Annexation
Annexation (
Latin ad, to, and
nexus, joining) is the legal incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity (either adjacent or non-contiguous). Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being
annexed is the smaller, more peripheral or weaker of the two merging entities. It can also imply a certain measure of coercion,
expansionism or
unilateralism on the part of the stronger of the merging entities. Because of this, more positive words like
political union or
reunification are sometimes preferred.
The
Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) of 1949, emphasised an important change in international law. The
United Nations Charter (
June 26,
1945) had prohibited war of aggression (See articles 1.1, 2.3, 2.4) and GCIV
Article 47, the first paragraph in Section III: Occupied territories, restricted the territorial gains which could be made through war by stating:
Protected persons who are in occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any case or in any manner whatsoever, of the benefits of the present Convention by any change introduced, as the result of the occupation of a territory, into the institutions or government of the said territory, nor by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power, nor by any annexation by the latter of the whole or part of the occupied territory.Article 48 prohibits mass movement of people out of or into occupied territory:
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. ... The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.Protocol I (1977): "Protocol Additional to the
Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts" has additional articles which cover military occupation but it should be noted that many countries including the
U.S. are not signatory to this additional protocol.
Jerusalem
In the aftermath of the 1967
Six Day War, in which
Israel had occupied East
Jerusalem as well as the
West Bank,
Gaza and the
Golan Heights, Israel declared East and West Jerusalem one united city, incorporating the eastern part into one municipality, but soon after declaring to the UN that its measures were not annexation. In 1980 Israel passed the Jerusalem law, which redeclared the unity of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, but did not declare its borders. Some consider the latter act annexation, but without explicit declaration of sovereignty this is in doubt. Israel's measures are not internationally recognized.
East Timor
Following an Indonesian invasion in 1975,
East Timor was annexed by Indonesia and was known as Timor Timur. It was regarded by Indonesia as the country's 27th province, but this was never recognised by the
United Nations or
Portugal. The people of East Timor resisted Indonesian forces in a prolonged guerilla campaign. (See:
Indonesian rule in East Timor). Following a referendum held in
1999, under a
UN sponsored agreement between
Indonesia and
Portugal, in which its people rejected the offer of autonomy within Indonesia, East Timor achieved independence in
2002 and is now officially known as
Timor-Leste.
Western Sahara
In 1975,
Morocco invaded the former
Spanish colony of
Western Sahara and proclaimed it part of the kingdom. This has never been recognized internationally, and a nationalist movement, the
Polisario Front, representing the evicted
Sahrawi native population, persists in claiming the area for an exiled
Sahrawi republic. A
United Nations peace process was initiated in 1991, but it has been stalled, and the resumption of hostilities remain a possibility.
Golan
In 1981, Israel extended its "laws, jurisdiction and administration" to the
Golan Heights (including the
Shebaa Farms), which it captured from
Syria in the 1967
Six Day War. This not entirely clear "annexation" declaration was declared "null and void and without international legal effect" by
United Nations Security Council Resolution 497.
Kuwait
After being allied with
Iraq during the
Iranâ€"Iraq War (largely due to desiring Iraqi protection from Islamic
Iran),
Kuwait was invaded and annexed by Iraq (under
Saddam Hussein) in August 1990. Hussein's primary justifications included a charge that Kuwaiti territory was in fact an Iraqi province, and that annexation was retaliation for "economic warfare" Kuwait had waged through
slant drilling into Iraq's oil supplies. The monarchy was deposed after annexation, and an Iraqi governor installed.
United States President
George H. W. Bush ultimately condemned Hussein's actions, and moved to drive out Iraqi forces. Authorized by the
UN Security Council, an
American-led coalition of 34 nations fought the
Persian Gulf War to reinstate the Kuwaiti
Emir. Hussein's invasion (and annexation) was deemed illegal and Kuwait remains an independent nation today.
Annexation may be the consequence of a voluntary cession from one state to another through purchase or other treaty, or of conversion from a protectorate or sphere of influence, or occupation through military conquest. A
city might annex unincorporated areas or a
country might annex other
disputed territories. The assumption of a protectorate over another state, or of a
sphere of influence, is not strictly annexation, the latter implying the complete displacement in the annexed territory of the government or state by which it was previously ruled.
In
international relations the term
annexation is usually applied when the emphasis is placed on the fact that territorial possession is achieved by force and unilaterally rather than through
treaties or negotiations. The cession of
Alsace-Lorraine to
Germany by
France, although brought about by the war of 1870, was for the purposes of international law a voluntary cession. Under the treaty of
December 17,
1885, between the French Republic and the queen of
Madagascar, a French protectorate was established over this island. In 1896 this protectorate was converted by France into an annexation, and Madagascar then became "French territory." The formal annexation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina by
Austria (
October 5,
1908) was an unauthorized conversion of an "occupation" authorized by the
Treaty of Berlin (1878), which had, however, for years operated as a
de facto annexation. A case of conquest was that effected by the
South African War (Second Boer War) of 1899â€"1902, in which the
Transvaal Republic and the
Orange Free State were extinguished, first
de facto by occupation of the whole of their territory, and then
de jure by terms of surrender entered into by the
Boer generals acting as a government.
By annexation, as between civilized peoples, the annexing state takes over the whole succession with the rights and obligations attaching to the ceded territory, subject only to any modifying conditions contained in the treaty of cession. These, however, are binding only as between the parties to them. In the case of the annexation of the territories of the Transvaal republic and Orange Free State, a rather complicated situation arose out of the facts, on the one hand, that the ceding states closed their own existence and left no recourse to third parties against the previous ruling authority, and, on the other, that, having no means owing to the
de facto British occupation, of raising money by taxation, the dispossessed governments raised money by selling certain securities, more especially a large holding of shares in the
South African Railway Company, to neutral purchasers. The
British government repudiated these sales as having been made by a government which the British government had already displaced. The question of at what point, in a war of conquest, the state succession becomes operative is one of great delicacy. As early as
January 6,
1900, the high commissioner at
Cape Town issued a proclamation giving notice that the British government would "not recognize as valid or effectual" any conveyance, transfer or transmission of any property made by the government of the Transvaal republic or Orange Free State subsequently to
October 10,
1899, the date of the commencement of the war. A proclamation forbidding transactions with a state which might still be capable of maintaining its independence could obviously bind only those subject to the authority of the state issuing it. Like paper
blockades and fictitious occupations of territory, such premature proclamations are viewed by international jurists as not being
jure gentium. The proclamation was succeeded, on
March 9,
1900, by another of the high commissioner at Cape Town, reiterating the notice, but confining it to "lands, railways, mines or mining rights." And on
September 1,
1900 Lord Roberts proclaimed at
Pretoria the annexation of the territories of the Transvaal republic to the British dominions. That the war continued for nearly two years after this proclamation shows how fictitious the claim of annexation was. The difficulty which arose out of the transfer of the South African Railway shares held by the Transvaal government was satisfactorily terminated by the purchase by the British government of the total capital of the company from the different groups of
shareholders (see on this case, Sir Thomas Barclay,
Law Quarterly Review, July 1905; and Professor Westlake, in the same
Review, October 1905).
In a judgment of the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1899 (
Cook v.
Sprigg, A.C. 572),
Lord Chancellor Halsbury made an important distinction as regards the obligations of state succession. The case in question was a claim of title against
The Crown, represented by the government of
Cape Colony. It was made by persons holding a concession of certain rights in eastern
Pondoland from a native chief. Before the grantees had taken up their grant by acts of possession, Pondoland was annexed to Cape Colony. The colonial government refused to recognize the grant on different grounds, the chief of them being that the concession conferred no legal rights before the annexation and therefore could confer none afterwards, a sufficiently good ground in itself. The judicial committee, however, rested its decision chiefly on the allegation that the acquisition of the territory was an act of state and that "no municipal court had authority to enforce such an obligation" as the duty of the new government to respect existing titles. "It is no answer," said Lord Halsbury, "to say that by the ordinary principles of international law private property is respected by the sovereign which accepts the cession and assumes the duties and legal obligations of the former sovereign with respect to such private property within the ceded territory. All that can be meant by such a proposition is that according to the well-understood rules of international law a change of sovereignty by cession ought not to affect private property, but no municipal tribunal has authority to enforce such an obligation. And if there is either an express or a well-understood bargain between the ceding potentate and the government to which the cession is made that private property shall be respected, that is only a bargain which can be enforced by sovereign against sovereign in the ordinary course of diplomatic pressure." In an editorial note on this case the
Law Quarterly Review of January 1900 (p. 1), dissenting from the view of the judicial committee that "no municipal tribunal has authority to enforce such an obligation," the writer observes that "we can read this only as meant to lay down that, on the annexation of territory even by peaceable cession, there is a total abeyance of justice until the will of the annexing power is expressly made known; and that, although the will of that power is commonly to respect existing private rights, there is no rule or presumption to that effect of which any court must or indeed can take notice." So construed the doctrine is not only contrary to international law, but according to so authoritative an exponent of the common law as Sir F. Pollock, there is no warrant for it in English
common law.
An interesting point of
United States constitutional law arose out of the
cession of the
Philippines to the United States, through the fact that the
federal constitution does not lend itself to the exercise by the federal congress of unlimited powers, such as are vested in the
British parliament. The sole authority for the powers of the
federal congress is a written constitution with defined powers. Anything done in excess of those powers is null and void. The
Supreme Court of the United States, on the other hand, declared that, by the constitution, a government is ordained and established "for the United States of America" and not for countries outside their limits (
Ross's Case, 140 U.S. 453, 464), and that no such power to legislate for annexed territories as that vested in the British
Crown in Council is enjoyed by the president of the United States (
Field v.
Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 692). Every detail connected with the administration of the territories acquired from
Spain under the
Treaty of Paris (
December 10,
1898) gave rise to minute discussion.
Austria
On
March 12,
1938,
Nazi Germany annexed
Austria in the
Anschluss. Austria's annexation marked the first major steps in
Adolf Hitler's long-desired expansion of Germany. The country was liberated from Nazi power at the end of
World War II by the
Allied Forces.
Ethiopia
On
May 9,
1936,
Ethiopia was annexed by
Italy, only to be liberated during the Allied
East African Campaign.
Hawai'i
In 1898,
Hawaii (having moved from a
Kingdom to a
Republic four years earlier after the overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893) was annexed by a treaty enacted as a joint resolution by the U.S. Congress.
Korea
On
August 22,
1910,
Korea was effectively annexed by
Japan with the
Koreaâ€"Japan Annexation Treaty signed by
Lee Wan-Yong,
Prime Minister of Korea, and
Masatake Terauchi, Japanese Resident-General in Korea who became the
Governor-General of Korea. While the legitimacy of the treaty is still being asserted by Japan, it is considered to be null and void in basis of the fact that the Korean Emperor refused to give the treaty his assent, an act required by Korean law at the time, and that Japanese troops surrounded the Imperial Palace during the procedure, presenting a threat of retribution. Korea continued to be ruled by
Japan until Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces on
15 August 1945. See
Korea under Japanese rule for further information.
Moldova
In June
1940, the
Soviet Union forcibly occupied and then annexed
Bessarabia and
Northern Bukovina, two regions of
Romania.
Northern Bukovina has been integrated to the
Ukrainian SSR.
Bessarabia has been dismantled. Most of it, along with
Transnistria, was to form the
Moldovan SSR. The rest (including the entire Black Sea shore of Bessarabia) was given to the
Ukrainian SSR. This annexation was a direct consequence of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Texas
In 1836, the people of
Texas voted to request that the United States annex Texas. Concerned with
the constitutionality of annexation and for fear of offending the controlling power,
Mexico, however, the
Van Buren Administration rejected the request, which was eventually withdrawn. In 1843, the United States became concerned with
British designs on Texas. A new president,
John Tyler, became a proponent of annexation. Following acceptance of the terms of annexation by the people of Texas, the young nation became a part of the United States in 1846.
Wales
Wales was annexed to the legal system of
England by the
Laws in Wales Acts 1535â€"1542 to create a single jurisdiction, but references in legislation for 'England' were still taken as excluding Wales. The
Wales and Berwick Act 1746 meant that in all future laws, 'England' would by default include Wales (and
Berwick-upon-Tweed). In 1967 the Wales and Berwick Act insofar as it applied to Wales was repealed. For many administrative and judicial purposes they are still treated as the single entity
England and Wales.
Annexation of sovereign governments is a different matter than annexation by municipal corporations. In the United States, all local governments are considered "creatures of the state" according to Dillon's Rule, which resulted from the work of
John Forrest Dillon on the law of municipal corporations. Dillon's Rule implies, among other things, that the boundaries of any jurisdiction falling under state government can be modified by state government action. For this reason, examples of municipal annexation are separated from annexations involving sovereign governments.
City of Atlanta
In 1909 the
U.S. city of
Atlanta, then located only in
Fulton County, annexed into part of neighboring
DeKalb County (from which Fulton County had originally been divided). The situation continues to provide some problems, such as when police arrest suspects on charges set forth in
Georgia state law, and city police must determine which county's jail they must be taken to. Further annexations occurred during the 1950s, but interest in annexation ceased after Atlanta elected its first black mayor.
New York City
In
1898, following the results of a referendum
New York City annexed the city of
Brooklyn, along with the counties of
Queens,
Richmond, and
The Bronx.
Ohio City
Ohio City, a suburb and fierce rival of
Cleveland, Ohio was peacefully annexed to the city on
June 5,
1854.
For a historical discussion of municipal annexation, see Kenneth T. Jackson's Crabgrass Frontier (Oxford 1987).
*
Expansionism*
Fait accompli*
Status quo ante bellum*
Lebensraum*
Irredentism*
Revanchism*
Reunification*Canadian
Annexationist Movement* Carman F. Randolph,
Law and Policy of Annexation (New York and London, 1901)
* Charles Henry Butler,
Treaty-making Power of the United States (New York, 1902), vol. i. p. 79
et seq.
