Territorial disputes: Falkland/Malvinas islands (Part 5) [Post 25]

The Falkland/Malvinas islands and the Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty

Time to solve the TERRITORIAL DISPUTE over the Falkland/Malvinas islands. The last four posts introduced very briefly the background situation of this TERRITORIAL DISPUTE.

Territory, in principle, can be defined as an area owned and possessed by the population (in land, water, space and, perhaps, cyberspace). Like population, it may have features that could cause controversy in TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. 

Some of the features that constitute territory will be reviewed using the Falkland/Malvinas islands conflict as an example. Those that introduce controversy will be analysed using the model proposed here. Next time we centre the attention on borders, natural resources and defence.

Let us remember the way in why this series propose to deal with TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. 

The allocation of sovereignty will be given by: 

• equal right to participate (egalitarian consensus principle); 
• the nature and degree of participation depends on efficiency of accomplishing the particular objective/area/activity at issue (principle of efficiency); 
• each party receives a benefit (in terms of rights and opportunities) that depends on what that party cooperates with (input-to-output ratio principle); and 
• provided the party with greater ability and therefore greater initial participation rights has the obligation to bring the other two parties towards equilibrium (equilibrium proviso). 

I call this way of dealing with sovereignty conflicts or disputes the EGALITARIAN SHARED SOVEREIGNTY.

Many questions are to be expected. Amongst them: 

• How is that translated into geographical borders between the Falkland/Malvinas islands and Argentina? 
• What about the exploration and exploitation of natural resources? This question has two parts: a) the sea-zone surrounding the Falkland/Malvinas islands only; and b) the portion of Argentina’s sea-zone that overlaps with the Falkland/Malvinas. 
• Finally, in the hypothetical scenario that a party alien to the original dispute decided to invade the Falkland/Malvinas islands, who would defend them?

The next posts on this blog series about TERRITORIAL DISPUTES will cover these questions.

NOTE: This post is based on Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty: International Law and Politics,” London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2020 (forthcoming)

Previous published research monograph about territorial disputes and sovereignty by the author, Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue,” London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017.

NEXT POST: The Falkland/Malvinas islands, the Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty and borders, defense and natural resources

Friday 18th October 2019

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @London1701

https://drjorge.world