Government and law in the context of the
Israel-Palestine difference
This series introduces TERRITORIAL DISPUTES and attempts to solve them
as a matter of ideal theory. That means we conduct a theoretical experiment to
evaluate what reasonable people would decide given some facts. When we
addressed Kashmir, we centered the attention on population (religion,
ethnicity, etc.). When it was the time to deal with the Falkland/Malvinas
islands, we focused on territory (borders, natural resources, etc.). In turn,
with Gibraltar, the analysis was about government and law.
The Israel-Palestine difference if the first case study in this series
to introduce all the elements by means of applying the EGALITARIAN SHARED
SOVEREIGNTY. So far, we have covered population and territory. It is time to
address government and law. By considering government and law, we complete the
assessment of our current understanding in legal and political sciences of a
“sovereign state.”
Government
can be defined as a person, group of people or body that create and apply the
law for the population in a given territory. Together with population and
territory, it completes the necessary elements that constitute a minimal
political and societal organization.
Government
offers some controversial features in any TERRITORIAL DISPUTE. The following
posts will review some of these features using the Israel-Palestine difference
to show their implications. The focus will be only on the specificities about
power share. The main reason to proceed this way is that power sharing has many
different implications, and amongst other sub-elements law.
Government and law
The
globe offers a wide spectrum of examples in which although the form of
government differs, in all cases they are still States. There is no
controversial feature at this point. In the particular context of this
TERRITORIAL DISPUTE (Gibraltar), this sub-element does not offer controversy
either. However, other sub-elements part of any government may not be so
straightforward.
If
sovereignty is not shared, then it is clear who elects representatives and
chooses them (the inhabitants if the territory is independent or the
inhabitants as part of a sovereign State). What happens when sovereignty is
shared? Then, there are two different issues: a) representatives and
administration; and b) law. It follows from this that the two most challenging practical issues raised by shared sovereignty in
relation to government seem to be:
- What sort of governmental arrangements shared sovereignty requires; and
- How governmental authority can be shared and yet be workable.
In order to work out the principles of the
EGALITARIAN SHARED SOVEREIGNTY through these authorities and institutions in
Israel-Palestine, it seems reasonable to think of either granting
participation in all the institutions to every claiming party or to divide the
institutions amongst them (Israel and Palestine). In other words, the two ways in which sovereignty may be
shared, in principle, are:
- The relevant parties are all members of an institution that possesses some form of sovereignty (for example, legislative sovereignty). They “share in” sovereignty by participating in its exercise. For example, they are all members of the legislature. This form of shared sovereignty does not divide sovereignty itself (the sovereignty of the institution remains undivided).
- The relevant parties divide sovereignty amongst them; i.e. they “share out” sovereignty. They might do so by each having sovereignty over a different sphere. Alternatively, they might have overlapping authorities or identical authorities.
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 Israel-Palestine difference: How
governmental authority can be shared and yet be workable
Tuesday 28th January 2020
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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