The Grounds of Territory

Abstract

With this thesis I have made some order within the growing literature on territorial rights, and I have provided one alternative approach that addresses the problems revealed by existing theories. I have developed a proposal that draws in the strongest arguments provided by the literature. The existing literature shares the intuition that territorial rights are accorded to protect individuals’ fundamental interests in developing and pursuing their separate and collective goals. My proposal also appeals to this principle and makes it the central focus of a theory of territorial rights.

In the first part of this work I offer an account of the existing theories and show the problems that each view carries. I explain that they either fail to address the particularity requirement or they incur in the in rem problem, and I propose possible solutions to make the authors’ strategies more appealing. In the second part I propose a conventionalist theory constrained by a legitimacy threshold. I argue that communities acquire territorial rights if these rights are determined by their social norms. Social norms have the role of ratifying the expectations of the community’s members and promote peaceful and stable social relations, even when they are unjust and illiberal. However, a community may demand exclusive titles to territory only if its system of norms meets four requirements of legitimacy. The community holds exclusive titles regarding territory only to the extent that these titles are necessary for maintaining a system of norms that is legitimate. I apply my proposal to the case of secession and show that the parties to a conflict over territory ought to recognize a reciprocal duty to compromise. My theory endorses a political conception of territorial rights that are determined by the interaction of communities and by the resolution of conflicts.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Maleiha Malik (Supervisor), Andrea Sangiovanni (Supervisor) & Leif Wenar (Supervisor)