Territorial Disputes in Court: Power, Compliance, and Defiance
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis focuses on the conditions under which powerful states comply with adverse international court rulings on interstate territorial disputes. On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague ruled on Philippines v. China with respect to the legality of China’s claims and activities in the South China Sea. The arbitration court decisively ruled in favor of the Philippines, though China vowed to reject and not comply with the arbitral ruling. Although realist theory suggests that international courts are ineffective, this thesis finds reason for cautious optimism concerning Chinese compliance with the arbitration court ruling in the long term. Powerful states primarily comply with adverse international court rulings on territorial disputes out of convenience and to improve their reputation. In addition, domestic politics can either facilitate or hinder compliance. This thesis analyzes the Chamizal dispute between the United States and Mexico as well as the Bakassi Peninsula dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. Furthermore, great powers rarely seek out international legal dispute mechanisms and are usually able to screen out cases that might result in adverse outcomes. Those cases that make it to court involve peripheral territories. By showing how powerful states have historically responded to international court cases on territorial disputes, this thesis examines the prospect of China complying with Philippines v. China and how this affects the longstanding disputes in the South China Sea.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 2017 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Nguyen, AnhViet |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Schultz, Kenneth A. |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation |
Subjects
| Subject | Center for International Security and Cooperation |
|---|---|
| Subject | territorial disputes |
| Subject | international courts |
| Subject | great powers |
| Subject | South China Sea |
| Subject | Bakassi Peninsula |
| Subject | Chamizal |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Nguyen, AnhViet. (2017). Territorial Disputes in Court: Power, Compliance, and Defiance. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/zy525xr6784
Collection
Stanford University, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies, Theses
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- Contact
- anhviet@alumni.stanford.edu
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