Territorial Disputes at the International Court of Justice

In international law and relations, ownership of territory is significant because sovereignty over land defines what constitutes a state. Additionally, as Machiavelli suggested, territorial acquisition is one of the goals of most states. The benefits of having territory, though, are only as great as a state’s borders are clear, because a state’s boundaries must be well defined for the modern state to function. In many cases, however, these boundaries are subject to competing international territorial claims. Such claims can be generally divided into nine categories: treaties, geography, economy, culture, effective control, history, uti possidetis, elitism, and ideology. States have relied on all nine categories to justify legal claims to territory before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The most