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The Sovereign Military Order of Malta has had observer status at the UN since the early 1990s despite having no territory.[0] They issue their own passports and enters intro treaties like a regular state.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...

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So does the Red Cross and the International Olympic Committee [1]. And if you scroll up you see so do many "banks".

UN Observer status is most often used to discuss the status of states like Palestines but it has less of an implication of being a sovereign "state" than people think.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...

The order of Malta is on a different level though: It's a sovereign entity in international law[1], the IOC, banks, etc. aren't

The only somewhat comparable thing afaik is the Holy See, but that at least has sovereignty over some land (the vatican).

[1] although this status is sometimes questioned

Just to be clear to passers-by, all banks in this list are intergovernmental development organizations, not commercial banks.

They even had a tremendous airforce..

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