Border Focus: Eritrea and Djibouti

What is disputed?

At the centre of the dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti is a tiny strip of land at their border. The greater Horn of Africa region, however, has numerous border disputes.

What is the history of the dispute?

The accepted border is a result of a 1900 boundary agreement between colonial powers France (French Somaliland, now Djibouti) and Italy (Eritrea). They agreed that the international boundary starts at Cape Doumeira (Ras Doumeira) at the Red Sea and runs for 1.5km along the watershed devide of the peninsula. The 1900 protocol also specified that the Doumeira Island (Ile Doumeira), which lies just offshore, would not be assigned sovereignty and would remain demilitarised.

The border at Ras Doumeira was, however, never demarcated. The area itself is a hill, and it was simply agreed that the northern slopes of hill were Italian, the southern slopes, French. Upon independence, Eritrea and Djibouti accepted this arrangement.

The first major post-colonial dispute arose when, in April 1996, a Djibouti official accused Eritrea of shelling Ras Doumeira, and the two countries narrowly avoided going to war.
Problems arose again in 2008, when the Eritreans occupied the hilltop. The circumstances surrounding this event are somewhat disputed. Djiboutian sources report that in January, Eritrea requested to cross the border in order to get sand for a road, but instead occupied the territory, set up fortifications and dug trenches on both sides of the Djiboutian border. Djibouti also claimed that Eritrea had put out new maps showing Ras Doumeira as Eritrean territory.

Eritrean sources, however, note that Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, met twice with Djiboutian officials, informing them that his country intended to build a demarcation on Ras Doumeira hill. It was not clear why Eritrea wanted to build such a demarcation, but it has been speculated that it might be connected to boundary disputes it has with other neighbours, including Ethiopia, Yemen and Somalia. It might also reflect Eritrea's discomfort with the presence of American and French bases in Djibouti; the main American base, 'Seven Sea' is less than 10km south of the hill.

Both sides fortified the hill and manned it with military personnel, and clashes between the two sides broke out in June 2008. Despite the military might of Eritrea, Djibouti's backing by the majority of the international community, including former colonial master France, meant that it was able to withhold the Eritrean forces. Still, 35 people died in the clashes and dozens of others were wounded.

After Djibouti requested UN intervention, a UN fact-finding mission was sent to the region. It was welcomed by Djibouti, but blocked by Eritrea, who refused to meet with it or with any envoy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In January 2009, the UN Security council adopted Resolution 1862, which demanded that Eritrea pulled its forces from the disputed area, and welcomed Djibouti's withdrawal of its forces to its positions before the dispute. A further resolution, 1907, imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea, admonishing the country for its lack of progress on resolving the border dispute with Djibouti, and for arming Somali insurgents such as Al-Shabaab.

Resolution options?

In June 2010, the two countries agreed to a Qatar-led mediation process, a move that was warmly welcomed by the African Union and the UN, although Ethiopia questioned Eritrea's sincerity.

The fact that Eritrea agreed to Qatar's mediation effort is a positive sign that it wants to reintegrate into the world community. Eritrean President Afewerki was instrumental in starting the talks, and 2010 has seen him striking more conciliatory tones towards neighbours.

In September 2010, Isaias welcomed UN special representative for Somalia to Asmara for talks, and voiced his full support for a peaceful solution to Somalia's problems. Eritrea has also tried to forge friendships with Qatar, Iran, Israel and Egypt.

Eritrea is on the brink of a potentially lucrative gold mining boom, and seems to be worried about being isolated. Ethiopia used to use Eritrean ports for Red Sea access, but in recent years has preferred Djibouti. The potential revenues from shipping could be another incentive to improve its global reputation.

For more information on this dispute, including consideration of the regional context, see the full Border Focus, here.

The Sudanese Referendum: Secession and the Challenges to Peace

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended the war between the Government of Sudan and the forces that had coalesced around the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. the CPA afforded Southern Sudan the right to an exercise of self-determination and set up the semi-autonomous South Sudan, the entity that, after the referendum scheduled for 9 January 2011, may emerge as the first new independent African state in Africa since 1993.

In all likelihood, the people of South Sudan will vote for independence in January. This outcome will itself not be without problems and yet there is still the potential that the referendum could be delayed or otherwise disrupted. This carries the very real potential for the expiry of the CPA and, with it, the compromising of the basis that exists for the interaction and dialogue between the North and South.

Menas Borders' article considers the problems that attend the issue of South Sudan's potential secession and it can be read here.

Territorial integrity in the archives: the contingency of territorial geopolitics?

The territorial integrity principle enjoys a central position in the international legal doctrine. It articulates a guarantee of states' exclusive territoriality, orients the modern international system around state sovereignty and seeks to derive order from territorial fixity. In this system territorial borders may only be changed by the consent of the states concerned and, moreover, a 'classical' view of borders has been superseded through the adoption of territorial integrity as the norms of international society have been globalised.

But there is nothing essential or timelessly 'true' about the territorial integrity principle even if it is often depicted in those terms. Its current centrality to international order is dependent on a 'good fit' with a particular geopolitical vision. While its roots can certainly be discerned much earlier, it was after 1945 and within the context of an American-sponsored geopolitical order, that territorial integrity became a structuring principle. This marked a stage in a process that had not been uncontested. In this article, consideration of archival material allows for the illustration of the way in which one of the US' closest partners, the UK, considered organising collective security around a guarantee of territorial integrity to be undesirable. While it is impossible to say how an alternative vision would have structured international affairs in the post-World War II world, it is still intriguing to consider the motivations of the UK government in resisting the implementation of a guarantee that became so central to the preservation of order in the post-1945 world.

Read the full article here.

Southern Sudan referendum timetable announced

The south is expected to vote for independence

Sudanese officials have announced a timetable for Southern Sudan's independence referendum. The vote is due to take place on 9th January, 2011, but the absence of a timetable outlining the run-up to the vote led to fears that the referendum would have to be postponed, which could spark renewed violence.

Deputy Chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission Chan Reec Madut said on Tuesday 5th October that voter registration will start on 14th November and end on 4th December, with parties allowed to start campaigning on 7th December.

Despite the tight timing this schedule provides, Reec was confident about the prospects. "I am still optimistic that if we are all registered, everybody has his or her card, and then we can be sure that this exercise is going to happen no matter what," Reec told reporters in the southern capital Juba. He added that only 'unseen reasons' could cause the vote to be delayed.

Despite this announcement, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir told UN Security Council delegates, who are visiting the region, that the south may have to organise its own referendum if the north disrupted the vote. The south has repeatedly accused the north of trying to delay the ballot to keep control of the region's oil, a charge Khartoum denies.

The poll will take place across Sudan, but only southerners will be eligible to vote. The southern Sudanese diaspora will also be able to vote in eight other countries, assisted by the intergovernmental International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The vote will take place in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK.

Voter registration material is bring printed in South Africa, and ballot papers will also be printed outside Sudan with security devices fitted to prevent fraud.

The referendum was part of a 2005 peace deal to end two decades of conflict between the north and oil-rich south, in which some 1.5 million people died and millions more were displaced.

Preparations, however, for a separate referendum in the Abyei region, which straddles north and south Sudan, are making less headway. UN-mediated talks are being held in Ethiopia to try to resolve disputes over voter eligibiliy and the physical demarcation of the state's border. The Abyei referendum is also due to be held on 9th January, and people of the region will choose whether to join the north or the south.

The announcement by Reec came as 15 members of the UN Security Council visited the region to make sure the referendums go ahead on time and in a fair and peaceful manner. The delegation will also be travelling to Darfur, where there has been renewed violence after the breakdown of a ceasefire between the government and one of the main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The delegation almost cancelled their trip because council members worried that they would have to meet Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and shake his hand, but the trip went ahead after it was agreed that a meeting would not happen. Al-Bashir has been indicted for alleged war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Sources: BBC News, Reuters, AfricaNews

For more information on the situation in South Sudan, please see the original story here.

Pragmatism and precedent? Territorial order and sovereignty-based disputes

Territorial and sovereignty-based disputes remain important sources of violence in international political life and this remains so despite the evolution of the modern international law doctrine around the management and mitigation of these disputes. Indeed, international law is most obviously premised on the respect for states’ territorial integrity and a powerful, perhaps pragmatic impulse for the preservation of order through exclusive state territoriality.

The pragmatism associated with sovereignty norms and the rights of states, such as territorial integrity, conflicts with the principle of national self-determination and cosmopolitan language of human rights obligations. Self-determination has found a place at the core of the international legal doctrine but at a cost; in its international legal guise it is far removed from its original, political ideological guise.

An emerging remedial right of self-determination has been discussed by academics and international lawyers in recent years. The remedial right would afford an expression of external self-determination, and potentially a right of secession, in cases where a minority people was subject to the wholesale abuse of an oppressive regime.

The article argues that the regional geopolitical context of South Asia cannot readily adopt norms that work to undermine territorial sovereignty. Minority groups in India, a polity broadly based upon a notion of social and political plurality, mean that both the suppression of self-determination groups in the region and instances of external self-determination are intolerable. This is not to deny the existence of a precedent in the remedial right to self-determination, but it is to argue that this might be more easily achieved in other regions first.

The piece concludes that territorial borders can only remain a source of violence in international politics despite the weight of international law that has emerged precisely to mitigate territorial conflict. Regional actors' sharing of broader social and political schemas, beyond the confines of the international legal doctrine, might realise the potential for change that is immanent in existing practice and, specifically, the remedial right to self-determination.

Read the full article here.

Norway and Russia settle Barents Sea boundary dispute, but other arctic disputes continue

Efforts to settle decades-old claims to the arctic got a major boost last week when on 16th September Norway and Russia signed the 'Barents Sea Pact', which divided an 175,000sq km section of the Barents Sea between them.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the historical agreement in the Russian city of Murmansk on Wednesday.

“The treaty resolves what for several decades remained the most important outstanding issue between Norway and Russia,” Stoltenberg stated. “It sends an important signal to the rest of the world - the Arctic is a peaceful region where any issues that arise are resolved in accordance with international law.”

Much of the Arctic has been disputed between five nations – Russia, Norway, Canada, US and Denmark, for many decades, but as polar ice caps recede, making shipping and oil and gas exploration opportunities more feasible, the importance of delimitation has become increasingly important. It is thought that up to a quarter of the world's untapped oil and gas could lie in the region.

The dispute between Norway and Russia first received attention in 1957, when a short section of their maritime boundary, from the land boundary terminus through the confines of Varangerfjord was designated. This boundary was extended through Varangerfjord in 2007, but disputes continued over the lengthy section extending northwards through the Barents Sea and into the Arctic Ocean.

Norway argued for a median line boundary, while Russia (and previously the Soviet Union) advocated a 'sectorial' approach, which would have extended the boundary north along the 32° 4' 35" E meridian. The boundary agreed last week is a compromise between the two positions, as it sits eastward of a strict median line, but west of the sectorial line. The agreement also includes a provision for a 'special area' that is east of the boundary, but is within 200 nautical miles of the Norwegian mainland where Russia is granted exclusive economic rights.

Norway has used the occasion to encourage the other polar nations to follow their example and resolve disputes in the region. Canadian Foreign Minister, Lawrence Canon visited Russia and Norway last week, but talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have not brought the two sides closer together.

The Canadian–Russian dispute centres around the Lomonosove Ridge, an underwater mountain range running along the floor of the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Canada's Ellesmere island. Both countries claim that the underwater mountain range is an extension of their continental shelves. The dispute has been referred to the UN.

Canada has a similarly stalled dispute with Denmark over Hans Island, a small inhabited barren knoll which lies in the middle of the Nares Strait, between Ellesmere Island and Denmark's Greenland Territory.

A 1973 treaty between the two arctic countries plotted 127 points delimiting the border, however the treaty did not connect the dots and the island lies in between two points. The dispute flared up in 2004 and 2005 after government officials from both countries visited the island, but no progress has been made in moving towards settlement.

More progress has been made on Canada's dispute with the US over the Beaufort Sea. Ministers of the two countries met to discuss the issue in late July, and for the third summer in a row, researchers from both countries worked in the region mapping the sea floor.

A separate, but related concern is the issue of control over the Northwest Passage, which, due to retreating polar ice caps, is increasingly being seen as a shipping shortcut between Asia and Europe. Ottawa says that the Northwest Passage is Canadian sovereign water, but Washington and several other nations regard it as an international passage.

Despite these ongoing disputes, the fact that Norway and Russia were able to find a settlement, which still needs to be ratified by both of their parliaments, means that diplomatic solutions will probably prevail for other disputes in the future.

Sources: IBRU, CTV, Nunatsiaq Online

Medvedev talks borders in Azerbaijan

Azeri President Aliyev with Russian President Medvedev in 2009

Russian and Azerbeijan took one step closer to resolving their border issues when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilkham Aliyev signed a border agreement to delimitate part of the land border between the two nations on Medvedev's trip to Baku on 2nd September. The two also signed an agreement on the use of water resources from the trans-border Samur river, and Russian energy giant Gazprom and Azerbaijan's state oil and gas company SOCAR signed a deal to increase supplies of Azerbaijani gas to Russia in 2011-2012.

To welcome the Russian leader, Azerbaijan raised a massive version of its national flag in Baku on 1st September. Baku claimed it was the world's largest flag, with dimensions of 70 meters by 35 meters and weighing in at a massive 350kg.

Aliyev presided over the unveiling of the flag and told the crowd, "Our flag is our pride and our soul… It will fly over Karabakh, Khankendi, and Shusha. And we all should work hard to bring this day closer and we are doing it. Long live Azerbaijan!"

This comment highlights the current tension that exists between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which was a key talking point during Medvedev's visit.

The Nagorno-Karabakh enclave is an Armenian-majority area in southwestern Azerbaijan. The two nations fought a war over the area from 1988 until 1994, which started when the Parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia in February 1988. By the time the war ended in 1994, Armeria occupied most of the disputed territory, as well as Azeri territory outside of the enclave, 30, 000 people had died and nearly 1 million refugees had fled, mostly to temporary settlement camps in Azerbaijan.

Violence has continued around the border regions, however, and on 1st September, it was announced that three Armenians and two Azerbaijani soldiers had been killed in clashes near the enclave.

Cesur Sumerinli, the chief editori of the Azerbaijani military-analysis website mil.az, recently said that the cease-fire is being violated more frequently, and that the resumption of military operations in the near future was possible.

The original cease-fire was Russian-brokered, and Russia has continued to be involved in mediation efforts since. In June 2010, Aliyev and his Armenian counterpark Serzh Sarkisian met for bilateral talks hosted by Medvedev in St. Petersburg. It appears however, that tension has been increasingly since the June meeting, and skirmishes have been frequent.

As co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, together with France and the US, Russia has been at the centre of the international efforts. Russia's involvement, however, is not unproblematic. Medvedev visited Yerevan, Armenia, just weeks before his trip to Baku, where he extended the lease on a military base in Armenia. Amendments to a 1995 bilateral defense treaty signalled an increased Russian presence in Armenia, as it was agreed that the 4,000 Russian troops stationed in Armenia will not only protect Russian interests, but also the security of Armenia. This was interpretted by many as a pledge of Russian support should tensions over the disputed enclave result in full-fledged war, although Medvedev has been clear that he supports resolution through direct talks.

Oil-rich Azerbaijan is also an important neighbour for Russia, and Medvedev called them a 'strategic partner'. Recent rumours of a Russian sale of antiaircraft missiles to Azerbaijan have been denied by the Russians, although military cooperation was discussed during Medvedev's visit, and the sale of four Russian Ka-32 helicopters was announced some time ago.

Sources: RFE/RL, Hurriyet Turkey, Georgian Daily