LIBRO [Vista Previa]: Conflictos de Soberanía y Derecho y Política Internacional: Un Problema de Justicia Distributiva (Capítulo Uno)

 

Conflictos de Soberanía y Derecho y Política Internacional:

Un Problema de Justicia Distributiva

Por

Jorge E. Núñez

Capítulo Uno: Conflictos de soberanía como dilemas de justicia distributiva

Podría decirse que es un truismo en derecho y política internacional que un territorio con población posee solamente un soberano final, con un vínculo legal común o un sistema de normas. ¿Qué sucedería si ese territorio y población tuvieran dos soberanos últimos y jerárquicamente iguales (legalmente hablando) y, al mismo tiempo, dos conjuntos válidos de normas?[1] ¿Sería posible, por ejemplo, que Israel y Palestina tuvieran autoridad soberana al mismo tiempo sobre Jerusalén? ¿Sería posible que Argentina y el Reino Unido fueran al mismo tiempo soberanos sobre el territorio y la población de las Islas Falkland/Malvinas? Si la respuesta fuera positiva, ¿cuáles serían las consecuencias en términos de territorio, población, gobierno y derecho?

Existen muchos casos que pueden caracterizarse como conflictos de soberanía en los cuales los agentes internacionales (a saber, dos Estados soberanos y la población del tercer territorio en disputa) reclaman derechos soberanos por diferentes motivos sobre el mismo territorio. Además, estos conflictos tienen una característica particular: su solución parece requerir una relación mutuamente excluyente entre los agentes porque se piensa que la soberanía sobre el tercer territorio puede ser otorgada solamente a uno de ellos. De hecho, la soberanía se considera a menudo como un concepto absoluto, es decir, exclusivo, y no compartible.[2]

A la luz de esta obsesión por lo absoluto y el rechazo de la soberanía compartida, las disputas de larga data continúan presentes en todo el mundo como un juego de suma cero[3], con muchos resultados negativos de diferentes tipos (por ejemplo, lucha social, malos gobiernos, explotación ineficiente de recursos naturales, tensión en las relaciones internacionales y amenaza a la paz local e internacional). Por lo tanto, aunque estos conflictos se limitan en principio a áreas específicas y comienzan con consecuencias negativas principalmente para la población local, tienden a expandirse rápidamente a nivel regional e incluso internacional (por ejemplo, los efectos sobre el precio internacional del petróleo, el tráfico de armas, terrorismo, guerra).

Las relaciones internacionales y la literatura académica legal y política ofrecen varios remedios potenciales que podrían ser utilizados para resolver el problema. Éstos incluyen independencia, autodeterminación y asociación libre, por nombrar algunos. Aunque estos remedios son útiles en ciertos conflictos, son inútiles en muchos otros. Por lo tanto, estos conflictos permanecen sin resolver y en un limbo legal y político.

El desafío es presentar a los agentes una solución que pueda reconocer sus demandas individuales sin desconocer las de sus contrapartes. A pesar de ser deseable, tal solución puede parecer utópica. Estas páginas proponen observar estos conflictos desde una perspectiva diferente pero amplia en lugar de conflictos entre derechos independientes y separados.[4] Por lo tanto, esta publicación examina el problema como una cuestión de justicia distributiva[5] mediante la aplicación de la metodología rawlsiana.[6] Esto se debe a que la metodología rawlsiana es una herramienta particularmente apropiada para abordar cuestiones de soberanía, tal como se ha aplicado anteriormente en la asignación de derechos y obligaciones en otras instituciones sociales.[7] Como consecuencia, revisar las diferentes teorías (por ejemplo, “primero en llegar, primero en ser atendido”, justa adquisición, el principio de igualdad) puede ayudar a resolver el problema. El objetivo es explorar si una solución que ciertamente es deseable también se puede lograr y puede ofrecer una forma pacífica de resolver conflictos de soberanía mediante el uso de principios de justicia distributiva.

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[1] Las posibilidades en el caso de una empresa conjunta en términos de derecho pueden ser numerosas (por ejemplo, podría ser un conjunto de normas válidas e independientes para ese territorio o un tercer sistema, podría ser una combinación de los dos sistemas o estar anclado a ambos o solamente a uno de los Estados soberanos, podría ser el sistema de uno de los demandantes pero administrado conjuntamente).

[2] El concepto de soberanía del Estado ha provocado y todavía está vinculado a un debate ferviente. Para una idea de la discusión, ver Robert Jackson, ed., Sovereignty at the Millennium (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). Para una visión ecléctica del tema, ver Neil MacCormick, Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State, and Nation in the European Commonwealth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) y Neil MacCormick, “Beyond the Sovereign State,” The Modern Law Review 56 (1993): 1-18.

[3] En el contexto de esta obra, la expresión “juego de suma cero” se refiere a la situación en la que las ganancias o pérdidas de un participante en un conflicto soberano se equilibran con las ganancias o pérdidas de sus pares en la disputa. Dado que tanto los derechos como las cargas de los Estados soberanos sobre el tercer territorio todavía están en discusión, no pueden ponerlos en práctica (al menos por completo) lo que se traduce en que los Estados soberanos no pueden hacer uso de los derechos que reclaman sobre el tercer territorio.

[4] La soberanía se puede ver como: a) un todo: un derecho único o prerrogativa para gobernar un determinado territorio, su población respectiva y para crear y aplicar derecho; b) derechos individuales: varios sub-derechos divisibles dependiendo del tema (territorio, población, gobierno y derecho). Para el propósito de este proyecto, ver la soberanía como una totalidad o un grupo de derechos o estos mismos derechos en su individualidad no afecta su esencia. El hecho que estos derechos se puedan compartir entre varios sujetos internacionales y la forma de hacerlo es, por el contrario, lo que define esta propuesta. Para un extenso análisis del concepto de soberanía, véase Harold J. Laski, The Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1921); John Hoffman, Sovereignty (Open University Press, 1998); y muchos otros.

[5] Las cuestiones de justicia distributiva son aquellas que tienen que ver con la asignación de beneficios y cargas en relación con la riqueza y el ingreso. Ver John E. Roemer, Theories of Distributive Justice (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1996); Samuel Fleischacker, A Short History of Distributive Justice (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004); y muchos otros.

[6] Véase John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

[7] Ibíd., p. 4.

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Próxima entrada en el blog

Capítulo Dos: Soberanía limitada

Viernes 18 de Agosto de 2023

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes in the Middle East: A brief multidimensional view

 

Territorial disputes and a multidimensional view

Territorial disputes are a clear example of the zero-sum game played by the claimed and claiming agents, who feed their differences rather than recognizing their affinities. Current global events such as COVID-19 clearly show the necessity for a coherent, cohesive and comprehensive response to crises. World leaders and organizations are failing to address global issues in an efficient manner. In a similar vein, legal, political and international relations scholars assert dead-end arguments; futile hermeneutical, technical, conceptual and theoretical discussions; and seem oblivious to the urgency that crises present. Current and ongoing crises as well as the exacerbation of pre-existing conditions require urgency. The impact on legal and socio-political inequalities; economic ramifications of crises and the prospect for recovery depending on places and social characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, age, skill-levels, local government-support, etc.; and the effects on the environment require immediate attention.

The legal, political and international relations disciplines offer various potential remedies, procedures and organizations to deal with crises and solve these problems.  Although these remedies, procedures and organizations are useful in certain situations, it is indisputable that they are ineffective at peacefully and permanently handling crises. If and when current models fail or consistently fall short of addressing global changes and crises, a requisite paradigm shift should be implemented. COVID-19 is one of several indicators that prove mankind as a whole needs to reframe crises, reassess situations and discard the frames of past paradigms. The outcomes of current fragmented and unidimensional analyses and responses to crises (as a result of the science of reference and its methodology and the agent in question, such as individuals, communities and states) cannot but have a limited significance in theory and practice.

This monograph entitled Cosmopolitanism, State Sovereignty and International Law and Politics: A Theory (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2023/24) introduces a multidimensional analysis that assesses the phenomena of pluralism of pluralisms. A pluralism of pluralism means the acknowledgment of a variety of agents (individuals, communities and states) that may play different roles in their interrelations (host, participant, attendees and viewers), and hence, the recognition of the plurality of subjects at play. Furthermore, these agents and players may act within several contexts (local, regional and international) and their interrelations simultaneously exist in three realms (rational, empirical and axiological). To add to this intricacy, the many views (law, politics, philosophy and non-scientific theories) about agents, players, contexts and realms contain both a horizontal and vertical dimension that should take into account the two variables of time and space.

Multilayer and multi-contextual territorial disputes and positive versus negative synergy

In its predecessor, Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty: International Law and Politics (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2020), the author used this multidimensional view to assess and explain several territorial disputes, including those in the Middle East.

There are several issues at stake in any territorial dispute and some are constant or, arguably, more relevant than others depending on each case and the context of reference—i.e. domestic, regional and international. They may center on any of the elements that characterize a political community—i.e.  territory, population, government and law. Indeed, territorial disputes may be characterized by reference to territorial sub-elements such as strategic location, territorial integrity and natural resources, to name a few. Yet, territorial disputes may be as well based on population—e.g. bordering minorities, refugee’s crisis, common ethnicity, etc. —government and law—e.g. political unification, leader’s prestige, legal entitlement.

Issues at stake can be assessed in their individuality or together, in one or several contexts. However, it is only when a territorial dispute is explored in synergy that it becomes meaningful. To be more precise, the traditional scholarly studies in legal and political sciences center on the same question, the question of territorial disputes. However, legal and political sciences fasten on only one aspect of legal or political reality: on the existential; or an idealistic legal or political aspect, on the essential. The former views only the certainty, the factual power; the latter sees territorial disputes only from the angle of justice and fairness. It is not that one view or segment in these views is more important than the others. Different studies have simply suppressed one member of the relation in favor of the other. Instead, a more comprehensive analysis should think of an ideal or non-ideal, and empirical or theoretical view of territorial disputes as neither antagonistic nor identifiable, but somehow related as different individual members, components or objects of that whole that may stand in a fruitful exchange with one another provided they are assessed in positive synergy.

Territorial disputes in the Middle East and the multidimensional analysis

The differences between Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other states in Middle East indicate that most of the territorial disputes in the Arabian or Persian Gulf date back to colonial times and the way in which the former colonial powers divided the “territory” that was once sociologically integrated. These differences show too that although the claiming parties achieve a settlement, domestic, regional and international issues at stake may still turn the situation volatile and regional guarantors are key in peacekeeping. Similar to the cases in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, former colonial powers left behind “artificially” created divisions in what used to be a “territory” sociologically defined. The succinct account below aims to show how European understanding in legal and political sciences are not sufficient to comprehend the complexity of these realities. 

Background

Despite its geographical dimension and constricted area, the Persian Gulf presents existing or potential volatility. The smaller states of the gulf are particularly vulnerable, having limited indigenous populations and, in most cases, armed forces with little more than symbolic value to defend their countries against aggression. Their economies and oil industries depend on access to the sea. Disputes and conflicts with the larger gulf powers inevitably endanger their critical transportation links.

Unsurprisingly, territorial disputes in the Persian Gulf are a product of imperialism and colonialism. Territories were legally and politically defined based on European legal and political considerations, and usually without regard to tribal and ethnological factors. The boundaries of the modern Persian Gulf were the creation of European diplomats partitioned among themselves with little regard for, or knowledge socio-cultural characteristics of the region.

Before the oil era, these states made little effort to define legally and politically their territories. Members of Arab tribes were loyal to their tribe or shaykh and tended to move freely across the peninsula’s desert areas according to their needs and those of their flocks. Official boundaries were not relevant, and the concept of allegiance to a distinct political unit was absent. Organized authority was defined bases on their practical use, such as ports and oases.

From 1820 until its withdrawal in 1971, Britain was the dominant power in the Gulf. Until 1971 British-led forces maintained peace and order in the gulf. After the withdrawal of these forces and officials, territorial claims and tribal animosities rose to the surface. The concept of the modern state—introduced into the gulf region by the European powers—and the sudden importance of boundaries to define ownership of oil deposits fuel territorial disputes. Importantly, while Britain relinquished its direct political control over the region, it retained a great deal of influence and to this day political, economic and military links between Britain and the Gulf States remain strong. Consequently, the dominant power in the Gulf was neither Arab nor Persian, but Britain, in formal control of Iraq and much of the Peninsula’s coastline, from Kuwait to Aden.

From the perspective of the mid-1990s the Gulf would appear to be one of the potentially most unstable regions of the world, given the combination of economic resources, militarized tension, and internal political instability. Yet beyond this evident instability, it is worth examining in what the difficulties consist. As far as international questions are concerned, one can identify at least six areas of tension: territory, ethnic and religious minorities, oil, arms races, conflicts in foreign policy orientation, and interference in each other’s internal affairs.

In Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty: International Law and Politics (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2020), the author deals in particular with the challenges for the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Israel-Palestine difference.

A new paradigm

The forthcoming monograph Cosmopolitanism, State Sovereignty and International Law and Politics: A Theory (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2023/24) sketches a reconceived way of an approach to understanding the relationship between individuals, communities and states. Indeed, in order to coordinate separate and sovereign legal systems, additional and continued research is a task that deserves further exploration. The chapters attempt to take the first steps in creating that path.

Territorial disputes at large are an example of crises in which both sovereignty and cosmopolitanism play a defining role. As a whole, the monograph shows the complexity present in issues that include different agents in order to make evident a crucial point, often ignored or neglected: The apparent tension between sovereignty and cosmopolitanism may be more thoroughly and adequately considered, and arguably resolved, if the scholarly exploration embraces a multidimensional approach. Undoubtedly, it may be the case that a particular agent, their role, a context, a realm or a mode of existence is more significant than the other pluralities or their subgroups with regard to a singular case that compromises sovereignty and cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, it is in the multidimensional understanding as multi-agent, multi-contextual, multi-realm and multi-existence nature of these issues that a more robust account of their intricacies can be achieved. Therefore, by having a more robust account of their intricacies, it may be possible to reimagine in theory, and hopefully, in practice, a way of dealing with them peacefully and permanently.

The complexity sovereignty and cosmopolitanism presents is challenging. By accepting the fact that states will not forfeit their sovereignty and that individuals should have a minimum set of guarantees protected by law regardless of their individual circumstances, this monograph argues for positive law cosmopolitanism. States could retain their sovereignty and at the same time individuals would enjoy a minimum set of legal guarantees recognized beyond jurisdictional differences.

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Friday 18th August 2023

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world