Boundary Disputes
Boundary disputes refer to disagreements or conflicts between two or more entities over the demarcation of their territorial limits. These disputes can arise due to historical, political, or geographical reasons and often involve negotiations, legal processes, or even diplomatic interventions to reach a resolution. They are a significant aspect of geopolitics and can impact international relations and regional stability.
8 Key excerpts on "Boundary Disputes"
eBook - ePub- J. R. V. Prescott(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...4 International Boundary Disputes The relations between modern states reach their most critical stage in the form of problems relating to territory. Boundary Disputes, conflicting claims to newly discovered lands, and invasions by expanding nations into the territory of their weaker neighbours have been conspicuous among the causes of war. (Hill 1976, p. 3) Boundary Disputes have long been a popular subject for research among political geographers, lawyers, political scientists, and historians. Their research has a refreshing topicality and often results in governments making available information which would otherwise have remained buried in correspondence files and secret reports. This chapter begins by describing the aspects of Boundary Disputes on which geographers can profitably concentrate and provides an example of the logical arrangement of those aspects in the analysis of Boundary Disputes. The next section describes four types of Boundary Disputes and each type is then examined separately. The rôle of maps in Boundary Disputes is then considered and, finally, the main points of this chapter are summarized in the conclusion. Aspects of Boundary Disputes Geographers are not alone in studying Boundary Disputes; they have also been a profitable field of research for other scholars. For example, Hsu (1965) published a detailed historical account of the boundary dispute between China and Russia in the Ili Valley between 1871 and 1881; Johnson (1966) prepared an interesting account of the legal aspects of the dispute over the Columbia River between the United States and Canada; and Touval (1966) presented a useful study of the boundary dispute between Morocco and Algeria from the viewpoint of a political scientist. However, the facility of geographers with maps and their understanding of regional characteristics have given them an advantage in such studies...
eBook - ePub- Rongxing Guo(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Elsevier(Publisher)
...Chapter 11 Territorial Disputes and Cross-Border Management Abstract A special kind of cross-border areas, disputed areas refer to as territories over which two or more countries or groups of people claim sovereignty. Boundary and territorial disputes often stem from material claims or the fundamental changes in domestic and international environments, sometimes they may also emerge as a result of cultural differences. In certain circumstances, boundary and territorial disputes may even evolve into geopolitical games of big-power rivalry and competition. In this chapter, four types of common errors and intricacies in boundary description are found to have easily led to boundary and territorial disputes, and five factors (resource scarcity, locational feature, domestic politics, geopolitical competition and cultural difference) and how they have decisively influenced cross-border tensions in disputed territories will be analyzed. The recent developments in the South China Sea and the Arctic are also included in this chapter. Keywords Boundary demarcation; territorial dispute; cross-border tension; geopolitics; cultural difference; South China Sea; Arctic 11.1 What Are Bad Boundaries? Boundaries are politically sensitive issue, especially when one or more countries or groups of people concerned adopt a confrontational strategy. Inappropriate boundary demarcation has usually led to territorial disputes, issues that have encompassed the major content of troubled relations between many neighbouring nations. If governments or people have a stake in a disputed area then they are very sensitive about how this area is portrayed in maps. Documents on boundary description may be used by diplomats, lawyers, surveyors, cartographers and field engineers. In most cases it is difficult to say what constitute a good or bad international boundary...
eBook - ePubChina's Approach Towards Territorial Disputes: Lessons and Prospects
Lessons and Prospects
- Sana Hashmi(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- KW Publishers(Publisher)
...Most of these conflicts are also a result of global geo-political changes in the recent past. 7 However, just as conflicts are natural among the states over the extent of expanse and control over the territory, so are boundary dispute resolutions. It is important to note that “boundaries must be drawn so as to include all of the territory of the sovereign state. The purpose of a boundary is. . . to mark in no unmistakable manner the limit of the territory in which the state exercises its sovereign power with all the trappings which that exercise carries with it.” 8 Living together peacefully is not a choice but a compulsion for states to survive. Therefore, sovereign states have learned to coexist through centuries. A boundary dispute resolution mechanism involves three steps, namely: Defining the boundary; Delimitation of the boundary; and Demarcation of the boundary. That there would be differences in perception with respect to a disputed territory or a line of control between two states is an established fact, witnessed without exception. It is in this context that the first step towards boundary dispute resolution is considered as defining the disputed boundary by the governments of the states involved in the dispute, in order to have a mutually agreeable boundary between them. The second step in the process is delimitation of the disputed boundary. This step commences when the states in disagreement agree to divide the boundary that was defined through mutual agreement. A. Henry McMahon defines delimitation as “determining a boundary line by a treaty or otherwise, and its definition in written, verbal terms”. 9 Demarcation is the third and the final step in the boundary dispute resolution process...
eBook - ePub- Gideon Biger(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...To the militia, the border is the initial area in need of defence, and the place from which every offence starts, which is why the border is a target of military action in itself. These practical people see the boundary as a subject for routine occupation. On the contrary, historians, geographers and political scientists, see the boundary as an academic issue rather than a practical one. 2 The political scientist sees the boundary as the defined limit of the state, and is interested in the criteria for its formation. Historians deal with the boundary’s role in causing confrontations, and permitting contact and processes to occur, alongside with its appearance as resulting from their outcome. The historian deals with the development of the boundary, and the political scientist with its nature. Geographers are interested in boundaries for two reasons, whether they are dealing with the process of its development as historians, or dealing with its nature as a political scientist. The positioning and the nature of every borderline result from mutual relations between many factors, which are partially geographic. Nevertheless – after a border has been set, it influences the surrounding landscape and the development of the separated states. These two subjects are the scope of geographical research. 3 Boundary classification Geographic research on the subject of boundaries focuses on the shape and functioning of borderlines, and on the process of their development. Classification of boundaries according to their shape and nature was done according to how their location relates to physical or cultural phenomena on the surface. The most familiar classification is the division of boundaries into ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ ones. British statesman Lord Curzon presented this classification in 1907...
eBook - ePubThe Israel-Palestine Conflict
Parallel Discourses
- Elizabeth Matthews, Elizabeth Matthews(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Territory provides the compartment within which much ethnic conflict occurs, often spilling over the border into neighbouring territories and spaces as ethnic and national groups attempt to change the existing territorial– demographic ratios in their own favour. During the past decade alone, we have witnessed the impact of ethno-territorial conflicts throughout the Balkans, in many parts of Africa, in Sri Lanka and, as almost a constant on the face of the world political map, in Israel–Palestine. In some cases, it has been the superficially imposed territorial configuration of past colonial periods which has been responsible for the conflict, given the mismatch between border location and ethnic/national dispersion; while in other cases territory has become the means through which the resolution of existing ethno-national conflicts is attempted. At the tangible level, territorial configurations can be moulded by conflict participants as a means of conflict management. Pieces of territory can be bartered and exchanged as a means of achieving conflict resolution. At the symbolic level, territory is so imbued with notions of attachment, affiliation and identity that it is seen as constituting an intangible good which can never be reshaped or divided. Studies in conflict resolution have shown that the intangible and symbolic factors are the most difficult to resolve between belligerents. This is as true of territorial factors as it is of other political conflict characteristics. When territory is presented as a discourse about tangible goods, it can be resolved through a process of quantification, bartering and exchange, resulting in the contraction or expansion of state territory. Settlements can be dismantled, compensation can be offered to refugees, borders can be relocated, and territorial parcels can be offered in exchange for territory annexed by the other side...
eBook - ePubSpatialising Peace and Conflict
Mapping the Production of Places, Sites and Scales of Violence
- Annika Bjorkdahl, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Annika Bjorkdahl, Susanne Buckley-Zistel(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...Quantitative studies on the causes of interstate wars emphasize the importance of territorial aspects (notably Boundary Disputes) as the most conflicting among all contentious issues (Vasquez 2009). Here, both the understanding of geography and the twin concept of opportunity and willingness (Most and Starr 1980) are oriented towards the relatively static notion of boundaries as central to methodological nationalism. At present, most quantitative empirical studies of the field operate in a territorial container, though, when focusing on correlations between physical variables such as topography, infrastructure, borders or proximity and conflict. In other words, most studies are based on an understanding of geography that restricts space to allegedly fixed material factors, such as the availability of resources or physical demarcation (bordering) in order to explain and predict armed conflict. One central argument holds that the dynamics of armed conflict are conditioned by the location of and distance to political, natural or other resources – for instance, when arguing that in strong regimes, civil wars are located further away from the capital (Buhaug 2010), or that conflicts last longer if they are located along remote international borders, in regions with valuable minerals or at a distance from the main government (Buhaug et al. 2009). Other studies show that the existence, concentration and type of natural resources impacts on the occurrence of civil war. In this reading, diamonds and oil have highly significant effects, while agricultural goods are hardly significant at all (Fearon 2005; Lujala et al. 2005; Ross 2004). Moreover, centralized resources, such as petroleum or easily accessible mines, are considerably easier to monitor and protect than geographically dispersed resources, such as opium plantations, alluvial diamonds or tropical forests (Le Billon 2001)...
eBook - ePubDe Facto States and Land-for-Peace Agreements
Territory and Recognition at Odds?
- Eiki Berg, Shpend Kursani(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Likewise, the parent states are reluctant to settle for an agreement with a risk of losing indefinite control over the issue of separateness and prefer to keep the unrealistic option of status quo ante open (Berg 2006). Thus, uncompromising contestation over statehood and sovereignty brings inevitably sooner or later to the fruition of partition on the ground—separation between a parent state and a de facto state. Instead of grasping geography of peace comprehensively—understanding the spatial conditions whereby ‘peace in its fullest senses is lived, created, sustained, and struggled for’ (Megoran 2011, 187)—we are determined to seek out different kinds of imaginative solutions to conflicts while revisiting traditional topics such as partition, territorial adjustments, and border corrections in non-traditional settings: unresolved disputes between ‘parenthood’ and ‘offspring’. Just like Stanley Waterman who drives inspiration from human relationships. In his words: partitions are political geography’s equivalent of marital breakdown and divorce. And, like separation and divorce, they need to be regarded as integral to the life of the international community because they represent failures—of situations in which groups of people with differing and opposing, and often mutually hostile, world views and interests have been thrown together and instructed to get along, often by people who would not contemplate such solutions for themselves or their friends. (2006, 3) Territorial partitions If territoriality and sovereignty are at the core of the protracted conflicts, a conflict settlement formula can be based either on an agreed partition of the territory between the disputants or on a political framework that would allow them to share it. Such a formula of peace—itself an outcome of available resources, existing structures, and political decisions—can have important implications for its stability and endurance (Berg and Ben‐Porat 2008, 32)...
eBook - ePubGlobal Politics
A New Introduction
- Jenny Edkins, Maja Zehfuss, Jenny Edkins, Maja Zehfuss(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Space is viewed as being subdivided into components whose boundaries are ‘objectively’ determined through the mathematical and astronomically based techniques of surveying and cartography. (Soja 1971: 9) One of the key techniques is in the practice of actually making boundaries, and the process of taking this from the map to the land. In political geography there is usually a three-stage process of boundary making outlined Allocation, which sets the general shape, making use of straight lines, coordinates of latitude/longitude, and depiction on a map. Delimitation, which involves the selection of specific boundary sites on the ground. Demarcation, where the boundary is marked by pillars, cleared vistas, fences, etc. (Jones 1945). Box 11.5 Geometric Territorial Division Examples of these kinds of geometric territorial division include The western boundary between the USA and Canada, which runs along the 49th parallel of latitude. Compare this to the eastern boundary between the states, established much earlier between colonial possessions of the British. The surveying of the Mason–Dixon line in the 1760s, which was to settle a boundary dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania when they were both British colonies. The line runs at approximately 39° 43¢ 20¢¢. The rectangular land survey of the lands of the United States west of the Mississippi in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leading to the geometric shape of many of the western states...
