IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v57y2013i1p90-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bringing Law to the Table: Legal Claims, Focal Points, and the Settlement of Territorial Disputes Since 1945

Author

Listed:
  • Paul K. Huth
  • Sarah E. Croco
  • Benjamin J. Appel

Abstract

In this article, we argue that international law can help state leaders reach a settlement in territorial disputes by suggesting a focal point for negotiations. International law is more likely to serve as a focal point when the legal principles relevant to the dispute are clear and well established and when one of the states in the dispute has a stronger legal claim to disputed territory. When these two conditions are present, we expect the state with a legal advantage to push for and receive favorable terms of settlement. In our analysis of all negotiated settlements in territorial disputes from 1945 to 2000, we find strong support for the importance of international law in influencing the terms of settlements. States with a strong legal advantage are more likely to secure favorable terms, whereas states lacking a strong legal claim are more likely to receive unfavorable terms.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul K. Huth & Sarah E. Croco & Benjamin J. Appel, 2013. "Bringing Law to the Table: Legal Claims, Focal Points, and the Settlement of Territorial Disputes Since 1945," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 90-103, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:57:y:2013:i:1:p:90-103
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00607.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00607.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00607.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Seiki Tanaka, 2016. "The microfoundations of territorial disputes: Evidence from a survey experiment in Japan," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(5), pages 516-538, November.
    2. Andrew P. Owsiak, 2015. "Forecasting conflict management in militarized interstate disputes," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(1), pages 50-75, February.
    3. à slaug à sgeirsdóttir & Martin C. Steinwand, 2018. "Distributive Outcomes in Contested Maritime Areas," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(6), pages 1284-1313, July.
    4. Manuel Becker & Thomas Dörfler & Thomas Gehring, 2018. "Credible commitment without independent regulatory agent: Evidence from the Security Council's United Nations Compensation Commission," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 395-412, September.
    5. David B Carter, 2017. "History as a double-edged sword," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(4), pages 400-421, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:57:y:2013:i:1:p:90-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.