Khemed,
Syldavia and Borduria are having negotiations about the sovereignty over
Khemed. Having accepted the rule of maximin they are going to share
sovereignty. So far, we know WHO will be part of the negotiations: Khemed,
Syldavia and Borduria; WHY they are part of the negotiations: because each of
them has a colourable claim; and WHAT they are going to do with the allocation
of sovereignty: they are going to share sovereignty by application of maximin. The
representatives are now discussing HOW these shares will be decided. To do
this, the representatives of each population (Khemed, Syldavia and Borduria)
are reviewing a series of possible options in order to make a decision about
how to share the sovereignty over Khemed.
The first
option all the representatives revised and rejected was historical entitlement.
That is to say, what would be fairer that grant the sovereignty (or the largest
share of sovereignty) to the party whom was in that land first? What would be
fairer than to give to someone what is due to him? However simple at first, the
representatives have realised this approach will not settle the question and
will only bring controversy.
The second
option the representatives considered had to do with what kind of choice, if
any, might be best for one of the parties that is originally in a comparatively
bad situation (Khemed) and if so, if that would justify leave the other two
with smaller shares. They rejected this option. That is because the agreement
should offer such a solution that not only is in the best interest of just one
of the parties but somehow includes those of all the claimants.
The previous
post introduced another possibility. They are now reviewing a third option: what
if they shared the sovereignty over Khemed in different portions? Different from
the option considered before in which only one of the parties had to be
protected, this choice considered the case all the parties would have a share
of sovereignty but the shares would be different.
We have
already seen some problems with this third option. Let us consider this choice
in more detail. There are many potential pitfalls:
a) Sovereignty is a complex concept that
has different levels and areas. Sovereignty may refer to human rights but it
may as well refer to natural resources, defence, religion, territory, people,
government, only to name a few. It remains unclear which criterion the
representatives might choose in order to determine the size and nature of each
share of sovereignty. For example, the shares of sovereignty could be
differently divided taking into account the size of the population, the size of
the territory, the level of development, the fact that the rare natural
resource is in that land, etc. That would mean that depending on the criterion
of choice the size of the share would be different.
In
our story, Syldavia is largely populated but had a smaller territory than
Borduria (only to think of two of the many elements the representatives could
use for the comparison). On the contrary, Borduria is not densely populated but
has the largest of the three territories. If the representatives decided the
size of the shares of sovereignty over Khemed based on territorial extension it
is clear that Borduria would have the largest share. However, if the size of
the population was the defining criterion, Syldavia would result in the party
with the largest share of sovereignty over Khemed.
It
is at least difficult to see how or why one criterion would be chosen over any
other criterion, in particular if the criterion benefited only one of the three
claiming parties.
b) A problem related to the one just
mentioned is that most of these issues are factual and will change over time.
That is to say, even if the representatives agreed on, for example, the size of
the population to determine the size of the sovereignty share, the size of the
population will not remain the same over time. On our story, Syldavia is
densely populated; Borduria is not. But it may be the case in the future that
the population in Syldavia declined in number while Borduria has an opposite
experience. Would that change the size of the share of sovereignty in the
future?
c) We tend to think of sovereignty in
terms of rights. But what about obligations? To a larger share of rights over
Khemed should the benefited party have more obligations than the other two? If,
for example, Khemed received 50% of the sovereignty over its territory, would
that mean that Khemed had the 50% obligation to explore and exploit the rare
natural resource? Or to defend it? It is a fact, according to our story,
neither Khemed can explore and exploit the natural resource nor defend it.
In brief, the
representatives are considering a third option to distribute the sovereignty
over Khemed amongst Khemed, Syldavia and Borduria. By taking this option the
complications are numerous: a) it is problematic to determine which party would
receive the largest share, and there would always be two parties which would be
left with a smaller portions, in different ways; b) different parties will be
different in many senses (size of the population, size of the territory, level
of development, defence power, human rights, and many others); c) sovereignty is
a complex concept that implies rights as well as obligations in many different
areas; d) the feature that the representatives might choose as a criterion to
differentiate the shares could change over time; and d) why would any of the
parties be motivated to let everything work to the advantage only one of them?
The next posts
will examine in detail a fourth possible option: whether the shares of
sovereignty should be equally divided amongst Khemed, Syldavia and Borduria. This
choice will undoubtedly open the arguments to questions related to how we can
secure equal shares of, for example, objects or activities that cannot be
divided. Similarly, how the representatives may define what “equal” means? And
finally, how unequal parties may be treated equally? But these and more
questions will be reviewed in detail next time.
Jorge Emilio
Núñez
03rd November
2017
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