scholarly journals France's Informal Empire in the Mediterranean, 1815–1830

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Dzavid Dzanic
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Tunisian Coast ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Informal Empire ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Analytical Category ◽  
The Military

Abstract Recent works on France's informal projection of power have begun remapping French imperialism during the nineteenth century. More studies in this vein could broaden our understanding of informal empire as an analytical category by decentring it from its roots in British imperial studies. This article argues that between 1815 and 1830, French diplomats remoulded the Regency of Tunisia into an informal imperial periphery. Although they lacked the military and economic leverage of their British counterparts, French consuls coerced the Tunisian rulers into submission by wielding threats and treaties. This strategy unfolded in three stages. First, the consuls used rumours of a possible invasion in order to impose a new vision of international law and dismantle the corsair system in the Regency. Second, they claimed French territorial sovereignty over a part of the Tunisian coast by appealing to the international legal norms enshrined in the existing treaties. And, third, the Tunisian ruler accepted most consular demands following the French invasion of Algeria in 1830. Tunisia's entrance into the French imperial orbit in turn led French diplomats to seek the establishment of French economic ascendency in Tunisia during the early 1830s.

Writing Sovereignty in Invisible Ink? Autochthonous Sovereignty and Territorial Appropriations in Nineteenth-Century Franco-African Treaties

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (02) ◽  
pp. 187-221
Author(s):  
Isabelle Surun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Colonial Authority ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Legal Frameworks

Abstract This article focuses on the modes of territorial appropriation that characterized the transition from the old to the new colonial regime, when Europeans built their empires in Africa. It analyzes the juridical construction of colonial territorialities based on a corpus of treaties concluded between agents of the French colonial authority and African chiefs, an instrument of legal appropriation that has to date been little explored by historians of international law. Studying the terminology used in these treaties reveals the instability of these categories and the uncertainty of European negotiators regarding the meaning of the legal frameworks they sought to impose on African chiefs. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, the protectorate emerged as the most common legal arrangement for regulating the sharing or transfer of sovereignty, based on a distinction between its external and internal dimensions. The consent of African chiefs to such arrangements therefore hung on whether they considered their territorial sovereignty to be divisible or indivisible.

Geographical Hegelianism in Territorial Disputes Involving Non-European Land Relations: An Analysis of the Case Concerning Kasikili/Sedudu Island (Botswana/Namibia)

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Thuo Gathii
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
Probative Value ◽  
European State ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Land Relations

This article reviews the case concerning Kasikili/Sedudu Island with reference to acquisition of title to territory under international law. It traces the ICJ's use of evidence of African use and occupation to establish territorial sovereignty in a European state. The tests adopted by the Court are based on Eurocentric assumptions that only the consent of European states is necessary to adjudicate nineteenth century claims of title to territory. International law still carries forward within it the colonial notion that treaties between colonial powers in the nineteenth century extinguished pre-existing title to territory based on African use and occupation. The decision gives probative value to economic intentions of colonizing powers and geographical and scientific evidence in determining title to the disputed island while Africa use and occupation of territory is sidelined. Africa is treated as an unconscious geographical entity – a feature referred to as geographical Hegelianism in this article.

Anglo-Portuguese Relations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Informal Empire, Arbitration, and the Durability of an Asymmetrical Alliance*

2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (575) ◽  
pp. 836-859
Author(s):  
Gabriel Paquette
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Informal Empire ◽  
Territorial Claims ◽  
The Rich

Abstract This article examines Anglo-Portuguese relations in the middle of the nineteenth century, particularly conflicts over territorial claims in West and East Africa. It examines how these conflicts were de-escalated and why they did not tear asunder the long-standing, if asymmetrical, alliance between Britain and Portugal. After briefly surveying Anglo-Portuguese relations in the early modern period and in the first half of the nineteenth century, the article focuses on the way that conflicts were resolved through third-party arbitration between the 1850s and 1870s. Drawing on archival research in Portugal and Britain, the article contributes to the rich historiographies on informal empire, the partition of Africa, and the emergence of international law in the context of imperial conflict and collaboration.

Making Human Rights a Reality

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
World Population ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
National Human ◽  
The World ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
National Human Rights Institutions

In the last six decades, one of the most striking developments in international law is the emergence of a massive body of legal norms and procedures aimed at protecting human rights. In many countries, though, there is little relationship between international law and the actual protection of human rights on the ground. This book takes a fresh look at why it's been so hard for international law to have much impact in parts of the world where human rights are most at risk. The book argues that more progress is possible if human rights promoters work strategically with the group of states that have dedicated resources to human rights protection. These human rights “stewards” can focus their resources on places where the tangible benefits to human rights are greatest. Success will require setting priorities as well as engaging local stakeholders such as nongovernmental organizations and national human rights institutions. To date, promoters of international human rights law have relied too heavily on setting universal goals and procedures and not enough on assessing what actually works and setting priorities. This book illustrates how, with a different strategy, human rights stewards can make international law more effective and also safeguard human rights for more of the world population.

Defensive Deterrence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yishai Beer
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Practical Problem ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
National Defense ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Defense Strategy ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
The Law ◽  
Compliance With The Law ◽  
The Military

This chapter deals with the lack of coherency between strategic reality—which uses deterrence as an essential strategic tool—and the prevailing law. Deterrence is a tool for enforcing compliance with the law; it promotes the containment of potential conflicts. It is pivotal in strategic thinking and, in many cases, an essential component of the national-defense strategy of law-abiding states. But although deterrence is central to the management of global security, in current international law deterrence considerations are perceived with suspicion and mistrust. It is perceived as an unlawful punitive measure. The lack of consensus on lawful deterrence, however, might create a vacuum that invites aggressors and transgressors. This chapter offers normative suggestions for introducing defensive deterrence and overcoming the practical problem of putting it into practice within the current contours of the law, by using the military professionalism criterion.

The Military Resources of the Empire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Morgan-Owen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Military Leadership ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Army ◽  
Naval Power ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Strategic Thought ◽  
The Military

Historians have argued that the British Army was afflicted with an insular focus on home defence in the late nineteenth century and that this preoccupation was evidence of the paucity of military strategic thought and the lack of co-operation and dialogue between the two services. This chapter challenges that viewpoint and argues that the military leadership was, in fact, consistently much more interested in preparing for operations overseas than it was in planning to prevent an invasion. The military authorities were only deflected from this aim by differences of opinion with the Admiralty on the application of naval power and on the Navy’s inability to commit to the safe passage of troops by sea, disagreements which obliged the War Office to limit the scope of its strategic discourse. This had significant implications for both military and imperial policy, particularly the defence of India.

The International Legal Personality of the Individual

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Individual ◽  
International Legal Personality ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This book scrutinizes the relationship between the concept of international legal personality as a theoretical construct and the position of the individual as a matter of positive international law. By testing four main theoretical conceptions of international legal personality against historical and existing international legal norms that govern individuals, the book argues that the common narrative about the development of the role of the individual in international law is flawed. Contrary to conventional wisdom, international law did not apply to States alone until the Second World War, only to transform during the second half of the twentieth century to include individuals as its subjects. Rather, the answer to the question of individual rights and obligations under international law is—and always was—solely contingent upon the interpretation of international legal norms. It follows, of course, that the entities governed by a particular norm tell us nothing about the legal system to which that norm belongs. Instead, the distinction between international and national legal norms turns exclusively on the nature of their respective sources. Against the background of these insights, the book shows how present-day international lawyers continue to allow an idea, which was never more than a scholarly invention of the nineteenth century, to influence the interpretation and application of contemporary international law. This state of affairs has significant real-world ramifications as international legal rights and obligations of individuals (and other non-State entities) are frequently applied more restrictively than interpretation without presumptions regarding ‘personality’ would merit.

Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Territorial States

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

Great Britain, International Law, and the Evolution of Maritime Strategic Thought, 1856–1914

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela A. Frei
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Maritime Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Maritime Strategy ◽  
Strategic Thought

The book addresses the interaction between international maritime law and maritime strategy in a historical context, arguing that both international law and maritime strategy are based on long-term state interests. Great Britain as the predominant sea power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shaped the relationship between international law and maritime strategy like no other power. The book explores how Great Britain used international maritime law as an instrument of foreign policy to protect its strategic and economic interests, and how maritime strategic thought evolved in parallel to the development of international legal norms. The book offers an analysis of British state practice as well as an examination of the efforts of the international community to codify international maritime law in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the predominant sea power and also the world’s largest carrier of goods, Great Britain had to balance its interests as both a belligerent and a neutral power. With the growing importance of international law in international politics, the book examines the role of international lawyers, strategists, and government officials who shaped state practice. Great Britain’s neutrality for most of the period between 1856 and 1914 influenced its state practice and its perceptions of a future maritime conflict. Yet, the codification of international maritime law at The Hague and London conferences at the beginning of the twentieth century demanded a reassessment of Great Britain’s legal position.

The Sino-Japanese War and the Collapse of the Qing and Confucian World Order in the Face of Japanese Imperialism and European Acquiescence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Sze-lok Leung ◽  
Bijun Xu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
East Asian ◽  
World Order ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Japanese Imperialism ◽  
The Face ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) has been perceived as a sign of a new East Asian power order, but the legitimacy of the war has yet to be clarified. The Japanese foreign minister Mutsu’s Kenkenroku shows that the reasons claimed by Japan were only pretexts for its ambition to put Korea under its control. The 1885 Convention of Tianjin, which was used to justify the Japanese behaviour, needs to be reinterpreted. The Chinese reaction can be understood by exploration into Confucianism, which opposed wars between equal peers. Meanwhile, the Western powers which invented and developed international law were self-interested and did little to prevent the war. The incident shows that international law, empowered by the strong states, failed to maintain peace efficiently in the late nineteenth century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document