Conceptual Change in International Relations: The Case of 'Territorial Integrity'

This paper will chart the conceptual history of 'territorial integrity' in international relations and law in the 19th and 20 centuries. The meaning of 'territorial integrity' in international relations underwent a major transformation with the 1960s decolonization. The norm was originally understood to shield states against involuntary territorial loss to external actors and thus apply only in interstate relations; however, since the early 1960s states and intergovernmental organizations have invoked it to extend that protection to intrastate relations against involuntary territorial loss to internal actors, i.e. against unilateral secession. This radical extension in substance was the result of diplomatic argumentation on how to respond to violent challenges to the settlement of territorial title accompanying a major international change, a large-scale shift of sovereignty from the European colonial powers to the new states of Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.