Title PhD
The Eritrea - Ethiopia Territorial Conflict: A Factor of Volatility in Interstate Relations
Research field/ discipline
Political Science
Abstract
The research examines the Eritrea - Ethiopia territorial conflict as a factor of volatility in the Horn of Africa (HoA) in the context of the great importance that nations attach to boundaries and the casual role that boundaries play in interstate conflicts. It reviews the multiple aspects of the Eritrea - Ethiopia conflict within the framework of treaty-based international law and international relations. The study probes UN and AU approaches to prevent, manage and resolve the conflict. A definitive settlement of the claims to territory that settles the boundary delimitation dispute and boundary demarcation problem could turn the interstate frontier from what Lord Curzon characterised as "the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war or peace, of life or death to nations" into a bridge of vibrant transborder interaction, interstate cooperation and regional integration.
The study sketches the stage by stage evolution of the conflict; reviews the role of the UN and the AU in search of the peaceful settlement of the Eritrea - Ethiopia conflict; and appraises its efficacy in upholding the UN's commitment to the maintenance of world peace and regional security, the AU's core principle of uti possidetis juris and the peaceful resolution of the conflict, foreclosing the use or threat of force between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Specifically, the study scrutinises the deliberations informing the arbitral decision encapsulated in the Dispositif of the Eritrea - Ethiopia arbitral process; interrogates whether the arbitral decision reflects strict adherence to the terms of the arbitral mandate as a legal framework or reveals significant deviations from the terms of the arbitral mandate; and assesses the efficacy of arbitration as a mechanism of conflict resolution in the specific case of the Eritrea - Ethiopia boundary conflict.