriminal law, in certain jurisdictions, criminal prosecutions are brought in the name of the People. Several U.S. states, including California, Illinois, and New York, use this style.[6] Citations outside the jurisdictions in question usually substitute the name of the state for the words "the People" in the case captions.[7] Four states — Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky — refer to themselves as the Commonwealth in case captions and legal process. Other states, such as Indiana, typically refer to themselves as the State in case captions and legal process. Outside the United States, criminal trials in Ireland and the Philippines are prosecuted in the name of the people of their respective states.
The political theory underlying this format is that criminal prosecutions are brought in the name of the sovereign; thus, in these U.S. states, the "people" are judged to be the sovereign, even as in the United Kingdom and other dependencies of the British Crown, criminal prosecutions are typically brought in the name of the Crown. "The people" identifies the entire body of the citizens of a jurisdiction invested with political power or gathered for political purposes.[8]
Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States, 1 lays down the most widely accepted formulation of the criteria of statehood in international law. It notes that the state as an international person should possess the following qualifications: '(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with other states'
So far as States are concerned, the traditional definitions provided for in the Montevideo Convention remain generally accepted.
