Chapter Three
Territorial Integrity and the Management of Self Determination
3.1 Introduction
This chapter analyses the critical question of whether territorial integrity can be relevant in the case of failed states such as Somalia. It also critically analyses the policy of the African Union and the international community in the management of self-determination in specific countries. This is contrasted with their policy in Somaliland.
All people have the right to self-determination. However, there is great tension between this right and the principle of territorial integrity. The implication of territorial integrity is that while all peoples have the right to self-determination, all nations have also the right to protect their countries from fragmentation. Thus, there is inherent tension between the two concepts that raises number of questions.
The first of these questions is which borders should be given the right to integrity. In other words, should we protect even those borders, which were drawn arbitrarily and without the consent of their inhabitants? A second question is which of the two principles, prevails the other in resolving this conflict. Put differently, which of the two should we prioritize when harmonizing the tension between self-determination and territorial integrity?
Territorial integrity appeared in the Covenant of the League of Nations. Article 10 of this Covenant provided that ‘the members of the League undertake to respect and preserve against external aggression the territoriality integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League.” In addition, both the UN Charter and the OAU Charter (and currently the AU Constitutive Act) emphasized the importance of territorial integrity but none of the two defined the concept. Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter provides that ‘all members shall refrain in their relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Furthermore, article 3 of the OAU Charter stipulates that one of the Origination’s principles is to ‘respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence.’
The UN resolutions of 1514 and 1541 and the 1970 Declaration concerning Friendly Relations and the Vienna Declaration and Programme for Action (the Vienna Declaration) all made clear that self-determination does not mean the violation of the territorial integrity of any member state in the United Nations without out defining what the concept means.
Abdelhamid El Ouali defines territorial integrity as ‘the character attached to the territory of every state, which should not be subjected to any kind of grip aiming at subtracting it, durably or momentarily, from the authority of the state.’ As this definition implies, the purpose of territorial integrity is to prohibit the use of force against any sovereign state. Accordingly, Zacher observes that the principle refers to the ‘growing respect for the proscription that force should not be used to alter interstate boundaries.
To some scholars, territorial integrity aims to block the ambitions of secessionist movement. This is because secessionists often demand to ‘redraw the political boundaries’. According to this view, even if such secession is based on a legitimate claim of right to self-determination ‘unfortunately, it seems directly contrary to another, equally venerable, principle of international law, which upholds the territorial integrity of existing stales.’ The violation of territorial integrity can also be external where other states may support or encourage secessionists in their cause. That is why the UN Charter required state members to refrain from any act that may amount to the disruption of wholly or partly of the territorial integrity of other states. It is clear denial territorial integrity is a political tool that compels the nations of the world to comply with the new world order.
3.2 The Validity of Existing African Border
It is a noble idea to protect all the boundaries of sovereign states from disintegration. However, ‘all boundaries are constructed, and are in some sense artificial.’ This reality necessitates the need for rechecking the validity of the existing borders. This need is specifically pressing in relation to African borders. Mutua paints a painful picture on how African borders were created unethically and without the consent of the African peoples. He states that “unlike their European counterparts, African states and borders are distinctly artificial and are ‘not the visible expression of the age-long efforts of peoples to achieve political adjustment between themselves and physical conditions in which they live.’ Colonization interrupted that historical and evolutionary process.” ‘Therefore, it is unreasonable that such borders remain unquestioned. Mutua brings our attention to the need for moral and legal inquiry about the current African borders arguing dial the post-colonial state in Africa and its borders are not sustainable, ‘because it lacks basic moral legitimacy’.
The case of Burkina Faso v Mali explains what Mukua highlights “This is a case where the International Court of Justice (1CJ) expressly declared that African peoples do not have the choice to question the validity of the existing borders at the time of independence. Surprisingly, the Court emphasized the importance of those borders for the entire continent. It stated that ‘the chamber nonetheless wishes to emphasize its general scope, in view of its exceptional importance for the African continent and for the two Parties.” It seems that even the meaning of self-determination was abused. Rejecting the colonized nations the option to recheck the viability of the existing borders, constitutes a bare denial of the very right to self-determination. Mutua rightly observes this point saying that ‘the invention of the African state by colonialism and the subsequent misapplication of self-determination are the root causes of the crisis of the post-colonial state.’ It is clear that neither self-determination nor territorial integrity necessarily served the aspirations of the colonized peoples. ‘The right to self-determination was exercised not by the victims of the colonization but their victimizes, the elites who control the international state system.’
Such contradiction dominates the African Union. During colonialism, African leaders were keen about their right to self-determination, however, immediately after independence, they took an opposite course. This is by adopting and putting much emphasis on the principle of territorial integrity. It is apparent that African leaders did not allow themselves to rethink about the validity of the principle and its compatibility with the right of peoples to self-determination. According to Mutua, Latin American leaders chose this principle for the common interest of their peoples while Africans thought only about their personal political and economic gains. Mutua further explains that African elites who possessed the leadership in Africa’s post-colonial state [were] loathe to give up privileges come from control of the state. Since their lavish lifestyle stems from the state as organized, it would IK- suicidal for the leaders to participate in changing it.
It appears that in Africa the aim was not to achieve self-determination of peoples. Rather there was a long-term contract between the colonial masters and their successors of the so-called African elites, because ‘dependence continued under the post-colonial state, the instrument of narrow elites and their international backers.’ Hassani gives an example of Somalia with regard to the Somali region in lamented Beijing’s economic engagement model, saying it undermined democracy and mired African countries in debt. When he landed in Ethiopia (Ogaden) and Morocco with regard to Western-Sahara. As a result, many African peoples were denied any historical claim to their ancestral lands.
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