Taiwan

Recognition

The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland threw out Taiwan's lawsuit against the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for its reference to Taiwan as "Taiwan, Province of China" rather than "Republic of China, Taiwan" as preferred by Taiwan. ISO had used the name for Taiwan since 1998 when it published the ISO 3166 country codes list. The Swiss court accepted Taiwan's capacity to sue as a state, but said that the action undertaken by Taiwan was a "political claim for the existence of its independent democratic state to be recognised internationally," and therefore the case was irrelevant in civil courts.