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A Deconstruction of the Notion of Acquisitive Prescription and Its Implications for the Diaoyu Islands Dispute

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2012

ZHANG Zuxing
ZHANG Zuxing*
Affiliation:
Sun Yat-Sen University, People's Republic of China
*
zhangzx@mail.sysu.edu.cn
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Abstract

“Acquisitive prescription” should be denied as a rule of international law governing the acquisition of territorial sovereignty. It is useless in practice and confusing in theory. Replacing it should be the concepts of “historical title” and “tacit agreement”, which would thus expand the traditional five modes for legally acquiring territory to six. This rearrangement would be useful for us to get a clear and correct understanding of this part of international law, and would thus enable international law to play a positive role in dealing with territorial disputes. It would also prevent, hopefully, an exacerbation of the Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan as caused by a misunderstanding of this part of international law.

Type
Articles
Information
Asian Journal of International Law , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 2012 , pp. 323 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Asian Journal of International Law 2012

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Footnotes

*

Associate Professor, School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Sun Yat-Sen University, People's Republic of China. This research is funded by the Foundation for the Humanitarian and Social Science Research of the Ministry of Education of PRC (Project Number 11 YJAZH 123). I am sincerely grateful for the critical comments of the reviewers of the Asian Journal of International Law. The views are the author's own.

References

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7. Ibid., at 37.

8. See e.g. Grotius, supranote 4 at 227, stating that

[I]t is plain that a king can acquire a right as against a king, and an independent State as against an independent State, not only by express agreement, but also by abandonment of ownership and the occupation which follows it or assumes a new force from it.

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35. Ibid., at 145−6 (dissenting opinion of Judge Dugard).

36. Ibid., at 171 (separate opinion of Judge Sreenivasa Rao).

37. Ibid., at 119–20 (joint dissenting opinion of Judges Simma and Abraham).

38. Ibid., at 121.

39. Ibid., at 51.

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42. Ibid., at 1105.

43. Ibid., at 1103.

44. Ibid., at 1105.

45. Jennings indicated the Island of Palmas case as evidencing a decision based on prescriptive title; Jennings, supra note 3 at 954. But, in that case, the arbitrator found no original title on the part of Spain—at most an “inchoate title” was found—and also no illegality on the activities on the part of the Netherlands, whose possession was regarded as peaceful.

46. “Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Dec. 30, 1971” [1972] 15 Peking Review [Beijing Zhoubao] 12.

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54. Carlos RAMOS-MROSOVSKY, “International Law's Unhelpful Role in the Senkaku Islands” (2008) 29 University of Pennsylvania of International Law Journal 906.