Expansion and Restriction of State Territorial Sovereignty

There are mechanisms for expansion and restriction related to the territorial sovereignty possessed by a country. In the case of expansion of sovereignty, this occurs for at least 2 reasons, namely:

  • Territorial expansion occurs because the country concerned obtains a new territory that is legal and obtained in ways recognized by international law.
  • Territorial expansion that occurs due to claims over territory, especially marine territory. This claim can be based on various factors such as technological advances and international political dynamics. An example of a case of territorial expansion of a country through this method is Israel which claims most of the Palestinian territory as part of its territorial territory, or China's claim to ownership of marine territory in the South China Sea.

Apart from the expansion of sovereignty, there are also restrictions in the territorial territory of a country, which consist of 2 restrictions, namely:

  • Each country cannot exercise its jurisdiction or sovereignty outside its territory which can interfere with the sovereignty of another country's territory. An example of this restriction is reflected in the Palmas Island case (The Islands of Palmas) in 1928. Palmas or Miangas Island is located between the borders of the Philippines and North Indonesia. In 1898, Spain handed over the Philippines to the US through the Paris agreement. In 1906, the US discovered that the Netherlands also claimed territorial sovereignty over Palmas Island. The two parties agreed to resolve this dispute through a permanent arbitration court led by a Swiss lawyer arbiter, Max Huber. Huber said that in territorial sovereignty, there is an obligation (duty) to protect and not interfere with the rights of other countries. In that case, the Netherlands won the dispute, and Palmas or Miangas Island is now part of Indonesia's full sovereign territory.
  • A country that has territorial sovereignty is obliged to respect the territorial sovereignty of other countries, and vice versa. In the case of The Corfu Channel Case in 1949, the International Court of Justice argued that among independent countries, respect for each other's territorial sovereignty is an important basis for building good international relations.