Crimea and the “egalitarian
shared sovereignty”
The question at issue now is
to decide, by respecting these two pre-requisites, how to share sovereignty. Ergo, the issue is what would constitute a reasonable allocation of sovereignty
over the third territory amongst sovereign States A and B and the third
territory C as equal claimants—i.e. Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea, whose equality
of claim is in no way affected by whatever other situation they already have;
and that allocation has a target: the third territory (Crimea) and all that it
implies in terms of rights and obligations.
By acknowledging the
circumstances in sovereignty conflicts, that is, different agents and an ample
concept such as sovereignty, and the way in which the original position has
been set up, a revised principle may offer comparable advantages that may make
it a reasonable option.
Firstly, we must remind us
of the fact that the representatives of the three parties are behind the veil
of ignorance as characterized before in this paper. Hence, they are deprived of
knowledge in regard to which party they represent.
It is reasonable for them
and likely to agree that each party has a right to participate in each aspect
of sovereignty, regardless of their particular circumstances, i.e. their
development or ability, because no one would want to be left out. In other
words, they would agree that ideally, they would have ‘equal’ shares of
sovereignty over the third territory, which means that the three claimants
would have equal standing or status.
Therein, all three parties
would have a right to participate and the decision-making process in each case
would be subject to egalitarian consensus: all the three parties should be
granted an equal input into the decision-making process. They all have the
opportunity to present, and amend proposals in relation to every aspect of the
sovereignty of the third territory.
A second point has to do
with factual circumstances. The representatives would acknowledge that it would
be hard to see how after lifting the veil of ignorance all the three parties
had the same relative situations such as economic development, defense system,
means for exploitation of natural resources, law, and so on.
It is reasonable to think
that the representatives would agree that the degree of each party’s
participation would vary according to each party’s ability to contribute. As
per the previous paragraph, it is also reasonable to suppose that each party
would as well have an interest in each aspect of sovereignty. Therefore, and
bearing in mind these two circumstances—equal right to participate and
different ability to contribute—it is reasonable to maintain that each party
would have an interest in each aspect of sovereignty being handled in the most
efficient manner.
A third point would be to
determine the level of input and output of each party with regard to each
objective/area/activity related to the sovereignty over the third territory. In
principle, the representatives may think of distributing what benefits or
rights each party would enjoy depending on the level of contribution that the
party makes. Indeed, they acknowledge that some parties will be able to make a
bigger or larger input than others. However, an immediate problem arises.
The representatives would
realize that by making the output dependant on the level of each party’s input
this could result in a subterfuge for domination. That is to say, the better
off party contributing more towards one or more areas and therefore securing a
larger stake while the other two parties were unable to make the same level of
contribution that would be translated in an ad eternum share of
benefits.
Tomorrow the post will refer
to a proviso to avoid this kind of potential form of domination or imposition.
NOTE:
This post is based on Jorge Emilio Núñez, Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty.
International Law and Politics (Routledge 2020).
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: Crimea, negotiations and a proviso
Monday 9th March 2020
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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