I am not sure that the significance of a dispute is necessarily related
to the size of the area at stake. For example, I would say that the
Eritrea-Ethiopia dispute is considerably more 'significant' than the
Philippine's claim to Sabah, even though the size of the disputed areas
is actually quite modest. But if you are going to use area as an
indicator I would definitely not use percentages, if only because
countries vary so much in size. As someone pointed out, by selecting 5%
you have would probably have to exclude the Jammu and Kashmir dispute
from your list, which would be most odd. I would also be inclined to
talk about _territorial_ disputes rather than _boundary_ disputes, which
I prefer to reserve for disagreements over the alignment of a boundary
within a fairly limited spatial context.
A few general comments:
The Libyan claim to the Aouzou Strip in nothern Chad was rejected by the
ICJ in 1994.
Iraq has officially (if reluctantly) recognised Kuwait's sovereignty and
the alignment of their common boundary. How much this recognition means
in practice remains to be seen, but at the moment there is technically
no Iraqi claim to Kuwait.
In terms of sovereignty, the Greek-Turkish dispute is restricted to two
tiny islands; however, they do disgree over rights to a large area of
Aegean seabed.
I would include Western Sahara, Tibet and Northern Cyprus as occupied
territories - although Northern Cyprus is tricky as it is not occupied
by an internationally-recognised state.
In addition to suggestions from other colleagues, you might also
consider including the Cameroon-Nigeria dispute over the Bakassi
Peninsula (currently before the ICJ), the Japan-Russia dispute over the
Kuril Islands and the Egypt-Sudan dispute over the Halaib Triangle in
your list. Somalia has a historical claim to a fairly sizeable chunk of
the Ogaden, and Surinam claims a triangle of territory in southern
Guyana.
China has long claimed sovereignty over the whole South China Sea.
Whether this claim really refers to the waters of the sea as well as its
islands is unclear, but there are certainly a number of overlapping
jurisdictional claims as well as island sovereignty disputes in the
area.
The various terriorial claims in Antarctica are probably best described
as having been, ahem, frozen by the Antarctic Treaty....
Regards,
m a r t i n
> Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 18:13:24 -0000
> From: "Randy Finder" <naraht@...>
> Subject: Significant Boundary disputes
>
> I'm looking for *significant* boundary disputes in the world right
> now. This being roughly defined as where more than 5% of what one
> country claims as its area is also claimed by another country.
> Country in this case is defined as a UN Member state, or other area
> with longstanding control over its own area (Include Taiwan and
> Switzerland, exclude the Palestinian Authority.
>
> Certain:
> More than 5% of Kuwait (100%) is claimed by Iraq.
> More than 5% of Belize (100%) was (is?) claimed by Guatemala.
> At one point in the '60s China published maps showing most of the
> Soviet Far East as part of China (China with an Arctic Ocean coast!)
>
> Possibles: Peru & Ecuador almost came to fighting a couple of years
> ago over land, but I don't know if that reached 5%.
> I know Turkey claims some of the Islands between Greece & Turkey, not
> sure if that reaches 5%.
>
> I don't think of the PRC-ROC conflict as being in this because at
> this point, both of them agree on how large the country should be.
>
> Any more ideas?
>
> Randy Finder