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Annexation

This article is about the incorporation of additional territory into a nation state. For the incorporation of additional territory into an urban area, see Municipal annexation.
Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, passed by the Knesset on 30 July 1980
Federal Law Admitting to the Russian Federation the Republic of Crimea, passed by the State Duma on 21 March 2014
Two examples of unilateral annexation laws, both illegal under international law

Annexation,[1] in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory.[2] In current international law, it is generally held to be an illegal act.[3] Annexation is a unilateral act where territory is seized and held by one state,[4] as distinct from the complete conquest of another country,[a][7][8] and differs from cession, in which territory is given or sold through treaty.

Annexation can be legitimized if generally recognized by other states and international bodies.[4][9][2]

The illegality of annexation means that states carrying out such acts usually avoid using the word annexation in describing their actions;[10][11] in each of the unresolved annexations by Israel, Morocco and Russia, the states have avoided characterizing their actions as such.[11][12]

  1. ^ (Latin ad, to, and nexus, joining)
  2. ^ a b Rothwell et al. 2014, p. 360: "Annexation is distinct from cession. Instead of a State seeking to relinquish territory, annexation occurs when the acquiring State asserts that it now holds the territory. Annexation will usual follow a military occupation of a territory, when the occupying power decides to cement its physical control by asserting legal title. The annexation of territory is essentially the administrative action associated with conquest. Mere conquest alone is not enough, but rather the conquering State must assert it is now sovereign over the territory concerned. For example, the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945 led to their occupation by the United States and allies for a number of years, but the States themselves were not absorbed by the Allied Powers part of their respective territories. Examples of annexation in contemporary practice are not common, and are generally viewed as illegal."
  3. ^ Hofmann 2013, p. i: "Annexation means the forcible acquisition of territory by one State at the expense of another State. It is one of the principal modes of acquiring territory... in contrast to acquisition a) of terra nullius by means of effective occupation accompanied by the intent to appropriate the territory; b) by cession as a result of a treaty concluded between the States concerned (Treaties), or an act of adjudication, both followed by the effective peaceful transfer of territory; c) by means of prescription defined as the legitimization of a doubtful title to territory by passage of time and presumed acquiescence of the former sovereign; d) by accretion constituting the physical process by which new land is formed close to, or becomes attached to, existing land. Under present international law, annexation no longer constitutes a legally admissible mode of acquisition of territory as it violates the prohibition of the threat or use of force. Therefore annexations must not be recognized as legal."
  4. ^ a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Barclay, Thomas (1911). "Annexation". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 73.
  5. ^ Goertz, Gary; Diehl, Paul F.; Balas, Alexandru (2016), "The Development of Territorial Norms and the Norm against Conquest", The Puzzle of Peace, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199301027.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-930102-7
  6. ^ Altman, Dan (2020). "The Evolution of Territorial Conquest After 1945 and the Limits of the Territorial Integrity Norm". International Organization. 74 (3): 490–522. doi:10.1017/S0020818320000119. ISSN 0020-8183. S2CID 226467742. Archived from the original on 3 March 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
  7. ^ Marcelo G Kohen (2017). "Conquest". In Frauke Lachenmann; Rüdiger Wolfrum (eds.). The Law of Armed Conflict and the Use of Force: The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law. Oxford University Press. p. 289. ISBN 978-0-19-878462-3. Conquest and annexation are not synonymous either. The latter term is used within and outside the context of armed conflicts, to designate a unilateral decision adopted by a State in order to extend its sovereignty over a given territory. In many cases, the effective occupation of a terra nullius was followed by a declaration of annexation, in order to incorporate the territory under the sovereignty of the acquiring State. In the context of armed conflicts, annexation is the case in which the victorious State unilaterally declares that it is henceforth sovereign over the territory having passed under its control as a result of hostilities. This attempt at producing a transfer of sovereignty through the exclusive decision of the victor is not generally recognized as valid, both in classical and in contemporary international law. An example of a case of annexation preceding the adoption of the UN Charter is the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1908. The annexation was not recognized by the major Powers and required a modification of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin which had simply granted Austria-Hungary the right to administer the territory. Another example is the annexation of Ethiopia by Italy in 1936. Examples of purported contemporary annexations are the Golan Heights annexed by Israel in 1980 and Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, both declared null and void by the Security Council, or the incorporation of Crimea and the City of Sebastopol in the Russian Federation.
  8. ^ Kohen, p.288, refers to clause 101 of the PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE, 1933, April 5th, General List: No. 43. TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION, LEGAL STATUS OF EASTERN GREENLAND: "Conquest only operates as a cause of loss of sovereignty when there is war between two States and by reason of the defeat of one of them sovereignty over territory passes from the loser to the victorious State."
  9. ^ "Annexation". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 20 March 2014. Unlike cession, whereby territory is given or sold through treaty, annexation is a unilateral act made effective by actual possession and legitimized by general recognition.
  10. ^ Dajani, Omar M. (2017). "Symposium on revisiting Israel's settlements: Israel's creeping annexation". AJIL Unbound. 111. Cambridge University Press: 51–56. doi:10.1017/aju.2017.21. ISSN 2398-7723. S2CID 149297181. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2022. …today's legal prohibition of conquest creates an incentive for states to obfuscate the reality of annexation that did not exist when such actions were lawful. Excessive formalism, accordingly, seems misplaced when assessing whether a state has manifested an intention to hold a territory "under its dominion" with sufficient clarity to constitute an unlawful annexation. Indeed, state practice offers no shortage of examples in which the international community has looked past a state's formal characterization of its actions when evaluating their lawfulness for this purpose—most recently in relation to Russia's annexation of Crimea. Accordingly, while a formal act of annexation is powerful evidence of intent, the lack of one is by no means dispositive. What other kinds of acts signal such an intention? As noted above, it may be signaled by a state's exercise, for a prolonged time, of the kinds of governmental functions typically reserved to a sovereign. An occupant's refusal to accept the law of occupation's applicability would seem probative for drawing this conclusion—as would a refusal to comply with duties under that law that relate specifically to distinguishing the rights of an occupant from those of a sovereign.
  11. ^ a b Korman, S. (1996). The Right of Conquest: The Acquisition of Territory by Force in International Law and Practice. Clarendon Press. pp. 253–254 (also see note 11). ISBN 978-0-19-158380-3. Retrieved 9 March 2022. However, in an era which has repudiated the 'right of conquest', the term 'annexation' is discreetly avoided by all states effecting acquisitions of territory by force.
  12. ^ Boris N. Mamlyuk (6 July 2015). "The Ukraine Crisis, Cold War II, and International Law". The German Law Journal. SSRN 2627417.


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