Regarding supranational space / non-national territory held in common trust,
UNCLOS (and others) plus the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) are rightly
identified as the most comprehensive approaches and they have certainly
taken a global perspective. As always with governance and borders, there
are many other approaches which fall in between the extremes of being
entirely sovereign and being entirely common--although ATS is far from being
globally altruistic since territorial claims are set aside, being neither
accepted nor denied, rather than being outright denied forever.
For example, some territories are jointly governed by more than one state,
such as Northern Ireland and Svalbard. For Northern Ireland, one attempt
(now superceded, obviously) was the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 "within
which the Irish Government may put forward views and proposals on the role
and composition of bodies appointed by the [UK's] Secretary of State for
Northern Ireland or by Departments subject to his [or her] direction and
control" (Article 6). The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 gives Norway sovereignty
over all islands between 10°E and 35°E and between 74°N and 81°N, but
nationals of all the many contracting states can access the natural
resources including:
-"the rights of fishing and hunting" (Article 2).
-"access and entry for any reason or object whatever to the waters, fjords
and ports…subject to the observance of local laws and regulations, they may
carry on there without impediment all maritime, industrial, mining and
commercial operations." (Article 3).
-"methods of acquisition, enjoyment and exercise of the right of ownership
of property, including mineral rights" (Article 7).
Other countries implement parallel and joint sovereignty governance
structures for specific territories and specific topics. Complementary
justice systems for indigenous peoples operate in Canada and New Zealand.
Parallel currency systems operate around the world through barter networks
and local currencies such as the Local Exchange Trading Systems, for
instance in Ithaca, New York and Skye, Scotland. Many border towns, for
example Enniskillen in Northern Ireland near the border with the Republic of
Ireland, use two currencies to facilitate business and to avoid losses by
exchanging money in banks. The USA, Canada, and New Zealand offer
indigenous peoples strong degrees of autonomy over certain territories which
are governed in parallel with some national and sub-national laws.
In following this slippery slope from common territory to joint governance,
this email has now diverged quite some way from the initial concept of
supranational space / non-national territory held in common trust. The
examples do demonstrate how many possibilities exist. Another anomaly which
is a good case study is the Donut Hole in the Central Bering Sea--a piece of
international waters surrounded by territorial waters. As well, I have
recently written a paper speculating on sovereignty possibilities for island
states evacuated due to sea-level rise:
Kelman, I. 2007. "Island Security and Disaster Diplomacy in the
Context of Climate Change". Les Cahiers de la Sécurité, in press.
Considering smaller scales, for centuries the UK has had a system of
"commons", i.e. small green spaces which are common land for which ownership
is complicated but for which joint responsibility and management exist
amongst users. This brief sentence, of course, hardly does justice to the
complexities involved in managing the commons. In fact, the phrase "Tragedy
of the Commons" arose from challenges of managing these spaces of common
land.
All this material, and the real and speculative case studies, have been
applied to academic and operational discussions regarding the management of
outer space and the deep sea. Generally, Antarctica is the model which has
tried to be adopted especially regarding the concept of setting aside
territorial claims. However, Antarctica, outer space, and the deep sea have
three characteristics which, it is suggested, make them ideal for
international, common management without significant dispute:
1. There are no indigenous people (as far as we know).
2. They are tough and expensive to travel to (at the moment).
3. Resources, especially but not limited to mineral resources, are not
cost-effective to extract.
The suggestion is that if one these three pillars were to collapse, then the
basis for international, common management would collapse too.
This phenomenon is seen around Antarctica for marine living resources, i.e.
fishing, and, to some degree, tourism. As it becomes economically viable to
fish and increasingly popular and affordable for tourists, the Treaty System
is being tougher to monitor and enforce. When oil hits $300 a barrel or
when towing icebergs north for freshwater will turn a profit, components of
the Treaty System or the entire Treaty System might not survive.
This question is an excellent one and I hope that the information above is
accurate and would stimulate further ideas. I look forward to anyone
correcting my errors or misapprehensions as well as further ideas, in theory
and in practice, on this topic.
Ilan
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