Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 6) [Post 166]

 

Borders and the Persian Gulf

Often borders are matter of controversy. The Persian Gulf is not an exception. In this particular case, there are borders in land and water (for example, the exclusive economic zone often creates tension between many of the claiming parties). For instance, who has the right to explore that exclusive sea-zone? What happens in the zone in which to or more claiming parties overlap?

The concept of territorial boundaries for the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (also referred to in this paper as the Gulf states) is a relatively new phenomenon. Until recently, a principal difficulty in conceiving of territorial boundaries, let alone defining them, was the alien nature of boundaries them- selves, the lack of any need for them, and the absence of putative states in most of the Peninsula. 

It was not until well into the twentieth century—and in some cases late in the century—that the nature and the form of today's seven states became clear. In large part, the dynamics between present states derives from the jostling that took place as the states began to differentiate themselves.

The Persian Gulf Boundaries

The Persian Gulf with an area of approximately 90,000 square miles is underlain in its entirety by continental shelf. The Gulf is virtually an enclosed sea with the only opening being in the east through the Strait of Hormuz.

Eight states border the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Potentially, at least 16 continental shelf boundaries will be required in this region.

There are several boundaries (in land and water) created by different methods:

• Bahrain-Iran
• Bahrain-Saudi Arabia
• Iran-Oman
• Iran-Qatar
• Iran-Saudi Arabia
• Qatar-United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi)
• Iran – United Arab Emirates (Dubai)
• Bahrain-Qatar
• Iran - Iraq
• Iran - Kuwait
• Iran – United Arab Emirates (2 boundaries)
• Iraq - Kuwait
• Kuwait-Saudi Arabia
• Oman-United Arab Emirates
• Qatar-Saudi Arabia

Negotiated Boundaries

The methods employed by these countries to delimit their offshore boundaries vary. The equidistance method has been used but not without modification due to special circumstances. In certain circumstances islands have been given special consideration. In some areas they have been completely disregarded, in some situations they have been given partial effect in the delimitation process. Outstanding sovereignty disputes will complicate many of the remaining boundary negotiations.

Sovereignty and Boundaries in the Gulf

Link to the complete document

The Persian Gulf: Continental Shelf Boundaries

Link to the complete document

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:

Bahrain, Iran and Saudi Arabia

Monday 30th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

"Challenges to Poverty Alleviation in Covid-19 Scenario: Plight of Domestic Migrant Workers in India" [video]

 

"Challenges to Poverty Alleviation in Covid-19 Scenario: Plight of Domestic Migrant Workers in India"

by Dr Zubair Ahmed Khan

Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha (GGSIP) University, Dwarka, New Delhi, India.

Juris North Monthly Discussion

Wednesday 25th November 2020.

Friday 27th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

"Global Response to Crisis: Human Dignity" by Dr Jorge E. Núñez [video]

 

"Global Response to Crisis: Human Dignity"

by Dr Jorge E. Núñez

https://drjorge.world/

Presentation for the Juris North Roundtables on behalf of our Human Dignity Team.

Session 9:10

Friday 20th November 2020

Please note these are bitesize presentations specially designed for the Juris North roundabouts and, therefore, are part of a larger project. Each of our roundtables consists of separate interconnected sections that range from brief introductions by experts in their field to working together in thematic groups lead by specialists.

Friday 27th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 5) [Post 165]

                                             

The Persian Gulf and Colonialism: Where Territorial Disputes Start

The Persian Gulf presents several TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. The usual current causes have to do with natural resources and bordering minorities. The previous posts this week have introduced the general background behind TERRITORIAL DISPUTES. 

That is because they all share a common origin: European colonialism. It will be only after introducing the real reasons behind these differences that the posts will center the attention on individual TERRITORIAL DISPUTES in the Persian Gulf and their particularities in each case.

For a complete and updated detail of TERRITORIAL DISPUTES, see CIA’s Factbook (country by country)

Link to CIA's FACTBOOK

Boundary and border dispute

Territorial dispute encompasses “boundary dispute” and “border dispute”. In other words, “territorial dispute” is a more generic expression than the others and therefore ought to be preferred. 

A boundary is an imaginary line delimiting the territorial jurisdiction of one state from that of another. A border or frontier on the other hand is the area or region or zone having both length and breadth indicating, without necessarily fixing, the exact limits where one state starts and another ends. 

There appears to be no fundamental difference between a boundary and a border or frontier save for the fact that whereas a boundary as a line has no breadth, a border as an area, region or zone does. The terms must however not be used interchangeably. Breadth or no breadth, the cardinal function of a boundary or border is to separate one territory from another. Therefore, any dispute concerning the appropriateness or otherwise of a boundary or border is necessarily territorial.

Territorial dispute in the Persian Gulf is a product of imperialism and colonialism. Territories were constructed based on European 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.

Britain and the Gulf

For a period of over one hundred and fifty years, from 1820 until its withdrawal in 1971, Britain was the dominant power in the Gulf. Like many other European powers – notably the Portuguese, the French and the Dutch – Britain’s initial interest in the Gulf region, which began in the seventeenth century, was driven by the development of trade and commercial interests. The nature of Britain’s involvement began to change, however, after it consolidated and expanded its colonial holdings in India.

By the late 1950s, British presence in the region was subject to growing criticism as Arab nationalist ideas grew in popularity throughout the Arab world. Although Kuwait became independent in 1961, Britain continued to dominate the Gulf for another decade until 1971 when it formally left the region and the other states on the Arab side of the Gulf received their independence.

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.

The British in the Gulf

Link to the complete publication

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:

Borders and the Persian Gulf

Friday 27th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 4) [Post 164]

 

Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf

Countries with a coastline on the Persian Gulf are (clockwise, from the north): Iran, Oman (exclave of Musandam), United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar on a peninsula off the Saudi coast, Bahrain on an island, Kuwait and Iraq in the northwest.

Various small islands lie within the Persian Gulf, some of which are the subject of territorial disputes between the states of the region.

Persian Gulf is home to many small islands. Bahrain an island in the Persian Gulf, is itself a Persian Gulf Arab state. Geographically the biggest island in the Persian Gulf is Qeshm island located in the Strait of Hormuz and belonging to Iran. 

Other significant islands in the Persian Gulf include Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Kish administered by Iran, Bubiyan administered by Kuwait, Tarout administered by Saudi Arabia, and Dalma administered by UAE. In recent years, there has also been addition of artificial islands, often created by Arab states such as UAE for commercial reasons or as tourist resorts.

Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf?

Ask anyone in Tehran to name the sea that divides Iran from the Arabian Peninsula and the answer will emphatically come back as the Persian Gulf. Ask the same question in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and the answer is the Arabian Gulf. Iran has even threatened legal action in the past to defend its name for the 100-mile-wide body of water. 

To keep both sides happy, Google has literally circumnavigated the problem by calling the sea both names, with Arabian Gulf written in parentheses under Persian Gulf in its omnipotent online mapping service.

The body of water in question has been known - in maps, literature and official usage - as the Persian Gulf for more than two millenia. Even after the emergence of Islam, the Arab world knew it as the "Bahr Fars", the Persian Sea.

The tide of Arab opinion on the question shifted only in the 1960s ironically among the major drivers of the movement for change were Arab perceptions that Iran, driven by Washington, had supported Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

The region has historically been known as the Persian Gulf, named after the Persian Empire (present-day Iran). Since the 1960s, rivalry between Persians and Arabs, along with the growth of Arab nationalism and evolving Western political and economic interests, has prompted an increasing use of the term "Arabian Gulf" when referring to the region's body of water.

Persian Gulf – Arabian Gulf

Link to the complete article

Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf? (AlJazeera)

Link to the complete article

About the Persian/Arabian Gulf

Link to the complete article

Iran and Saudi Arabia can’t agree on the name of the Gulf sea (The Telegraph)

Link to the complete article

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:

The Persian Gulf and Colonialism: Where Territorial Disputes Start

Thursday 26th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 3) [Post 163]

 

The Persian Gulf: Issues at Stake

There are many academic and non-academic articles in English, Arabic, and other languages about the Persian Gulf. The articles mentioned below summarize the answers to the questions posed by our previous post (Post 162). Links to the complete documents and references are included.

 

Post 161: Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 1)

 
Post 162: Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 2)

 

Challenges for the Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Recent Developments

The GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) face challenges on both domestic and international fronts. Domestically, demographic pressures and a crisis of the social model are exacerbated by the volatility of the very narrow natural resource-based and state-dominated economies. Internationally, the fall of the Baathist regime in Iraq has changed the security balance and requires new thinking.

 

Amidst reform efforts, an unpredictable Iranian foreign policy and a wave of Islamic fundamentalist terror activities pose additional challenges and are reinvigorating international attention. The following paper gives an overview of some of the key issues of reform, media, economic structure and security with a special emphasis on Qatar.

 

Sustainability of Hydrocarbon Economies

Predictions on the sustainability of oil and gas reserves should all be taken with a pinch of salt because they include a high degree of uncertainty about future discoveries, innovation in production technology and the structure of future demand. 

At present production rates, the Gulf’s proven reserves are predicted to last for 100 years as opposed to 25 years for the rest of the world’s proven oil.

 

Research by the US Geological Survey estimates that with new discoveries and adding gas into the equation, the GCC countries will contribute 20% of the world’s fossil fuel supplies, which would not be much more than Russian supplies. Other estimates solely based on oil yet predict that the Gulf will become an even more important supplier in the coming decades than it is now.

 

Regional Security

Regional security, or the lack thereof, remains the prevailing challenge facing the Middle East. The withdrawal of the US from the JCPOA has increased the possibility of more violence and escalation. 

The different dynamics between Iran and the Gulf states show that ties across the Persian Gulf are opportunistic and constrained by limited economic integration, a long history of mutual suspicion, and frustration with Saudi dominance on the part of the other GCC members.

 

Without an overarching, unified GCC policy towards Tehran, bilateral military cooperation with the US has also helped the GCC countries carve out independent strategic relations with Iran. 

Similarly, fragmentation within the GCC has provided Iran with an opportunity to buffer against calls for its economic and political isolation. Iran’s ties to the smaller Gulf countries have provided Tehran with limited economic, political and strategic opportunities for diversification that have simultaneously helped to buffer against sanctions and to weaken Riyadh. However, Tehran does recognize the limitations to its links in the Gulf. Above all, these relationships ultimately highlight internal GCC tensions, as acutely demonstrated by the Qatar crisis, and the constraints on Iran’s Gulf policy.

 

NATO Parliamentary Assembly

Link to the complete document

The Gulf Cooperation Council

Link to the complete document

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:

Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf

Wednesday 25th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 2) [Post 162]

 

Arabs and Persians Beyond the Geopolitics of the Gulf

The emergence of the contemporary inter-state system in the Gulf, and of the antagonisms underlying it, can be seen as a product of the imposition of modern forms of state formation, and of the nationalist or revolutionary ideologies associated with it, upon the pre-existing mosaic of peoples, languages and beliefs in this area of West Asia. 

The initial territorial divisions were a result of imperial state formation from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries. The boundary between Safavis and Ottomans was the site of substantial wars in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries but was gradually stabilised through treaties, beginning with that of Zuhab (Qasr-i Shirin) in 1639, and culminating in the Treaty of Erzurum of 1847, while that between the two encroaching modern empires, the Russian and the British, was gradually drawn from the late eighteenth century onwards: the Romanovs took Iranian territory in the Transcaucasus, while the British pushed against Iran's eastern frontier, through India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan, and from the late nineteenth century also encroached on the Arab territories lying on the southern side of the Gulf.

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. The strategic situation was, therefore, one in which Britain maintained its military and administrative dominance: local states, Iran included, conducted their relations largely with Britain, and other major powers. 

There was very little contact of substance between the regional states. Iran and Saudi Arabia formally recognised each other. At first, however, Iran refused to recognise Iraq, since Baghdad refused to provide suitable guarantees to Persians living in its territory.

Where there was upheaval, nationalist and social, in these states it had little to do with other regional peoples, and much to do with external, imperial, domination. 

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.

Arabs and Persians Beyond the Geopolitics of the Gulf

Link to the complete article

To the reader, following two of our previous posts of this series about TERRITORIAL DISPUTES:

1. What are the issues at stakes in this a territorial dispute?
2. Which remedy could be used to solve this particular territorial dispute?

For reference to these questions see:

POST 9: Territorial disputes: issues at stake

POST 10: Territorial disputes: remedies

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:

The Persian Gulf: Issues at Stake

Tuesday 24th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes: The Persian Gulf (Part 1) [Post 161]

 

The Persian or Arabian Gulf: Introduction

The differences between Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other states in Middle East will demonstrate 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 cased in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, former colonial powers left behind “artificially” created divisions in what used to be a “territory” sociologically defined. The assessment aims to show how European understanding in legal and political sciences is not appropriate to comprehend the complexity of these realities. 

The following posts will assess territorial disputes in the Persian Gulf. The analysis will centre on the evaluation of domestic, regional and international issues at stake with particular focus on religion, geopolitical importance and leaders’ prestige.

Background

The Persian Gulf is a relatively constricted geographic area of great 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. 

All of them lack strategic depth, and their economies and oil industries depend on access to the sea. Conflicts involving the air forces and navies of the larger gulf powers inevitably endanger their critical transportation links.

Before the oil era, the gulf states made little effort to delineate their territories. Members of Arab tribes felt loyalty to their tribe or shaykh and tended to roam across the peninsula's desert areas according to the needs of their flocks.

Official boundaries meant little, and the concept of allegiance to a distinct political unit was absent. Organized authority was confined to ports and oases.

The delineation of borders began with the signing of the first oil concessions in the 1930s. The national boundaries had been defined by the British, but many of these borders were never properly demarcated, leaving opportunities for contention, especially in areas of the most valuable oil deposits.

Until 1971 British-led forces maintained peace and order in the gulf, and British officials arbitrated local quarrels. After the withdrawal of these forces and officials, old territorial claims and suppressed 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 kindled acute territorial disputes.

Persian Gulf States: Country Studies (Library of the Congress)

Link to the complete publication

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:

Arabs and Persians Beyond the Geopolitics of the Gulf

Monday 23rd November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Territorial disputes: Africa (Part 25) [Post 160]

 

Territorial disputes in Africa: final words 

The principle of just acquisition may work for individuals. For States, it may solve one problem, what one has to do, i.e. mix one’s labour. But leaves several other issues unresolved—e.g. a) who did it first? b) how much each does individual own? (new problem, e.g. if someone digs, can he claim that plot, the field or the whole island?), and c) who inherits the property—the inhabitants or their ‘mother community’?

Any version of just acquisition will have the same problems: people will never agree on the relevant facts and the relevant test, and therefore all this principle would do is guarantee endless conflict. So, the representatives in the original position would reject it. 

Assuming there were negotiations between non-regional (for example, France and Spain) and regional states (for example, Comoro and Morocco) the representatives would have to decide how to allocate the sovereignty over the disputed territories (as we have seen so far in the blog, Ceuta, Melilla, and several islands and surrounding territories in land and water).

Whether they have access to historical records or not is irrelevant since they would only result in endless discussion concerning historical entitlement that in most—if not all cases—is highly difficult to be demonstrated. Governments and their representatives are aware of this issue. 

More precisely, non-regional states maintain the very convenient status quo to their interest by using the historical argument since they know it will not bring any changes to the current situation.

The advice here would be not to agree to rely on a principle that guarantees endless conflict, and therefore, to reject it as the principle to resolve these disputes. At the same time, by rejecting the historical entitlement argument, it leaves all the agents with an equal footing to continue the negotiations since none of them can argue a better or more robust right over the claimed territory.

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:

The Persian Gulf

Friday 20th November 2020

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world