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.

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.

A Deconstruction of the Notion of Acquisitive Prescription and Its Implications for the Diaoyu Islands Dispute

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-338
Author(s):  
Zuxing ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
China And Japan ◽  
Correct Understanding

“Acquisitive prescription” should be denied as a rule of international law governing the acquisition of territorial sovereignty. It is useless in practice and confusing in theory. Replacing it should be the concepts of “historical title” and “tacit agreement”, which would thus expand the traditional five modes for legally acquiring territory to six. This rearrangement would be useful for us to get a clear and correct understanding of this part of international law, and would thus enable international law to play a positive role in dealing with territorial disputes. It would also prevent, hopefully, an exacerbation of the Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan as caused by a misunderstanding of this part of international law.

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.

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.

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.

The International IP System: From Continuity to Resilience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
International Law ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
Multilateral System ◽  
Common Goals ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of

This chapter looks at how rule-relations within the international intellectual property (IP) system have developed from continuity (in constantly raising minimum standards) to resilience (against certain forms of increasing protection). It considers the evolution of the international IP system from the nineteenth century onwards, examining how each succeeding changes and additions to the system had established a relationship of continuity which integrates existing standards and adds new ones. The chapter then turns to the emergence of another revolutionary change. The integral nature of the common goals established in TRIPS’ object and purpose creates a form of ‘resilience’ of the multilateral system over attempts for inter-se modifications. Moreover, international law has appropriate tools so that those charged with applying, implementing, and interpreting multilateral IP norms can give effect to this resilience both in relations of interpretation and relations of conflict.

Perspectives canadiennes de droit international public et privé relatives à la maîtrise du territoire

1991 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 29-116
Author(s):  
Gerald Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
Real Property ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
Droit International

SummaryState sovereignty manifests itself through all the powers a state exercises over its territory: it is one of the basic components of sovereignty according to international law. Sovereign power involves controlling territory with a degree of efficiency sufficient to prove the existence of the state. But according to some, state sovereignty has now become less and less a matter of territorial control, and international law is now witnessing an erosion of the significance of territory. While the author admits the plausibility of this opinion when applied to states belonging to closely linked economic unions as the EEC, he challenges this statement when applied to Canada, even given the framework of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. In Part I, this article gives a full account of the Canadian positions dealing with legally valid acquisition of territories through effective control and other means. It points out how Canada has been coherently committed to protect its territorial sovereignty in all the border and territorial disputes in which it was and is still involved. It explores how this country deliberately also committed itself to effectively controlling its vast terrestrial, aerial, and maritime territories.From this perspective, the author exposes in Part II the rather protective Canadian legal attitude when dealing with private international interests in Canada: how foreign investors are selectively allowed to own, control, possess, or otherwise acquire an interest in any part of Canadian land or real property through specific substantial rules or conflict of law rules; how Canadian federal and provincial laws deal with expropriating foreign-owned property or with foreign judgments affecting the same. In the view of the author, all these territorialist features strongly convey the idea that Canada still attributes a prime role to securing close control over its territory within its global policy of sovereignty and independence.

‘Our passion for legality’: international law and imperialism in late nineteenth-century Britain

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
CASPER SYLVEST
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Congo Free State

AbstractThis article deploys a historical analysis of the relationship between law and imperialism to highlight questions about the character and role of international law in global politics. The involvement of two British international lawyers in practices of imperialism in Africa during the late nineteenth century is critically examined: the role of Travers Twiss (1809–1897) in the creation of the Congo Free State and John Westlake’s (1828–1913) support for the South African War. The analysis demonstrates the inescapably political character of international law and the dangers that follow from fusing a particular form of liberal moralism with notions of legal hierarchy. The historical cases raise ethico-political questions, the importance of which is only heightened by the character of contemporary world politics and the attention accorded to international law in recent years.

Do International Organizations Enjoy Immunity Under Customary International Law?

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
General Practice ◽  
International Law ◽  
Present Article ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Domestic Courts

The present article considers whether there is “a general practice accepted as law” establishing rules of customary international law on the immunity of international organizations from the jurisdiction of domestic courts. Apart from treaties, there does not appear to be a great deal of practice or opinio juris on the immunity of international organizations. And while there are many treaties dealing with the matter, their significance for the generation of a rule of customary international law seems questionable. This article sketches the historical development of the immunity of international organizations since the nineteenth century, describes various approaches that have been suggested to this question, and sets out such practice as there is and academic consideration of that practice. It then considers whether practice has to date generated any rules of customary international law regarding immunities, and finally suggests some conclusions.

The Historical Development of the Application of Humanitarian Law in Non-International Armed Conflicts to 1949

1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Moir
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Similar Magnitude ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

That humanitarian rules were applicable in armed conflicts was accepted long before the nineteenth century, but the fact that non-international armed conflicts were regarded as beyond the ambit of international regulation meant that the application of such norms to internal armed conflicts was certainly not a matter of course. Towards the end of the eighteenth century there had been a move towards the application of the laws of warfare to non-international armed conflicts as well as international conflicts, but this was based on the character of the conflicts and the fact that both were often of a similar magnitude, rather than any humanitarian concern to treat the victims of both equally. Not until the nineteenth century did the application of the laws of war to non-international armed conflicts become a widespread issue in international law.

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