Territorial conflicts and their international legal framework

Abstract

I. THE MEANING AND SCOPE OF TERRITORIAL CONFLICTSThe notion of 'territorial conflict' may embrace various kinds of disagreements. In its broad sense, it includes all types of disputes relating to territory. In this meaning, disputes as to ownership as well as to use of territory can be included in the notion of 'territorial conflict'. The latter includes potential trans-boundary environmental harm. For example, conflicts arising from the extraterritorial exercise of state competencies in foreign land could also be included within this large definition. Territorial conflicts occur because the world is essentially divided into states exercising their sovereignty over a given portion of it. The spatial division of the Earth into different areas and with different legal statuses is the product of human activity throughout history. Some of these areas are subject to the appropriation by states, but others, such as the high seas, are not. For the former, states may have sovereignty over them, although other legal regimes have also been applicable. The area in which sovereignty exists or may exist is essentially land and is generally referred to as 'territory'. As will be discussed later, the legal meaning of 'territory' includes other areas besides land. Disputes as to control over, or use of spaces may also refer to areas other than land, such as maritime areas, the airspace or the outer space. Conflicts may assume a variety of forms, the more extreme of them is war or, to use the precise current terminology, armed conflicts. Territorial change or control thereof has indeed been the source of most international conflicts in history. Conflicts may be the result of a divergence of views on the legal situation with regard to a given territory or the attempt by one of the parties to change the existing legal situation, hence the need to circumscribe clearly the scope of this Research Handbook. The following sections consequently propose definitional elements of the key notions: conflicts, territory and sovereignty. A. Conflicts and DisputesIn general, the terms 'conflicts' and 'disputes' are used indistinctively. As a matter of fact, even if the two concepts are intertwined, they are not synonyms. In his Agenda for Peace, the former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, while discussing preventive diplomacy, mentioned as one of its meanings the action 'to prevent existing disputes to escalate into conflicts'. 1 Disputes may essentially refer to 1

Organizing peace: an algorithmic analysis of four centuries of international law and the decline of war

“…Another important development from the second Hague Peace Conference was the Drago-Porter Convention. Argentine Foreign Minister Luis Drago, led a coalition of smaller states in creating and signing this agreement, which helped to expand and reinforce the growing consensus that the use of force should no longer be a permissible tool for debt collection, and that only through peaceful arbitration could states justly pursue their claims and seek compensation, though conquest was still permitted if the indebted state refused to accept terms of arbitration (Kohen & Hébié, 2018). This agreement and the establishment of the PCA would both help to further undermine the institution of war, especially in the case of economic issues (Tourinho, 2021).…”