Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 09:37:23 +1100
To: [log in to unmask]
From: John Robert Victor Prescott
<<[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:
TimesDear
Colleagues, The winner of the Quiz is Brendan Whyte who scored 16 and
he was closely followed by Pierre Zakia and Martin Pratt. The answers
are shown below and I will now wait nervously to discover if I have
made any mistakes! With best wishes for the coming year, Sincerely,
Victor Prescott
THE PENULTIMATE CHRISTMAS BOUNDARY QUIZ OF THE 20TH CENTURY
1 Who made the following incorrect prediction?
For at least 1500 miles does that huge, unbroken wall of peak and
snowfield shut off India from Tibet or China ... this is indeed our
ideal of a typical barrier wall, a barrier such as no device of man no
devilish ingenuity of invention, can assail with any hope of a
successful issue
Sir T.H.Holdich, Political frontiers and boundary making, 1916,
124.
2 In terms of their evolution which of the following boundaries
is the exception?
The Anglo-German boundary of Walvis Bay, 1911
The Anglo-Portuguese boundary between Angola and Northern Rhodesia,
1905
The Anglo-French boundary between the colonies of Lagos and Dahomey,
1889
The Anglo-American boundary through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 1872
The Anglo-French boundary, unlike the others, did not involve
third-party arbitration.
3Arial
TimesWhich phrase in the treaty
between Argentina and Chile in 1881 caused a major dispute over its
interpretation.
I was thinking of the following phrase' the line of highest
crests dividing the waters' The watershed did not coincide with the
line of highest crests. However as some respondents noted there was
also the reference to the Beagle Channel which also caused problems
that were solved only recently.
4Arial
TimesThe coast of the Caspian
Sea is shared by five countries. What is the highest number of
countries to share the coast of a lake?
Four. Tanganyika and Chad.
5Arial
TimesWhich is the only country
that has been forced to accept a territorial sea boundary with its
neighbour?
Iraq when the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Demarcation
Commission delimited a maritime boundary in March 1993.
There was a nice try by Brendan who referred to the Northern
Limit Line imposed by the United Nations but that is not a territorial
sea boundary. My understanding is that it is a boundary up to which
the UN vessels patrol.
6Arial
TimesWhy did Norway define its
claim in Antarctica quite differently from the claims of Argentina,
Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom?
Norway did not make a claim to a sector in common with the other
claimants because it opposes the Soviet Union's sector claim in the
Arctic Ocean.
7Arial
TimesIn which borderland are
the Rohingyas located?
The Bangladesh-Burma borderland.
8Arial
TimesWhat change to the United
Kingdom's boundaries was announced on 21 July 1997?
Rockall was not used to claim an exclusive economic zone.
9Arial
TimesCan you name five pairs of
countries that have delimited seabed boundaries more than 200 nautical
miles from their baselines?
Australia-France twice, Australia and Papua New Guinea,
Australia-Solomon Islands, Solomon Islands-Papua New Guinea, Russia and
the United States. Mexico and the United States, United Kingdom and
Ireland twice.
10Arial
TimesWhat political events
might explain the doubling of people to 700,000 crossing into Syria
from Lebanon in 1971?
The November 1970 coup that installed Hafiz al-Asad and the new
domestic and foreign policies that followed. (Drysdale, 1994,
Trans-boundary interaction and political conflict in the central Middle
East, World Boundaries, volume 2.)
11Arial
TimesWhich town in the Balkans
was created as a 'self-governing neutral district' on 5 March 1999 by a
panel of international arbitrators?
Brcko
12Arial
TimesWho was Caprivi and in
which territorial transfer was he involved?
A general who replaced Bismarck as Chancellor . During his tenure
Britain and Germany exchanged Zanzibar for Heligoland.
13Arial
TimesCan you rearrange the
following sets of letters to identify six contributors to the
literature of international boundaries before 1939? Fresh oahu;
Leadpaller; tzarle; gobsg; le drain; clean
Haushofer, Lapradelle, Ratzel, Boggs, Ireland, Ancel.
14Arial
TimesCan you identify three
rules in Part II Section 2 and Part IV of the 1982 Law of the Sea
Convention that were created with one particular country in mind?
Article 7(4) Norway. Article 47 (6) Malaysia. Article 47 (7) The
Bahamas. I disallowed straight baselines because Norway was not the
only country in mind. I disallowed Bangladesh because while it
initiated the debate that resulted in the unstable coasts provision it
did not succeed in getting what it wanted. It wanted baselines
unconnected to land in the vicinity of the 10 fathom line.
15Arial
TimesWhich were the two
judgements which created the concept of the natural prolongation of the
continental margin and which might be considered to have ended the
operation of that concept within 200 nautical miles of baselines?
The 1969 Judgement in the North Sea case involving the
Netherlands, Denmark and West Germany. The 1985 Judgement in the
Libya-Malta case.
16Arial
TimesIn terms of their location
why is one of the following islands or groups exceptional? Channel
Islands, Hawar Islands, Ko Samui, Megisti Island.
The Thai island of Ko Samui is off the coast of Thailand. The
other islands are all off the coasts of a foreign country.
17Arial
TimesThe boundary then
follows the Agnes River (How) to
its first left bank tributary (Which is
left and which right?), which is followed for 5.2 km
to the intersection of the river with parallel 15°34'S
( Which definition applies if they are not identical?).
From this intersection the boundary follows the parallel to its first
intersection with the municipal limits of Bullimer and then
follows that municipal limit to its second intersection with the
parallel (Which way round the municipal limit does
the boundary travel?) and then the parallel to the
coast (High Water, Low Water?).
How many ambiguities can you find in this boundary delimitation which
might complicate life for the demarcation commissioners?
The answers commendably went into even more detail.
18Arial
TimesThe territory of which
countries straddle the International Date Line?
Kiribati and New Zealand's Antarctic Territory. I have ignored
Kiribati's attempt to redraw the International Date Line. Other
countries were mentioned but the date line intersected their extended
maritime claims rather than their territory.
19Arial
TimesWhich were the parties
that signed the last international treaty dealing with conflicting
territorial claims in the nineteenth century?
Argentina and Chile 29 December 1900. This was the closest I got
to a trick question. Since I am old fashioned and believe we started at
One AD then the end of the 19th century was 31 December 1900. I
signalled my view by entitling the quiz as the Penultimate Quiz of the
Twentieth Century.
JRV and DF Prescott
East Brighton
Victoria 3187
AUSTRALIA
Phone 61 3 9592 5156
Fax 61 3 9593 1624
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
