Yesterday, the post
referred to the arrangements amongst Crimea, Russia and Ukraine that could
result in a peaceful and permanent solution: the egalitarian shared
sovereignty. However, the post finished with a remedy that still needed some
guarantees to secure it cannot be used as a subterfuge for domination or
imposition by the strongest party.
The egalitarian shared sovereignty
includes a proviso
If we added a
proviso in order to make sure that the party with greater ability and therefore
greater initial participation rights would have the obligation to bring the
other two parties towards equilibrium, the proposal becomes reasonable. That is
because it ensures the most efficient current distribution of rights and
obligations but also ensures the party that currently benefits most has an
obligation to bring the other two parties up to a position where they can
contribute equally, that is, it has the burden to assist the other two parties
to acquire the ability to contribute equally to that particular
objective/area/activity of sovereignty over the third territory.
Therein, the
party with the greater ability in whatever area would agree to this because
there is no other way of having the cooperation of the other two, and the other
two parties would agree because this arrangement requires they receive
something immediately and will eventually gain the ability to have an equal
share, and they would otherwise get nothing.
It is true that
the obligation is potentially onerous: what justifies the ascription of that
obligation to the better off party? For example, if A is the stronger, and B
and C are the weaker parties, is A obligated to raise the standards of B’s and
C’s economies so that they can afford to invest in the exploitation of natural
resources; or is it enough that A gives B and C a specific sum equivalent only
to what B and C need to exploit resources on terms equal with A? If A gives
that sum to B and C, are they obliged to spend it on exploitation, or can they
spend it on something else and so forfeit any future claim to be assisted with
the exploitation of natural resources? Why cannot B and C simply issue leases
to commercial companies to exploit the resources on their behalf; why do they
have to rely on help from A? What does the obligation imply in relation to
unalterable inequalities, such as one state’s being geographically closer to
the third territory than the other?
The way in which
the parties fulfil the final agreement or how the parties use the outcomes of
the exploitation of their shares have to do with either practical matters that
depend on each real scenario or with decisions pertaining internal sovereignty
and therefore are out of the scope of this article. Similarly, to think of
every possible factual difference amongst the parties such as geographical
proximity would be out of the scope of an academic writing of similar nature,
in particular when this is only a theoretical exercise.
In what matters
the justification for the obligation owed by the more advantaged claimant, two
clarifications must be made.
Firstly, I do not claim that any obligation is prima
facie owed amongst the parties. I believe the most advantaged party would
accept the agreement or better said, it would be unreasonable for this party to
argue it is not fair to accept it. Whether the most advantaged party actually
accepts the arrangement or not is a different matter.
Secondly, it is
reasonable to believe that if the three parties in the original position agree
on:
a) equal standing;
b) making the nature and degree of participation
dependent on efficiency; and therefore
c) at first the party with more ‘input’
will receive more ‘output’; the more advantaged claimant—whoever that turns out
to be—will accept to have an obligation to bring about equilibrium in the
shares since, in the absence of that equilibrium, the more advantaged claimant
would or could dominate the other claimants so there would be hardly a good
reason for the other two parties to accept any other arrangement that somehow
did not contain a degree of equilibrium.
That is because anything less than
shares in equilibrium would potentially imply a smaller share in comparison to
those of the other parties. Therein, the bigger the share, the riskier the case
for any of the parties to have more control on a particular issue pertaining
sovereignty or the sovereignty of the third territory as a whole.
This is
directly linked to the idea of non-domination since the possible monopoly of
power with regards to a particular issue pertaining sovereignty or the
sovereignty of the third territory as a whole could degenerate into arbitrary
power by the decisions being made mainly by the strongest party or in benefit
only of the strongest party. In consequence, the freedom of the least
advantaged parties with regards the choices they could make with their shares
and the originally agreed equal standing could potentially be reduced to the
‘rubber-stamping’ of the decisions made by the strongest claimant. Therein, it
is reasonable to believe that the representatives of the parties would find the
equilibrium proviso a fair solution to safeguard the interests of the three
populations involved.
This way of
approaching sovereignty conflicts like the ones discussed in this blog I
will call egalitarian shared sovereignty.
Jorge
Emilio Núñez
19th June 2018
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