Territorial dispute is one of the most common causes of armed conflict between States. Often, the militarized conflict that emerges in these situations is ostensibly over other issues – for example, Cuba’s territorial claim of Guantanamo Bay or China’s claims to mainland China and Taiwan. However, the root issue of territory is often still at play and even in cases where it has not played a prominent role militarily, it can cause diplomatic tensions and uncertainty as to which State has sovereignty or authority over disputed territory. This is what Erich Weede called ‘latent territorial conflict’.
While territorial disputes can lead to armed conflict, they are also frequently solved through negotiation or an international dispute settlement mechanism. This can involve the conclusion of a boundary treaty where the States agree on how to delimit their territories or it can take the form of a binding decision by a dispute settlement body such as the International Court of Justice.
However, despite the fact that the prevailing global system is relatively stable and that violent conflict has been reduced significantly in recent times, territorial conflicts remain a significant source of political violence. This is due to the fundamental association between States and land – physical space that must be occupied in order to possess it – as well as the fact that contested territories are inevitably linked with underlying contested identities and grievances.
Furthermore, a large number of territorial disputes are dyadic and rarely expand to more than three parties. This is partly because most wars are fought between the same two countries, as demonstrated by Lewis Fry Richardson’s analysis of all major wars in the 15th and 20th centuries.
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