Kashmir,
like any other TERRITORIAL DISPUTE has to do with an international sovereignty
difference that is heavily influenced by domestic realities. India and Pakistan
(these posts did not include China in particular for the sake of simplicity
only) have their own internal and international agendas. Moreover, their state
leaders have their own domestic agendas and in many cases, a when politicians
aim to obtain a position of power (or simply to maintain their influence) they
use TERRITORIAL DISPUTES such as Kashmir as a means to an end. For these and
many other reasons, this kind of conflicts remain unresolved. The past few
posts are a modest attempt to conduct a theoretical experiment leaving aside
elements that may cause bias when evaluating possible ways to solve the
particular TERRITORIAL DISPUTE: Kashmir. It may be argued that such attempt is
Utopia or so ideal that results futile. Yet, it is a valid attempt to look for,
at least in theory, what politicians and scholars on both sides of the disputes
seem to ignore: a solution.
To
recapitulate, the egalitarian shared sovereignty (Núñez 2017) would involve recognising the sovereignty over
Kashmir of both India and Pakistan. In terms of population, the only ones
affected would be the Kashmiris, who would be nationals of both States.
Moreover, their basic non-political liberties must be respected by both India
and Pakistan. Hence, they would have rights in both States, as nationals. They
would be equal before the law with any Pakistani or Indian citizen and no
discrimination on any grounds would be permitted. As a direct consequence, they
would have the right to freely move and reside in any of the three
territories—respecting local regulations. The status of Kashmiri national, its
acquisition and retention would have to be agreed amongst the parties. Finally,
there would be immigration controls to prevent people from moving to Kashmir in
order to obtain rights in India or Pakistan that they could not obtain
directly. The particulars in relation to law will be reviewed later in this series
about TERRITORIAL DISPUTES when dealing with government.
This
example shows that divisions of religion, language and ethnicity are not
obstacles to shared sovereignty, provided that India, Kashmir and Pakistan
respect the pre-requisites: a) non-interference or non-domination; b)
non-political liberties; and c) principles of the law of peoples. Furthermore,
shared sovereignty offers a viable way to do it when these three parties
acknowledge their qualitative differences—e.g. larger population, stronger
economy, only to name a few. Moreover, it secures a permanent feature because
of the mutual controls and reciprocal concessions, both things that aim for
equilibrium amongst all the parties.
NOTE:
based on Chapter 7, Núñez, Jorge Emilio. 2017. Sovereignty Conflicts and
International Law and Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue. London and New
York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Previous posts about Kashmir (from the blog series TERRITORIAL
DISPUTES):
21st March 2018
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