This legal continuity has been recognised by most Western powers and is reflected in their state practice. The application of the Stimson Doctrine by the Welles Declaration where a significant segment of the international community refused to grant formal approval for the Soviet conquest, the resistance by the Baltic people to the Soviet regime, and the uninterrupted functioning of rudimentary state organs in exile support the legal position that sovereign title never passed to the Soviet Union, which implied that occupation "sui generis" () lasted until re-independence in 1991. Thus the Baltic states continued to exist as subjects of international law.