Uti possidetis

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Uti possidetis ( Latin as you have ; complete: uti possidetis, ita possideatis - "as you have, so you should have") is a development of the principle of effectiveness under customary international law .

Originally, the Uti possidetis principle stated that the parties to a military conflict may keep the territory and other possessions that they had won during the war and owned at the time of the peace agreement . This principle is - as opposed the status quo ante bellum also - status quo post bellum called

Because the boundaries of the state territory are determined by the territory that a state actually owns, it is also referred to as the original, factually-oriented principle ( uti-possidetis-de-facto ). The borders of the states of South and Central America are not based on the result of military conquests, but on the borders of former colonial administrative districts. In the further development of the principle, effective ownership should therefore play less of a decisive role than existing legal relationships based on documents, cards and legal acts. The term uti-possidetis-iuris principle (“uti possidetis de iure”) was coined to distinguish it.

In its current form, the rule does not go beyond the principle of stable political borders . It has no further meaning. It was and is being used in particular in the context of the independence of colonial possessions as well as in the case of dismembration , secession or the collapse of states. More recently it has been used during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union .

For the Uti-possidetis principle, it is irrelevant whether a new state achieved its independence legally or whether there was any legitimation for it at all . It only defines the borders between new states that have effectively achieved their independence. No prerequisites for a right of self-determination need to be met in order to determine the limits . But it does not contradict such a right either. It just gives it a territorial base; it exists for peoples within these limits.

The uti possidetis principle is not synonymous with the principle of territorial integrity . However, it defines the territory of a new state, the integrity of which is protected by this principle.

literature

  • Santiago Torres Bernárdez : The "Uti Possidetis Juris Principle" in Historical Perspective . In: Konrad Ginther, Gerhard Hafner , Winfried Lang, Hanspeter Neuhold, Lilly Sucharipa-Behrmann (eds.): International law between normative claims and political reality. Festschrift for Karl Zemanek on his 65th birthday . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-08175-7 , pp. 417-437.
  • Dieter Blumenwitz : Uti possidetis iuris - uti possidetis de facto. The limit in modern international law . In: Horst Dreier , Hans Forkel, Klaus Laubenthal (eds.): Space and law. Festschrift 600 Years of the Würzburg Faculty of Law . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-428-10943-0 , pp. 377-389.
  • Helen Ghebrewebet: Identifying Units of Statehood and Determining International Boundaries. A Revised Look at the Doctrine of "Uti Possidetis" and the Principle of Self-Determination . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-631-55092-8 ( publications on international and public law 66) (also: Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 2005).
  • Malcolm Shaw : The Heritage of States. The Principle of Uti Possidetis Juris Today . In: British Year Book of International Law . Vol. 67, 1996, ISSN  0068-2691 , pp. 75-154.
  • Christiane Simmler: The uti possidetis principle. On the demarcation between newly created states (=  publications on international law; SVR 134), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 978-3-428-09566-7 .
  • Christiane Simmler: Right of peoples to self-determination contra uti possidetis? On the relationship between two supposedly contradicting rules of international law. In: Constitution and Law Overseas. Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America (VRÜ), Vol. 32, No. 2, 1999, pp. 210-235.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uti possidetis Law & Legal Definition . USLegal, Inc. (uslegal.com). Retrieved August 16, 2010.
  2. ↑ Cf. Bernd Roland Elsner, The importance of the people in international law. With special consideration of the historical development and the practice of the right of self-determination of peoples , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2000, p. 272 ​​f.
  3. ↑ Wilfried Schaumann, Uti-possidetis-Doktrin , p. 483.