Samaria, Judea, and Tibet

After listening to a radio story about Tibet, my father made an interesting argument about post- World War II conflict and souvreignty that's stuck with me throughout this week.

He argued that since the end of World War II, only two nations have conquered previously sovereign territory and incorporated into their state. The two cases were China (Tibet) and Israel (the West Bank). These instances aren't perfectly parallel-- on the one hand, China had more recent territorial claims to Tibet than Israel had to the West Bank, but on the other hand, Israel claimed the West Bank as a buffer zone in the content of a larger war and never gave it back whereas China took control of Tibet in the absence of a surrounding conflict.

There have been other states that have controlled territories that had sovereign claims, such as the former Soviet Union. However, these territorial encroachments occured before or at the onset of the post-war period and they have gained independence since. There have also been prolonged occupations (like the current US position in Iraq) but although that occupation invalidated Iraqi sovereignty and does n't seem likely to end soon, the US never claimed Iraq was now part of our state, and has argued that Iraq should be sovereign.

At first, I worried that this argument was limited because it excluded most of Africa because few modern African states had sovereignty before World War II. However, I can't come up with any cases in Africa, either.

There have also, of course, been sovereignty movements by groups within states that have been repressed by the state (Basques in Spain, etc) but this isn't the same as the state conquering sovereign territory. If anyone can think of another case besides China and Israel, let me know.

If this argument is true, I think it has two important implications:

A. The UN charter has been successful in creating a norm in which states do not conquer; they do not claim sovereign territory. This is different from the world before the charter (colonialism, German aggression, etc) and the fact that war over land and boundaries continues to exist suggests that the difference cannot just be attributed to the decreasing bounty gained from territorial war.

B. Both the exceptions to this rule may have benefited from the UN structure which may enable them to be exempt from the dorm. China has a security council veto and Israel is closely allied with a country that has a similar veto. I think this buttresses an argument I made on one of my honors exams; the UN's weaknesses are more due to dated structural weakness within as declining external support, corruption, or the "unsuitability" of IGOs to the current world order.