Colleagues:
As many of you are well aware, several point features identified in the
decisions for Eritrea-Ethiopia and El Salvador-Honduras land boundary do
not match identified paired coordinates. In some cases, these
ambiguities exceed several hundred meters. Such delimitation
discrepancies complicate the the swift demarcation of the boundary.
When one extracts coordinates from even 1:50,000 scale maps, spatial
incongruencies are assured between coordinates and features. Modern
technologies and resources available to cartographers and
geographers should prevent this kind of error, but they are not always
accessible to those rendering the boundary decision. In this case,
either the treaty/decision/negotiated agreement should have a clause
saying which takes precedent or cite just one or the other (time-honored
features being preferred, as the precise coordinates can be extracted
later by surveyors during the demarcation).
Are any of you aware of a precedent in deconflicting features and
coordinates in international land boundary agreements/decisions? To my
knowledge, reason seems to prevail and the features prevail over the
derived coordinates, if the two are in reasonable proximity to one
another. However, no current examples in international cases come to
mind at present.
I would greatly appreciate your comments,
Ray Milefsky, Specialist
International Boundaries and Sovereignty Issues
The Office of the Geographer and Global Issues
U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC 20520-6510
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