Conflict Management Regimes and the Management of Land, River, and Maritime Claims Sara McLaughlin Mitchell University of Iowa Andrew Owsiak University of Georgia
Dec 17, 2015
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)