Territorial Sovereignty

The state’s sovereignty is confined to a piece of territory, which is prone to the undivided jurisdiction of the state and is conserved by international law. Territorial sovereignty is a political and legal expression. It designates a relationship of power, supremacy, and freedom between an actor, the state, and an object, the territory. According to maxim quidquid est in territorio est etiam de territorio, all individuals and property within the state’s borders are its property. If any individual and property cross borders, they immediately fall under the state’s territorial sovereignty.  

Characteristics Of Territorial Sovereignty

Territorial sovereignty is one of four types of regimes that can apply to the territory.

These are their names:

• Res nullius: The states may acquire territory, but territorial sovereignty has not yet been granted.
• Res communis: The high seas and exclusive economic zones are examples of res communis territory that a state cannot govern.
• Terra nullius: Territory that another state has never occupied, but these states have legal status.

Regardless of the various theories on the legal feature of territory, there is broad agreement that a State possesses complete and exclusive power over its territory following the principle of territorial sovereignty.

Sovereignty in inter-state relations denotes autonomy. Freedom about a number of the planet is the right to exercise the functions of a State therein, to the exclusion of the opposing States.

Territorial sovereignty thus expresses that, subject to related customary or conventional regulations of the law of nations, the relevant state alone is obligated to exercise jurisdiction, primarily by exposing the objects and people within its territory to legal provisions and enforcing these rules.

Furthermore, the state has the right to control access to and escape routes from its territory. The latter right appears to apply to all, any, or any mode of conversation. Territorial sovereignty shields a state from any intervention by other states. While such meddling may necessitate force, this is not addressed here.

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Modes of Obtaining State Territory

Historically, there have been several distinct methods for acquiring sovereignty over the land. These categories are now widely acknowledged to be insufficient in many ways. The categorisation of these modes was inspired by Roman law rules governing the acquisition of land by private parties. Cession, efficient occupation, accretion, conquest or subjugation, and prescription are acquisition modes.

Modes of acquisition can be further divided into categories: 

• Original 
• Derivative

Occupation and accretion are usually referred to as original, while cession is derivative. It is worth noting that there are still differences of opinion regarding conquest and prescription. The categorisation above has no practical value in modern practice and is misleading. However, these modes of territory acquisition are entirely relevant for two simple reasons.

They are as follows:

The doctrine of inter-temporal requirements that a State’s titles to territory be assessed in the context of the law of time; modern practise developed out of traditional practise, so “the old is necessary to a knowledge of the new.”

Cession

Cession is the transmission of territory from one state to the other. The cession of territory refers to renunciation by one state favouring those above’s rights and title to the territory in question. [6] It has frequently occurred within the framework of treaties, either in peaceful or postwar circumstances. To impact the cession of territory, it must be evident that the transmission of actual sovereignty is intended. Cession without intent is illegal.

It is worth noting that the receiving state may cede any portion of its land territory. By doing so, all of its State territories will be completely merged with the other state.

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Occupation

Occupation is the deliberate acquiring of terra nullius – that is, when a State acquires sovereignty over territory that originally belonged to no State. When territory is probably placed under the authority of the violent army, it is considered occupied. The occupation is limited to the territory over which such authority has been formed and exercised.

Accretion

Natural geographical mechanisms that lead to an increase or decrease in the territory (physical expansion of territory) caused by natural land formation are called accretion. It leads to the formation of new land. A new formation can be natural or synthetic, i.e., the result of human labour. Artificial formations along the sea’s coast involve man-made islands, bunds, dikes, and breakwaters, among other things.

For example, in 2003, Malaysia petitioned the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea for provisional measures against Singapore, citing environmental concerns about potential land reclamation works in the Johor Strait.

 Lands formed due to volcanic activity, the abandonment of a river channel and the creation of a new channel, and the drying up of a lake are examples of natural formations.

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State Territory Loss

We can now quickly recognise the correlating method of State territory loss. The modes are cession, dereliction, operation of nature, subjugation, medication, and revolt. We’ve already discussed territorial loss through subjugation, medication, and cession. Revolt is one of the few modes of territory loss that lacks a correlating mode of acquiring. However, the uprising is more about politics than a lawful procedure of forfeiting territorial sovereignty.

Conclusion

Territorial sovereignty is defined as a state’s ability to assume that other states (as well as other global subjects of law) refrain from performing activities about state sovereignty. This judicial scenario, or interpretive right of exclusion, is opposable erga omnes. Its vital necessity is based on the efficacy of a State’s sovereignty in its territory and within its borders.