I like where this is going:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So.....Evo's suing the Chileans to get Bolivia's coast back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12842978

My first thought is that this is now an instance where "Country X called, they want Y back" is not a punchline for a satirical movie. My second thought is that if this somehow succeeds, things get interesting. It might even lead to a means to resolve border disputes other than not-a-wars the UN would get involved in the first time someone drops one bomb that cuts one civilian's pinky finger off. My third thought is that this might be good for the morales of the people of Bolivia, and that perhaps now Bolivia might have a real blue-water navy instead of pining for the days when once they had a coast.

Comments

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

This looks like a PR move for domestic consumption. Are there elections coming in Bolivia?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There might be. On the other hand, this has been a pretty much inevitable quest for Bolivia since the War of the Pacific. Morales isn't *that* distinct from his predecessors.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In a narrow sense so does globalization......

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Not if they are voluntary signatories to the jurisdiction of the court that makes the legal determination.

That would be like saying that a government is no longer sovereign if it voluntarily places its own members and decisions subject to the jurisdiction of its own courts. Or that signing treaties with other nations promising to do certain things is relinquishing sovereignty.

Courts simply make determinations of facts and law. If you voluntarily agree to abide by its rulings...well...that's your sovereign decision to make.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Yeah but if you've voluntarily signed a treaty that says you'll abide by any ruling made, then that's different.

There are consequences for nations that don't abide by their treaties. It's true that they have far less force than comparable domestic courts on their own citizens, but that's part of the nature of international politics and what "sovereignty" means.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Huh. Doesn't seem like they have much of a case. They lost it fair and square in a war. They should move on. Or fight another war to get it back. One or the other.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It would be a pretty........interesting....precedent if they applied that consistently. As in opening more cannons of worms than you could shake a stick at (pun intended).

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That's generally what the precedent has been. If you want some territory that you don't own [any more], then you fight for it. Trying to get it diplomatically is a new thing. I don't think it'll work, but you never know.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It's worked before.......

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

True, I forget about that. But I was assuming that Chile wasn't willing to sell.

*Which* "international court"?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

With luvdovz either Morales or the BBC is making seem like a lot of sound and fury, but not much else.

Are there any "international courts" with jurisdiction over the results of a 132 year-old war?

Honestly, I like the idea in general, but at least that article doesn't offer a clue as to how it might work.

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure myself. If this does go through, there's a lot of potential problems that might happen........and if it does go through I wonder if Hawaiian nationalists might not make a quest to get their country back....

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice

I suspect the ICJ has jurisdiction, if both parties are signatories to the relevant treaties.

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So what happens to Hawaii here? What happens to Kaliningrad? Or to the Panama Canal?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That would be kind of the problem. As this was a war in the 1880s, so if the ICJ decides to reward Bolivia with the coast it had, that means that everything in geopolitics since then might end up up for grabs. It's not entirely a slippery slope, people have created bigger messes with lesser precedents.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

The major limit on activities here is brought by the fact that cases can only be brought before the ICJ by sovereign nations who have standing on the issue.

If a nation that tries to bring a case for a claimed transgression against it was not existent at the time, or clearly a successor state to the one that was, the ICJ judges would undoubtedly rule the issue to be non-adjudicable.

So there is a powerful limit on how many such issues could possibly be brought before the ICJ for resolution.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And if Germany decides "We want Konigsberg" back or Poland decides "Hey, Lithuania, it's time we got the band back together, man" or Colombia decides "We now call this the Colombian Canal"?

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

Who says we have to stop at the Iron Age?

Also, if I can prove that I am the rightful descendant of a king in an Italian state that existed in the 18th century, can I get my crown back?

I also think this is incredibly ironic coming from a country that recognizes the Palestinian Authority and not Israel.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I for one support the new Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. We need an Orthodox Christian state in Palestine again, it's been 1,400 years of Muslim and now Jewish mis-management. Orthodox Palestine FTW!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Just to re-assure your trembling heart, that comment was sarcasm.

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

So far as I know, Hawaii doesn't have standing before the court. Only signatory entities can bring cases before the ICJ, and they are all sovereign nations who are members of the U.N.

I somehow doubt the U.S. (or any other nation for that matter) is going to bring a case before the ICJ on behalf of Hawaii in relation to asserting Hawaiian sovereignty.

I'm not sure of the exact issues on which changes to the status quo or reparations might be ruled with respect to the two others, so I couldn't say.

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The problem, if the Court undoes the verdict of the War of the Pacific, is that the annexation of Hawaii after Dole's Putsch was in the 1890s. Hawaiians would be able to use this precedent to try to re-establish an independent country that unlike the Republic of Texas really *was* independent. Besides we need more Polynesian monarchies than just Tonga.

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I don't think Hawai'i wants to be independent though do they?

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Most of the time nationalists are a very tiny minority in a population that's mostly "Eh, who cares?".

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

That's a big "if", but one can hope. Wars are getting too expensive and that will only get worse; the more precedents of that sort that are set, the better we'll all be in the long run. (Not that I think courts are a panacea, but only that they are better than all the other methods of international arbitration.)

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

War's never been cheap since people decided to build cities as opposed to lumbering after mammoths. As with Libya, there ends up being a question of what this precedent would lead to if this succeeds.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

We had wars, yes, in the sense that one band would raid another band. Those were nothing like the world wars of the Modern Era.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Maybe you might want to go read the bible some, because Ole Joshua did things that would have made Stalin and Hitler blush and the only reasons those 2 were able to achieve a higher death toll was they had better tech.

Even the Rape of Nanking couldn't hold a candle to the barbarism that supposedly happened at Jericho where 100% of the population were slaughtered or made sex slaves.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you might want to read the latest archaeological reports that indicate the whole Conquest of Canaan thing never happened and the Israelites originated *in* Palestine and the historical origin of the Exodus was akin to deriving from a skirmish outside Troy a war where Ares was gored by a human being on a battlefield.

And that's horseshit, Zhang Xianzhong reduced a city of 400,000 people to 20 people and Francisco Solano Lopez presided over a war that at war's end left 50% of his country's population dead.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

For that matter, speaking of older atrocities that were pretty horrific, at Kleidon the Roman Emperor Basil II is reputed to have blinded 99 out of every 100 Bulgars captured on the battlefield and left 1 out of the 100 with one eye to guide the rest home, while Vlad the Impaler impaled 10,000 POWs to keep the Ottomans away (which didn't work as the Sultan *did* leave.....for his generals thereafter to conquer Wallachia).

Too, you've got the Third Punic War and the aftermath of the Bar Kochba Revolt, along with the virtual extermination of entire Amerindian peoples due to an Arbeit Macht Frei-style working them to death extermination. Even so, none of those approach the World Wars of the 20th Century when army groups of millions of people attacked other army groups of millions of people.

Pre-Industrial states couldn't field armies that size, and even Industrial-era states didn't do so until 1914 and after WWII nobody fought that kind of war again.

Re: *Which* "international court"?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know for a fact, but I strongly suspect that both nations ARE in fact signatories. Most U.N. nations are, except the big powerful ones like the U.S. and China who don't want to place themselves subject to its rulings.

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

This kind of thing has been available for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Palmas_Case