The Falklands/Malvinas islands, the Egalitarian Shared
Sovereignty and defense
The
latest posts on this series about TERRITORIAL DISPUTES centered the attention
on the Falkland/Malvinas islands. The last two posts introduced the EGALITARIAN
SHARED SOVEREIGNTY and some key elements related to the Falklands/Malvinas
respectively.
Today’s
post will cover defense:
- What would happen if another party with no part in the original conflict decided to invade the Falkland/Malvinas islands?
- In the hypothetical scenario that a fourth party decided to invade the Falkland/Malvinas islands, who would defend them?
The ways in which the situation may develop are as follows:
- both Argentina and the United Kingdom may remain neutral; consequently the new agent would take over the islands if the inhabitants were unable to defend themselves;
- one of the sovereign States may respond to the invasion and defend the islands;
- both Argentina and the United Kingdom may respond to the invasion and defend jointly or independently the islands.
At
the same time, States have the right and are obliged to defend their own
interests and their population. Consequently, any act of defense is fair and
just as long as it is a result of an illegitimate threat or attack. However, in
a TERRITORIAL DISPUTE, it seems difficult to determine the one who could/should
be defending the third territory in the event of an attack on what appears to
be a common interest for all the involved parties: the third territory.
In
addition to the way in which the parties would defend the third territory, there are two other crucial elements that
need to be agreed, even if joint defense was the case:
- the extent to which the burden can be made proportionate, with those with more of the appropriate resources taking the larger share (if they can be trusted not to turn their forces against the other two parties);
- and the extent to which one considers what combination of contributions will be the most efficient, using, e.g., both the local knowledge of the people in the territory, and the equipment best adapted to defending it.
Indeed, if they take on sovereignty, they must take on
the obligation to defend. However, how would Argentina, the Falkland/Malvinas
Islands and the United Kingdom share the defense?
The
egalitarian shared sovereignty addresses the three elements that seem to be
crucial in order to have shared defense:
- a) Resources;
- b) Training and opportunities;
- c) Safety of the other two parties (how to avoid misuse of power).
What does it mean if the agents have different level of development?
The differences in the case of defense are numerous—e.g. geostrategic location;
economic resources; level of military development; training and facilities;
number of troops; etc. A combination of contributions can make these
differences work together in an efficient form.
In
the Falkland/Malvinas Islands’ case, it will be highly probable that the
parties have a different level of development in terms of their respective defense
systems (input-to-output ratio principle). Then, the egalitarian shared
sovereignty can be fulfilled in two ways:
- a) following the most efficient combination in terms of contribution (principle of efficiency)—e.g. using both the local knowledge of the people in the territory (Falkland/Malvinas Islands), the geostrategic location (Argentina), and the equipment, resources and any means best adapted to defending it (the United Kingdom);
- b) the agent with the better comparative situation—in whatever aspect—may contribute in developing the other parties or granting them exclusive privileges (equilibrium proviso)—e.g. the United Kingdom could train Argentinean and Falkland/Malvinas troops in exchange for the use of locations in any of them.
It
is clear that the egalitarian shared sovereignty aims only to achieve the same
level of opportunity and development for all the involved parties so they are
able to defend the third territory (not the territory that is already part of
the sovereign States).
Thus, even if there were variations in the future in
terms of wealth status and defense development among the involved participants,
the reciprocal obligation would always be the same for all the agents, i.e. to
combine to produce the most efficient result. Brexit poses a strong question in
the United Kingdom’s future.
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 Falklands/Malvinas islands, the Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty and
natural resources
Tuesday 22nd October 2019
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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