Contested Territories

This book considers the possibilities for resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict in the context of comparative international law. The armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh has been on the peace and security agenda since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This volume draws parallels with a similar situation between Sweden and Finland over sovereignty of the Aland Islands in the early 20th century. Resolved in 1921, it is argued that this represents a model autonomy solution for territorial conflicts that include questions of territorial integrity, self-determination and minority rights. The book compares both conflict situations from the international law perspective, finding both commonalities and dissimilarities. It advances the application of the solution found in the Aland Islands precedent as a model for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, and provides appropriate recommendations for its implementation. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers and policymakers in the areas of international law and security, conflict resolution and international relations.

A remarkable multifaceted history, Contested Territories examines a region that played an essential role in America's post-revolutionary expansion—the Lower Great Lakes region, once known as the Northwest Territory. As French, English, and finally American settlers moved westward and intersected with Native American communities, the ethnogeography of the region changed drastically, necessitating interactions that were not always peaceful. Using ethnohistorical methodologies, the seven essays presented here explore rapidly changing cultural dynamics in the region and reconstruct in engaging detail the political organization, economy, diplomacy, subsistence methods, religion, and kinship practices in play. With a focus on resistance, changing worldviews, and early forms of self-determination among Native Americans, Contested Territories demonstrates the continuous interplay between actor and agency during an important era in American history.

Settlers feature in many protracted territorial disputes and ethnic conflicts around the world. Explaining the dynamics of the politics of settlers in contested territories in several contemporary cases, this book illuminates how settler-related conflicts emerge, evolve, and are significantly more difficult to resolve than other disputes. Written by country experts, chapters consider Israel and the West Bank, Arab settlers in Kirkuk, Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara, settlers from Fascist Italy in North Africa, Turkish settlers in Cyprus, Indonesian settlers in East Timor, and Sinhalese settlers in Sri Lanka. Addressing four common topics—right-sizing the state, mobilization and violence, the framing process, and legal principles versus pragmatism—the cases taken together raise interrelated questions about the role of settlers in conflicts in contested territory. Then looking beyond the similar characteristics, these cases also illuminate key differences in levels of settler mobilization and the impact these differences can have on peace processes to help explain different outcomes of settler-related conflicts. Finally, cases investigate the causes of settler mobilization and identify relevant conflict resolution mechanisms.

Contested Territory explores the ways in which Peru's early colonial landscapes were experienced and portrayed, especially by the Spanish conquerors but also by their conquered subjects.

Ralf Emmers discusses the significance of natural resources as a source of inter-state cooperation and competition in East Asia, assessing whether the joint exploration and development of resources can act as a means to reduce tensions in contested territories. Does the joint management of natural resources in the absence of a negotiated maritime delimitation constitute a feasible strategy to de-escalate maritime sovereignty disputes in East Asia? Can cooperative resource exploitation be separated from nationalist considerations and power politics calculations? Alternatively, should the prospect for joint exploration in disputed waters be expected to raise rather than defuse territorial conflicts, especially if abundant resources are eventually discovered? If this were true, should exploration schemes be postponed until sovereignty disputes have been resolved? Emmers addresses these questions by examining the overlapping sovereignty claims in the Sea of Japan and the East and South China Seas.

"Nowhere has a range of case studies of Sudan been brought together in a single volume. Given the concern with the growing number and complexity of conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan there is a significant readership in academic circles and from those involved in humanitarian organisations of all kinds." Professor Peter Woodward, University of Reading "A timely contribution to an important set of debates ... tackles questions emerging from discussions about modernisation, urbanisation and globalisation from an explicitly local angle with regards to Sudan." Dr Harry Verhoeven, University of Oxford Sudan experiences one of the most severe fissures between society and territory in Africa. Not only were its international borders redrawn when South Sudan separated in 2011, but conflicts continue to erupt over access to land: territorial claims are challenged by local and international actors; borders are contested; contracts governing the privatization of resources are contentious; and the legal entitlements to agricultural land are disputed. Under these new dynamics of land grabbing and resource extraction, fundamental relationships between people and land are being disrupted: while land has become a global commodity, for millions it still serves as a crucial reference for identity-formation and constitutes their most important source of livelihood. This book seeks to disentangle the emerging relationships between people and land in Sudan. The first part focuses on the spatial impact of resource-extracting economies: foreign agricultural land acquisitions; Chinese investments in oil production; and competition between artisanal and industrial gold mining. Detailed ethnographic case studies in the second part, from Darfur, South Kordofan, Red Sea State, Kassala, Blue Nile, and Khartoum State, show how rural people experience "their" land vis- -vis the latest wave of privatization and commercialization of land rights. J rg Gertel is Professor of Economic Geography at Leipzig University; Richard Rottenburg is Chair of Anthropology at the University of Halle; Sandra Calkins is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle

The definitive account of one of the most important battles of the twentieth century, and the Black River borderlands’ transformation into Northwest Vietnam This new work of historical and political geography ventures beyond the conventional framing of the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, the 1954 conflict that toppled the French empire in Indochina. Tracking a longer period of anticolonial revolution and nation-state formation from 1945 to 1960, Christian Lentz argues that a Vietnamese elite constructed territory as a strategic form of rule. Engaging newly available archival sources, Lentz offers a novel conception of territory as a contingent outcome of spatial contests.

Ralf Emmers discusses the significance of natural resources as a source of inter-state cooperation and competition in East Asia, assessing whether the joint exploration and development of resources can act as a means to reduce tensions in contested territories. Does the joint management of natural resources in the absence of a negotiated maritime delimitation constitute a feasible strategy to de-escalate maritime sovereignty disputes in East Asia? Can cooperative resource exploitation be separated from nationalist considerations and power politics calculations? Alternatively, should the prospect for joint exploration in disputed waters be expected to raise rather than defuse territorial conflicts, especially if abundant resources are eventually discovered? If this were true, should exploration schemes be postponed until sovereignty disputes have been resolved? Emmers addresses these questions by examining the overlapping sovereignty claims in the Sea of Japan and the East and South China Seas.