Conflict Management Regimes and the Management of Land,

River, and Maritime Claims

Sara McLaughlin MitchellUniversity of Iowa

Andrew OwsiakUniversity of Georgia

Motivation• Fact-finding missions• Innocuous form of conflict management• Usage of strategy varies tremendously• River claims: used repeatedly• Land claims: only if river also involved• Maritime claims: never used

• What explains this puzzling fact?• Our answer focuses on conflict management regimes,

which are a function of 1) state interests and issue characteristics, 2) transaction costs, and 3) distribution of power

• Institutionalization occurs because of disputants’ desire to reduce transaction costs and stabilize expectations

Terminology• Regime: socially constructed institution containing a set

of behavioral standards for managing interstate conflicts.• Finnemore & Sikkink (1998), Keohane (1984), Ruggie (1998).

• Types of territorial claims (ICOW, Hensel et al 2008)

Territorial claim types

Land claim

River claim

Maritime claim

Conflict Management Strategies

BindingNon-Binding

Third-Party Conflict ManagementDisputants Only

Greater DisputantControl

LessDisputantControl

Negotiation

Bilater

alM

ultil

atera

l

Good o

ffice

sFac

t-fin

ding

Med

iatio

nArb

itrati

onAdj

udica

tion

(All) Peaceful Conflict Management

Land Claims Maritime Claims

River Claims

Issue Characteristics & State Interests(CM Regime Factor #1)

-High tangible & intangible salience;-High domestic audience costs for issue failure

-Global resource with high tangible salience; -EEZ claims similar to land claims

-High tangible salience; -Regional resource management-Interdependence

Transaction Costs(CM Regime Factor #2)

-High; borders are often negotiated separately

-Low; UNCLOS establishes CM rules/procedures-Global IGO involvement

-Medium; regional treaties/IGOs for CM, but variance-Bilateral vs. multilateral basins

Key Regime Events -UN Charter recognizes sovereignty , calls for peaceful settlement-Some principles established through legal judgments (e.g. Uti Possedetis)

-Traditions of the law of the sea;-Creation of UNCLOS -Strong CM regime (ITLOS, Article 287)

-UN Convention on Watercourses; -Growing # of river treaties/RBOs

Land Claims Maritime Claims

River Claims

Hypotheses -Bilateral negotiations used frequently

-Issues handled with 3PCM more frequently than land or river claims, especially adjudication

-River claims more likely to involve fact finding (UN Convention).

-Higher salience land claims will involve CM strategies with greater disputant control

-EEZ claims will be handled more like land claims with bilateral negotiations and 3PCM that give disputants control

-Regional IGOs more likely to help settle river claims than land or maritime claims.

-Arbitration preferred to adjudication

Conflict Management Regime Factor #3:Distribution of Power

• In asymmetric dyads:• Powerful can enforce preferences in bilateral

negotiations• Powerful less swayed by third-party

punishments/incentivesAs asymmetry grows:

• Hypotheses• Less conflict management of all kinds in asymmetric

dyads• Less involvement of global IGO• We will not present these results, but the findings

support these hypotheses.

Research Design• ICOW, version 1.1 (1816/1900-2001): claim-dyad-year• Logistic & rare events logistic regression

• Dependent variables:• Conflict management strategies, and aggregate categories

• Key independent variables:• Claim type: land, river, maritime (EEZ, non-EEZ)• Global IGO, regional IGO (any c.m.)

• Control variables:• Claim salience• Recent MIDs, failed peaceful (any) c.m. attempts (10 year index)• Joint democracy• Relative capabilities (stronger/weaker)• Claim duration

Management of claims, 1816-2001

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

D.V. All c.m. Bil. Neg. All t.p. Non-binding

Binding Regional IGO

Global IGO

Non EEZ -0.4486***(0.1029)

-0.6255***(0.1222)

0.1152(0.1584)

0.2941*(0.1643)

-0.9215*(0.5282)

1.6500***(0.3276)

-0.2809(0.5788)

EEZ -0.2246**(0.1015)

-0.3295***(0.1143)

0.2417(0.1634)

0.2524(0.1821)

0.1574(0.3140)

1.3594***(0.3704)

1.0349***(0.3822)

River 0.2696**(0.1111)

0.1715(0.1233)

0.5627***(0.1693)

0.6410***(0.1805)

-0.0617(0.4787)

2.1516***(0.3404)

0.7538(0.4881)

Third-party Conf. Mgmt.

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

D.V. Good offices

Fact-finding

Mediation Arbitration Adjud. Multi. Neg.

Non EEZ -0.26612***(1.0156)

None -0.2778(0.3786)

None 0.4232(0.6320)

1.5406***(0.2300)

EEZ 0.5396*(0.2877)

None -0.1212(0.3148)

0.0092(0.5503)

1.0207**(0.5055)

0.6004*(0.3424)

River 0.6808**(0.3203)

2.9658***(0.6702)

0.4685(0.3103)

None 1.2937**(0.5900)

0.4067(0.3715)

Conclusions• Overview of our argument:• State interests high, power asymmetry high, transaction costs low

→ states prefer conflict management strategies of greater control• Control + potential for other actor involvement (function of

transaction costs) → conflict management regimes• Conflict management regimes have emerged historically

• Maritime• More multilateral:• EEZ: global IGO (adjudication)• Non-EEZ: multilateral negotiation, no global IGO

• Mixed support that EEZ mirrors land claims• Land:

• Bilateral negotiations, less third-party (except: arbitration)• River:

• Non-binding third-party conflict management (esp. fact-finding)• Limited multilateral framework (regional, not global)

Questions and comments

Appendix: Table 2, all

Appendix: Table 3, all