Is there such a thing as a moral right to a piece of land?

[VetLegion]

What initially comes to mind is Israel and Jewish claim that it is their ancestral and promised land, but if we generalize, then there are plenty of examples around the world of some group claiming to have moral right to some piece of land.

On one hand, land will belong to whoever can fight to conquer it and keep it. That is obvious and we need not discuss it.

What I am interested in is the moral issue. If group A claims it has a right to piece of land B, when should I agree with them?

- if they were removed from B against their wishes?

- if they weren't compensated for their property in B?

- if they were in B for a very long time?

- if they only recently left B?

- if they have left many monuments in B?

- if they are a majority in B, but B is part of a another country?


That may sound abstract, so here are some examples:

Should I support:

- Jewish claim to lands of ancient Israel
- Palestinian right of return to nowadays Israel
- Serbian claim to Kosovo
- Japanese claim to Kuril islands
- Chinese claim to Taiwan
- Independant Kurdish state

Or hypothetically (as far as I know these claims are not made by anyone important):

- Hungarian claim to parts of Romania
- Finnish claim to south Karelia
- Greek claim to parts of Asia Minor
- Greater Armenia

Opinions?

[lord of the mark]

my opinion is that if we focus too much on moral questions, and those related to current politics, that we lose the flavor of a history forum, and become a second off topic forum.

A good history forum should actually be about, you know, history.

[lord of the mark]

Re: Is there such a thing as a moral right to a piece of land?

Originally posted by VetLegion
What initially comes to mind is Israel and Jewish claim that it is their ancestral and promised land, but if we generalize, then there are plenty of examples around the world of some group claiming to have moral right to some piece of land.

On one hand, land will belong to whoever can fight to conquer it and keep it. That is obvious and we need not discuss it.

What I am interested in is the moral issue. If group A claims it has a right to piece of land B, when should I agree with them?

- if they were removed from B against their wishes?

- if they weren't compensated for their property in B?

- if they were in B for a very long time?

- if they only recently left B?

- if they have left many monuments in B?

- if they are a majority in B, but B is part of a another country?


That may sound abstract, so here are some examples:

Should I support:

- Jewish claim to lands of ancient Israel
- Palestinian right of return to nowadays Israel
- Serbian claim to Kosovo
- Japanese claim to Kuril islands
- Chinese claim to Taiwan
- Independant Kurdish state

Or hypothetically (as far as I know these claims are not made by anyone important):

- Hungarian claim to parts of Romania
- Finnish claim to south Karelia
- Greek claim to parts of Asia Minor
- Greater Armenia

Opinions?

BTW, I would note one other criteria you overlook - does Group A have soveriegnty over a piece of land OTHER than B. Jews pre-Zionism, and Kurds today, did not have any other state. Pals today have no state. All the other instances you mention are a people that already ahve a stae, and want ADDITIONAL land. Note, that Israeli claims to the West Bank, and Pal claims to pre-1967 Israel (once they get a state) would be in the same category.

[VetLegion]

That's a good point.

You're right that this is not exclusively historical thread (borders on philosophy), but most arguments when claims to land are discussed are indeed historical. And our threads in this forum have to have something apart from historical facts, I mean, if we want only that we can all use wikipedia, right?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion
That's a good point.

You're right that this is not exclusively historical thread (borders on philosophy), but most arguments when claims to land are discussed are indeed historical. And our threads in this forum have to have something apart from historical facts, I mean, if we want only that we can all use wikipedia, right?

To me an historical discussion would be "were the people who became Bosniaks Roman Catholic before they became Muslim" or "what were the population figures for Palestine in 1850" While the question "given the historical facts, is the Bosniak claim to independence just?" is a philisophical and political one.

And I would suggest that Wiki is not the last word. On many historical questions there are in fact debates on what the facts actually were (was ancient Jerusalem the capital of a large state, or just a tiny city state), and in many other cases on their interpretation (was the religion practiced in medieval Bosnia a form of Roman Catholicism) which we can discuss. We can also find interesting tidbits (like Laz did) or discuss historical what ifs, or many other things.

Indeed in OT weve had historical questions that were quite interesting that were, well, about history. And many of which arent easily resolved by going to wiki.

[Sava]

Is there such a thing as a moral right to a piece of land?

It depends. Generally, I would say "No". It is survival of the fittest. Whoever can move into an area, settle it, control it, and defend it from invasion essentially owns it. Morality does not play into it. But there are two parts to this. Read my whole post before you reply.

As I look back at history at the different wars and mass population movements, I don't necessarily view them with any sense of morality as I used to. It is just the way things have happened. I try to understand the history behind why things have happened the way they have, how certain societies developed the advantages over other peoples, and what led to those conflicts. But I don't view one side as having any morals right to that land because humans have been roaming the planet for a very long time and it's silly to say that a certain culture or ethnic group now has sole ownership of that land because they've managed to occupy it for a little while (relatively speaking).

That being said, morality plays into it when you talk about our actions and policies today. Just because there have been so many wars and mass population movements in the past, doesn't necessarily mean it's morally acceptable to engage in such actions today. I could talk more about this topic, but it borders on being irrelevant to historical discussions.

[Buck Birdseed]

I'm fairly promiscuous with this kind of thing - I have no problem believing any of a number of peoples could have a moral right to the same piece of land.

Not as convinced about the right of a nationalist movement to keep the land after they've acquired it though - a state should be ethnicity-neutral as far as possible. An obvious thing Israel has got a bit wrong.

[Odin]

No, that notion of an ethnicity having a "moral right" to a soverignty over a piece of land is based on nationalistic ideology.

[Barnabas]

Lets imagine country A in a war of conquest with no justification invades country B, expulse all the inhabitants of city c, and repopulate it with inhabitants from A.

150 years pass, who has the right to own city c?

l
It was unfairly taken from country B, but the people who now live in C, have lived there for generations, it is their home, and they are not guilty for what happened 150 years earlier.


Discuss

[Gangerolf]

what about 60 years, as is the case in huge parts of europe. oh and israel.

ok the "no justification" doesn't apply everywhere.

[Gangerolf]

but to answer your question I'd say the people who grew up and are living in city C should be allowed to stay there.

[General Ludd]

There's no such thing as a right to a piece of land, period.

[Blaupanzer]

Not really an historical question as posed. However, these claims have led to many historical events -- wars, massacres, migrations, pogroms, genocide. Not sure any such claims are "moral enough" to justify the mass displacement or murder that often follow attempts to enforce such claims.

The claims noted by VetLegion are not all the same however. The Kurds, for example, live on their claimed lands for the most part and are asserting the right to independence. This is different from the potential Hungarian claims in Rumania -- where the Magyar once lived in Transylvania but do so no longer. (To their credit, the Hungarian government has renounced all claims to Transylvania and Banat.)

Do ethnically identifiable people have the right to be free on their own currently occupied lands? In recent history, the West has supported this idea outside their own colonies.

Do people have the right to return to lands historically usurped from them and now occupied by other people? How recent does the usurpation have to be? Answering the first question "yes" under any timeframe for the second will lead to the use of force and will create a new set of claims in its very enforcement. History is filled with examples, but history itself cannot answer the question of morality. Unless "might makes right," the answer to the moral question lies in the realm of philosophy.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
Do people have the right to return to lands historically usurped from them and now occupied by other people? How recent does the usurpation have to be? Answering the first question "yes" under any timeframe for the second will lead to the use of force and will create a new set of claims in its very enforcement. History is filled with examples,

Is it? How many examples are there of a people displaced not only from some, but from all their lands - not just conquered but more or less completely displaced - who have maintained a distinctive identity in exile, one that includes a considerable measure of national consciousness and attachment to the original national home?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer

Do ethnically identifiable people have the right to be free on their own currently occupied lands? In recent history, the West has supported this idea outside their own colonies.

actually international law is just the reverse. The right to soveriegnty of existing states in general trumps rights to self determination, EXCEPT with respect to overseas colonies (at least since the Goa case came before the UN) People point to the Versailles treaty and other post-WW1, but that was an attempt to draw borders where the existing states had effectively collapsed.