American versus Americans
Different from the cases reviewed in this blog series such as the Mexico-United States border, the Falkland/Malvinas Islands and Guantanamo Bay, other territorial disputes in the continent present agents with similar bargaining power. More precisely, some of the cases explored included central, strong or advantaged agents such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, China and India.
These agents characterize themselves because of the different realpolitik influence in comparison to others involved in the relevant territorial dispute despite, for example, public international law granting legal sovereign equality to states. Conversely, while legal sovereign equality is still present, this post refers to cases in which the involved agents have similar situations with regard to their bargaining power in the territorial dispute at hand, whether they are the challenger or the challenged agent.
Broadly, the territorial disputes between American states are originated and fueled by several elements and features such as historical roots, exploration and exploitation of natural resources and the sociological, ethnic and cultural components. Therein, the first part of the chapter will introduce a basic typology of these differences to distinguish border disputes, resource disputes, ideological disputes, influence disputes, migratory disputes and leaders’ prestige disputes.
These territorial disputes can be divided into three clusters that correspond to three different geopolitical regions, that is North America, Central America and the Caribbean Basin and South America. For instance, North America includes disputes between the United States and Canada centered on maritime claims.[1]
Different elements and features have worked together in negative synergy to foster differences in Central America and the Caribbean Basin. Colonial seeds, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the redefinition of areas such as exclusive economic zones (EEZ), new technologies and the presence of natural resources resulted in several differences such as Guatemala and Belize, Guyana and Suriname, Venezuela and Guyana, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and El Salvador and Honduras.
Most of the territorial disputes in South America are now resolved. They all had roots in colonial times. There are, however, several hallmarks in relation to territorial disputes in areas like the Amazon and Southern Cone that the fourth part will explore: a territory rich in natural resources attracts domestic, regional and international agents such as sovereign states, indigenous people, non-governmental organizations, multinational private companies, and scientists; politicians and academics seem to agree that the internationalization of the Amazon is not advisable; current issues include illegal cross-border immigration and differences over resource extraction; border reconfiguration can emerge as a social construction; indigenous communities do not necessarily conform to legally defined borders and their claims to ethno-territorial rights are usually opposed to the interests of sovereign states and private companies; and the presence of external guarantors suggests an arguably more robust peaceful agreement. For example, the guarantors were key in the final dispute resolution between Ecuador and Peru achieved in 1998 Brasilia Peace Agreement.
NOTE:
This blog series introduces, explains and assesses issues pertaining territorial disputes in the Americas including law, politics, culture, history and religion. There will be new posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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[1] Note the Mexico-United States border is settled and, therefore, not included here.
