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The International Frontier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

H. Duncan Hall
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Extract

The international frontier is formed by the zones where Great Power interests come together in conflict. It is the main line of structural weakness in the earth’s political crust—the main fissure where wars break through. The powers are constantly at workon the frontier trying to patch up the peace by international arrangements of various kinds.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 1948 , pp. 42 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1948

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References

1 “ As we fabricated this budget we had constantly in mind the concept of an Arctic frontier.”—General Carl Spaatz, Hearings before the Sub committee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, First Session, on the Military Establishment Appropriation Bill for 1948 (Washington, 1947), p. 601.

2 Hall, W. E., International Law, Eighth Ed., pp. 60–62. Germany “renounced the regime of the capitulations” in Morocco and Egypt by Articles 142, and 147 of the Treaty of Versailles.Google Scholar

3 Thus the Near and Middle East was characterized by President Truman as “An area of great economic and strategic importance, the nations of which are not strong enough individually or collectively to withstand powerful aggression. It is easy to see, therefore, how [it] might become an arena of intense rivalry between outside powers. . . . ” Army Day address, April 6, 1946. Cited in State Department Bulletin, Jan. 26, 1947, p. 145.

4 Without specific provisions for petitions in the Charter the “right” of petition has been assumed and petitions are being addressed to the Commission on Human Rights as well as to the Commission on the Status of Women.

5 To meet the danger of European colonies in the Western Hemisphere becoming derelict through German conquests in Europe, the Act of Habana of July, 1940, provided for their administration under a form of trusteeship by one or more American States.

The negotiations for the purchase of the Virgin Islands (from 1867 onwards) were dominated by their “naval importance.” “The Caribbean,” Mr. Lansing wrote in 1917 to President Wilson in giving the reasons for the transfer, “ is within the peculiar sphere of influence of the United States.” Foreign Relations U. S., Lansing Papers 1914–20, Vol. II , pp. 466–470. For. Rel. U. S. 1917, pp. 693-694.

6 “Everybody quarrels, and nothing is done” (Balfour) Was the general verdict at the Paris Peace Conference. For. Rels. Paris Peace Conference 1919, Vol. V, pp. 614, 670–972. Cf. G. L. Beer's verdict on “international protectorates” and “administrative internationalism” in his African Questions at the Paris Peace Conference, pp. 421–24.

7 The international regime devised for the Sanjak by the League Council (see Official Journal of the League of Nations, February, 1937, p. 119) bore some resemblance to the Statute of the Free Territory of Trieste. The League Council was to exercise League supervision. But France and Turkey were to execute the Council’s decisions; they guaranteed the territorial integrity of the area which was to be demilitarized. The whole development was dominated by fear of the oncoming war in Europe. See Hourani, A. H., Syria and Lebanon, Oxford Univ. Press, 1946, pp. 360-69.Google Scholar

8 Crowe, S. E., The Berlin West African Conference 1884–85, London, 1942, pp. 145 f. Temperley, History of the Peace Conference of Paris, Vol. VI, p. 502, refers to the Congo as the first mandate.Google Scholar

9 The League of Nations; A Practical Suggestion, by General, Lt. the Right Honorable Smuts, J. C. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918). The citations in the following paragraphs are from this publication.Google Scholar

10 Same, pp. 28–29.

11 The Anglo-Russian convention of 1907, delimiting spheres of special interest in Persia while upholding its integrity and independence, was a triple agreement affecting Afghanistan and Tibet as well as Persia.

11a In the Potsdam Agreement the UK, the USA and the USSR agreed that the International Zone of Tangier “which includes the City of Tangier and the area adjacent to it, in view of its special strategic importance, shall remain international.”

(Text in New York Times March 25, 1947) and W. K. Miscellaneous NO6, 1947.

12 The islands were ceded to Greece in 1864 on the condition of permanent neutralization.

13 Gooch, G. P., History of Modem Europe 1878–1919, London, 1923 pp. 244–54. The withdrawal of international troops began in 1908. Google Scholar

14 For. Rels, of U. S., Paris Peace Conf. 1919, Vol. V, pp. 393–95.

15 Hon., Rt. Viscount Samuel cites a conversation to this effect on February 5, 1915. Grooves of Change: A Boole of Memoirs, New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1946, p. 176.Google Scholar

16 Department of State Bulletin, Sept., 1946, pp. 435–36, and Nov. 3, 1946, pp. 790–805, and Jan. 26, 1947, pp. 143–51, and the Potsdam Agreement.

17 Medlicott, W. N., The Congress of Berlin and After, London, 1938, pp. 71–86, and Chapters VI, VII and IX.Google Scholar

18 Gooch, pp. 399 ff.

19 Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin obliged Turkey to take measures to protect the Armenians: “ It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers who will superintend their application.”

20 The area was ceded by Austria under the Treaty of St. Germain to the Allied Powers. Poland had occupied the territory and it was finally assigned to her in 1923. The draft statute resembled the mandate envisaged for the Saar. See For. Rels. of U. S., Paris Peace Conf., Vol. IX, pp. 115 and 272–83 (text of mandate). Also Vol. IV, p. 848, and Vol. VII, p. 280.

21 “ As the archipelago is actually a territory not belonging to anyone,” the Supreme Council’s Spitzbergen Commission reported, “everyone agrees upon the necessity of ending this state of affairs by giving it a definite status.” As a substitute for a mandate, which various powers proposed, it adopted the Norwegian proposal of a multilateral Treaty to which would be parties “all powers having interests in Spitzbergen.” For. Rels, of U. S. Paris Peace Conf. 1919, Vol. VIII, pp. 351–63. Also Vol. VII, p. 39. For the text of the Treaty see Malloy, Treaties, Vol. IV, p.4861, and Great Britain, Treaty Series, 1924, No. 18.

22 Temperley, Vol. IV, pp. 339–45. For. Rels. of U. S., Paris Peace Conf. 1919, Vol. VI, pp. 78–91, and Vol. VIII, pp. 228-29. The Albanians preferred a United States mandate: Vol. XI, p. 423.

23 Malloy, Vol. V, p. 107.

24 The Free City proposal provided for the open door, minority rights, and a plebiscite at the end of fifteen years. It was to be “somewhat similar to the Saar Valley settlement” (Lloyd George), Vol. V, pp. 136, 218-19.

25 By the Treaty of Versailles (Art. 49) Germany renounced government of the Saar in favour of the League “in the capacity of Trustee.” Territorial adjustments without trusteeship features are of course characteristic of the major frontier zones, as in the classic case of Alsace-Lorraine. But an international regime may be an intermediate stage, as in the case of Alexandretta.

26 For. Rels. U. S., Paris Peace Conf. 1919, Vol. V, pp. 61; 66–70.

27 League of Nations Secretariat, Ten Years of World Coöperation, 1930, pp. 379–80.

28 A map showing United States claims to eighteen British and seven New Zealand islands was published in Newsweek, New York, on March 18, 1946.

29 Under the 99-year agreement of March 14, 1947, between the United States and the Philippines. The bases may be made available to the Security Council of the United Nations by agreement of the parties.

30 For. Rels. of U. S., Paris Peace Conference 1919, Vol. V, pp. 109, 127–28, 245.

30a Under the Yalta Agreements of February 11, 1945. These also provided for the joint operation of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway by a joint Soviet–Chinese Company—a sort of economic condominium. It was further agreed that: “the commercial port of Dairen shall be internationalized, the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded, and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base of the USSR restored” (UK Miscellaneous No. 6, 1947).

31 Since these words were written the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly has carried by 25 votes to 23, with 3 abstentions, a resolution expressing the hope that colonial powers would place under the international trusteeship system such of their territories as were not ready for self–government. The resolution was opposed by all the states (including the U. S. A.) which have supplied data on non–self–governing territories under Article 73 (e) and was defeated in the General Assembly.

32 The same considerations applied to proposals such as that advanced by the International Cooperative Alliance in June, 1947, for United Nations administration of the oil resources of the Middle East. The New York Times, June 27, 1947.