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

[Gangerolf]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer

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.)

Actually, Magyars still live in Transylvania. And in parts of Slovakia and Serbia. But yeah this is not a source of conflict between states anymore.. Soon everyone will be living in the EU anyway and all will be well

[Grandpa Troll]

I have thought and thought about this question for the thread topic.

By "moral" who would decide which "moral" is accepted and which is not?

I say this because say The Troll are fighting the Gramps. They have been for 100 years. The Troll possess land which was occupied formely by the Gramps. Is is "Moral" to say the Troll should possess or is it Moral to say the Gramps should reclaim that which they previously possessed through acts of war lost it?

What is the Gramps started the war to begin with and the Trolls overtook them?

I ask because often times "Moral" is an matter of perspective. Its also a matter of culture. I may not feel certain "moral" issues should be the way they are but because of the sensitivity of a people group, it is their moral values and not mine.

I may be making too much out of this, but Historically speaking, differing views have what brought many a power to the war table and destroyed many another.


Grandpa Troll

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
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.

Indeed. You usually have to prove your ethnic group has been horridly mistreated to break away from a country. Even then, there are hoops to jump.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
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?

A significant number of Native American tribes. Additional South American Indian tribes. Selected displaced people now in Siberia who were located in European Russia, e.g., the Don cossacks. Selected African tribes driven out of lands to their north or south. The Palestineans, the Jews, and other (?) Middle Eastern claimants are by no means the first or only such people. Only the Jews were so heavily dispersed and still maintained a national identity, but their story is not historically unique.

Several of the tribes that invaded Rome, leading to the collapse of the western empire, were driven from their homelands by other tribes, some of whom soon followed them into the west. These people maintained claims on lands to the east for many generations, despite having no way to enforce them. (The Magyars and Bulgars are classic cases of this with written documentation to support their cases. The Goths, Franks, Alans and Huns also made such claims although little contemporary documentation establishes the locations of their original homelands. The Huns actually grew strong enough in the west to go "home," although modern historians are at a bit of a loss as to precisely where that may have been. Appears the Mongols destroyed them about 700 years later on their march to the west.)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


A significant number of Native American tribes. Additional South American Indian tribes. Selected displaced people now in Siberia who were located in European Russia, e.g., the Don cossacks. Selected African tribes driven out of lands to their north or south. The Palestineans, the Jews, and other (?) Middle Eastern claimants are by no means the first or only such people. Only the Jews were so heavily dispersed and still maintained a national identity, but their story is not historically unique.

Several of the tribes that invaded Rome, leading to the collapse of the western empire, were driven from their homelands by other tribes, some of whom soon followed them into the west. These people maintained claims on lands to the east for many generations, despite having no way to enforce them. (The Magyars and Bulgars are classic cases of this with written documentation to support their cases. The Goths, Franks, Alans and Huns also made such claims although little contemporary documentation establishes the locations of their original homelands. The Huns actually grew strong enough in the west to go "home," although modern historians are at a bit of a loss as to precisely where that may have been. Appears the Mongols destroyed them about 700 years later on their march to the west.)

The magyars and Bulgars of course ended up with states, where most of their nationally conscious descendants resided.

The Cossacks ethnic distinctiveness from Russians is a complext matter, as is the brief appearance, IIUC, of a Don Cossack Republic.

I certainly want to learn more about the Amerindian examples. Most didnt really have a "state" in their old homelands, or, like the Cherokee, had one relatively briefly. And of course the Cherokee still have an autonomous reservation on the old Cherokee land. I suppose most of the other tribes exiled to Oklahoma do not.

I would note that in almost all these cases the common thread is that the exiled people resettled as a people on a common piece of new land, often under the rule of the same state that exiled them, and that they are usually too small to effectively claim a state anyway. I really know of none that present "claims" that are before the international community in the way that the OP raised.

I wonder. The Zionist movement began as an attempt to migrate to Palestine (in the 1880s) and to buy land for settlement. If the Cherokee nation, (for example) has aspirations to return to the Great Smokies, analogous to the the Chovevi Zion or the Biluim, are THEY making a conscious attempt to encourage migration of Cherokees from Oklahoma to the Great Smokies areas of Tenn and North Carolina? Buying land? Etc? Is there anything like that in the case of any other exiled North American tribe? Or South America? Or African? Sounds to me like a lot of folks asserting claims (possibly justified) to land in an attempt to get compensation.

The land of the Don Cossacks is now in the Russian Republic, no? Whats to keep their descendants from migrating there?

[VetLegion]

Are you kidding? In Russia you have to have permits to move between cities if you're Russian, let alone something else

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll
I have thought and thought about this question for the thread topic.

By "moral" who would decide which "moral" is accepted and which is not?

Me

I'm not asking about a ruleset for everybody, just me (or you). Basically, I only wish to be consistent. So if I approve of independent Kurdistan, should I approve of independent south Sudan or Kosovo? Each case is different, but they all boil down to the title of the thread.

If I knew how to define a just and moral claim to a piece of land, I'd know what to support and what not.

Being neutral annoys me, I want to take sides

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Are you kidding? In Russia you have to have permits to move between cities if you're Russian, let alone something else

Even today?

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by VetLegion
If I knew how to define a just and moral claim to a piece of land, I'd know what to support and what not.

Being neutral annoys me, I want to take sides

Historically, such claims usually need more than morality to be successfully executed. Guns seem to help (or hurt) the most. Next comes money. LOTM makes a good point about the Zionists using their money to help substantiate their claims by buying the land -- rather than just taking it -- at least initially (pre-1949). As with all such things, lawyers don't hurt either. Moral claims supported by successful legal claims are much stronger than morality alone. ("Lawyers, Guns, and Money" is the title of a decent hit by Elvis Costello, IIRC.)

Unless the land is empty, and little decent land ever is, there will be competing claims in all such cases. Without introducing the "inherent superiority" of some religion or nationality, all such cases will have to be determined by the historical analyst (i.e., you and me) one-by-one, case-by-case. No universal truths here, I fear.

Was there, perchance, some particular historical claim you had in mind? On a different thread, someone indicated you had a strong view related to Macedonia. Would you like to discuss that particular set of claims in history?

[Ecthy]

What kind of legal courts did France use to get hold of the Alsace and Lorraine region? How were the Reunion chambers legitimate and how were their claims enforced? Wasn't it just a posh way of military conquest?

[Proteus_MST]

One important question of course is also the timeframe.
Does a tribe whose grandparent generation were driven out of their lands 60 years ago have more moral claims to its former territory than a tribe whose ancestors were driven out of their home territory 1000 years ago?
And where would someone draw the line?

Many of the states not even exist today anymore.
Would a state that was driven out of (now) italian territory by the Imperium romanum have a right to demand the lands back from the italian government (which IMHO isn´t a direct legal successor to the imperium romanum)?
And would this claim be less justified than a claim of an american tribe against the american government (which is definitely the legal successor to the government that relocated the native americans) to return their lands back to them?

IMHO very difficult.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
One important question of course is also the timeframe.
Does a tribe whose grandparent generation were driven out of their lands 60 years ago have more moral claims to its former territory than a tribe whose ancestors were driven out of their home territory 1000 years ago?
And where would someone draw the line?

Many of the states not even exist today anymore.
Would a state that was driven out of (now) italian territory by the Imperium romanum have a right to demand the lands back from the italian government (which IMHO isn´t a direct legal successor to the imperium romanum)?
And would this claim be less justified than a claim of an american tribe against the american government (which is definitely the legal successor to the government that relocated the native americans) to return their lands back to them?

IMHO very difficult.

what peoples driven out of Italy have retained a distinctive identity, let alone continued to assert claim? Where are the Ligurians, the Etruscans? The celts one could say, but most of todays celts are living in precisely the places where THEIR ancestors lived and established states. And certainly theres no history of Irish or Welsh looking longingly at the Po Valley, making pilgrimages to it, referring to it in their prayers, etc.

Thats whats bogus about "abstract" discussions like this. There is ONLY one claim in the world based on a 1000 year old or greater historical connection. ONE. Its sui generis, there are no precedents for it,nore precedents against it, nor does it establish much in the way of precedent for anyone else. Its futile to pretend otherwise, IMHO. And everyone KNOWS when they make an arguement on claims that old, that it has application to only this one case - there is no veil of ignorance, no way to seperate a discussion of hypothetical etruscans from ones actual opinions about a very real country whose existence is still challenged despite having been sovereign for 58 years now.

[Blaupanzer]

LOTM, right about the one country. No other intact group has maintained a cultural integrity that long without a homeland.

However, part of the land they now stand one was home to another people who have maintained their cultural integrity and claim status for that same 58 years. (I won't digress here as to the reasons why that is so and the uses to which the people in those camps have been put.) However, how are the moral claims of the one group superior to the moral claims of the other? Israelis and Palestinians do represent a rather unique set of claims.

The wider question is almost always answered in favor of the more powerful claimant (especially as relates to military power). That power may come from outside the actually involved claimants, e.g., Turkey preventing the Kurds of Iraq from forming an independent state. However, the relative morality of the claims seems to be ineffective in determining the outcome.

So I would say that, effectively, there really isn't any such thing as a moral right to a specific piece of land. A right to self-rule? Perhaps. But to land not now occupied by the claimant? Not really. Doesn't mean folks won't make those claims.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
LOTM, right about the one country. No other intact group has maintained a cultural integrity that long without a homeland.

However, part of the land they now stand one was home to another people who have maintained their cultural integrity and claim status for that same 58 years. (I won't digress here as to the reasons why that is so and the uses to which the people in those camps have been put.) However, how are the moral claims of the one group superior to the moral claims of the other? Israelis and Palestinians do represent a rather unique set of claims.

IF it were on topic here, which it is not, I would say that both peoples have legitimate claims to the land, and that the only viable solution, both morally and practically, is a partition that recognizes both claims. What the boundaries between the two states should be, and how to deal with isues of security, water, etc are issues to be determined in negotiations.

Now can we get back to discussing history?

[Straybow]

The Normans began somewhere in Scandanavia. They were induced to settle on the French coast in exchange for protecting the Franks against other vikings. Their chieftain was recognized as a Duke.

Through conquest the Normans gained England. Through marriage the Normans gained the Acquitaine. They eventually abandoned claims to Normandy and other possessions in France and adopted England as their True Homeland™.

It doesn't matter how rich and valuable the land is, it doesn't matter what language the people speak. The idea of a homeland is flexible and to some degree a matter of convenience. Families had claims to land in France, but they are forgotten.

That's what historiy is, by and large. One people displacing another, who displace a third, etc.

As a matter of history, might makes right. Physical possession is 10 tenths of the law.