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Land Feuds and Their Solutions: Finding International Law Beyond the Tribunal Chamber

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Steven R. Ratner
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Extract

The resolution of conflicting claims to land has long stood at the heart of the project of international law. Indeed, the encounter between the order envisaged by advocates of the law of nations and what Georges Scelle called the “obsession with territory” has been a defining struggle for our field, demonstrating to some its promise and to others its futility. Much, perhaps even most, legal scholarship on this subject over the last century has focused on adjudication by ad hoc tribunals or standing courts, in which jurists have derived and invoked hallowed principles that enabled them to draw lines—across mountains, deserts, rivers, and human settlements—where mere politicians had never succeeded. The doctrines on territorial sovereignty emanating from these decisions suggested a bright future for law. Yet a more pessimistic appraisal would see a darker image, one characterized by war—interstate, colonial, and civil—and territorial settlement whose lines have reflected power and politics, but surely not norms. Adjudications could be viewed as a sideshow for addressing small-scale conflicts, the results dictated more by a desire to appease both parties than by reasoning toward some principled solution.

Type
Centennial Essays
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 100 , Issue 4 , October 2006 , pp. 808 - 829
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2006

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References

* I greatly appreciate useful suggestions and corrections from Marcelo Kohen and Bruno Simraa.

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40 Schwarzenberger, supra note 29, at 312–23.

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47 Compare Cameroon v. Nigeria, supra note 39, at 474 (Koroma, J., dissenting), with id. at 506 (Mbaye, J., sep. op.); see also Rosalyn, Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and how we Use It 227 (1994)Google Scholar (condemning Court’s failure to articulate choices about desired ends in relying upon equity in continental shelf cases).

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56 Whiteman, supra note 54, §17, at 268, 270.

57 Id. at 263.

58 Treaty Concerning the Polish-Soviet State Frontier, Pol.-USSR, Aug. 16, 1945, 10 UNTS 193.

59 For AJIL Editorial Comments condemning the solution, see Woolsey, L. H., Poland at Yalta and Dumbarton Oaks, 39 AJIL 295 (1945)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herbert, Wright, Poland and the Crimea Conference, 39 AJIL 300.Google Scholar

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67 For an official statement, see Historical Foundations of the Moroccaniry of the Sahara (n.d.), at <http://www.mincom.gov.ma/english/reg_cit/regions/sahara/s_hist.htm (noting, regarding the Moroccan-organized assembly following Morocco’s 1975 Green March: “This way of consulting the population is in conformity with international law and international practice in the matter of decolonization.”).

68 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Aug. 12,1949, Art. 49(6), 6 UST 3516, 75 UNTS 287.

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81 See SC Res. 478 (Aug. 20, 1980). On the effect of the ICJ’s Wall advisory opinion on future negotiations over Jerusalem, see Moshe, Hirsch, The Legal Status of Jerusalem Following the LCJ Advisory Opinion on the Separation Barrier, 38 Isr. L. Rev. 298 (2005).Google Scholar

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87 The Aaland Islands Question: Report Submitted to the Council of the League of Nations by the Commission of Rapporteurs, League of Nations Doc. B7/21/68/106 (1921).

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100 Rep. Srpska v. Fed. Bosn. & Herz., 36 ILM 396,426, para. 87 (Arb. Trib. for Boundary in Brcko Area 1997) (stating that “relevant legal principles do not require the award of the area in dispute to one party or the other”).

101 Id. at 408-10, paras. 34–41; 427–28, para. 88.

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108 See supra note 80.

109 For the resolution, see supra note 94.

110 On authority signals and control intention, see W. Michael, Reisman, International Lawmaking: A Process of Communication, 75 ASIL Proc. 101, 110–11 (1981)Google Scholar; see also Milano, supra note 20, at 151–73.

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114 See the review of opinions in Sharma, supra note 12, at 21–30. It also might explain the greater promise of courts for resolving maritime disputes compared to land disputes.