Falkland Islanders to hold referendum over sovereignty

[Tupac Shakur]

Why would a bunch of British colonists vote to become part of the country Britain stole the land from in the first place? That's about as likely as a gringo colonist like yourself voting to return California to Mexico.

[Dinner]

They've lived there for almost 200 years and self determination of peoples has always been one of the principles of modern international law. Besides, the Argentine claim has always been spurious.

[Tupac Shakur]

Besides, the Argentine claim has always been spurious.

It's as obvious that Britain stole the Falkland Islands from Argentina as it is that the United States stole California from Mexico. Stop being a revisionist douche.

[Dinner]

Bah! A few dozen people briefly establishing 200 years ago before getting kicked out by the Nation which rightly claimed it well before does not a claim make. Either way, no one on the island wants anything to do with Argentina and they have every right to self determination.

[MichaeltheGreat]

They didn't even establish it. The Spanish bought the settlement from the Frogs, more than 80 years after the first British landfall. The Frog settlement on east Falkland preceded the independent Brit settlement by a year, but the two were unaware of each other. The Argie claim would be behind the Spanish, French, Brit and Dutch. The Spanish, French and Dutch don't care, but good for the Argies to find a way to come in fifth in a two horse race.

[Tupac Shakur]

French claim passed to --> Spain --> Argentina. The Malvinas were Argentinian when the British stole them.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Nope. Spain had the admiistrative capital in Buenos Aires pre-independence, but retained the claim. All parties abandoned the islands in 1811, though both retained claims. A damaged privateer for one of those third-world Latinamerican temporary countries before Argentina made its own claim in 1820 when it landed to repair storm damage, but the preceeding English and Spanish claims (and the Spanish yielded to the English, at least to the extent of saying "ooopsies, we're sorry we kicked your guys out, they can come back, please don't kick our asses again"). So the earliest Argieesque claim was only 130 years after the initial English landing and was made decades after the formal English claim.

So you can console yourself by listening to "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" once again. I hear the Royal Marine Band had a rather rousing version.

[Tupac Shakur]

I had a lengthy post here in an earlier Malvinas thread proving that the French/Spanish/Argentinian claim is the valid one, but it sadly appears to have been lost in one of Poly's outages and am not redoing that work. I'll just have to settle for telling you that you're wrong.

[Tupac Shakur]

Not theft, according to retards...

On 2 January 1833, Captain John Onslow arrived and delivered written requests that Pinedo lower the Argentine flag in favour of the British one, and that the Argentine administration leave the islands. Pinedo asked if war had been declared between Argentina and Great Britain; Onslow replied that it had not. Nonetheless, Pinedo, heavily outmanned and outgunned, left the islands under protest, with the Argentine flag being lowered by British officers and delivered to him.

Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute

[MichaeltheGreat]

I had a lengthy post here in an earlier Malvinas thread proving that the French/Spanish/Argentinian claim is the valid one, but it sadly appears to have been lost in one of Poly's outages and am not redoing that work. I'll just have to settle for telling you that you're wrong.

You mean you proved the French got there in 1689 and the Spanish expressly relinquished their claim in favor of the Argies? Nice research.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Not theft, according to retards...



Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute

Evicting squatters and trespassers isn't theft.

[Tupac Shakur]

The French settled the Falklands first (undisputed), relinquished their claim to the Spanish (undisputed), and that claim passed to Argentina when they won their independence from Spain (Argentina's claim). If you don't accept the argument that Spain's claim passed to Argentina under uti possidetis juris, then the Malvinas were pretty clearly terra nullius when the Argentinians resettled them in 1829 (18 years after the Spanish abandoned them and 53 years after the British did). No matter how you look at it, the British straight up stole the Malvinas in 1833.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Except it can't be terra nullius unless (a) the Brits never claimed sovereignty (which they did, in 1690) or (b) unless they expressly or implicitly relinquished sovereignty. (which they didn't) The French colony established in 1764 was established on land lawfully claimed by the Brits. When they left Port Egmont in 1776, the plaque asserting continued sovereignty establishes that condition (b) never occurred.

The French presence starting in 1764 never created de jure sovereignty, as the Brits had never relinquished their claim, then or at any other time since. Everyone else since 1690 was trespassing on sovereign British territory.

[Tupac Shakur]

Except it can't be terra nullius unless (a) the Brits ... implicitly relinquished sovereignty. (which they didn't)

Except by abandoning the Falklands for 57 years, 37 years of which were marked by either Spanish or Argentinian de facto control over the islands. I guess a ****ing plaque (which the Spanish removed, anyway) is more meaningful than actual control, though...

[Tupac Shakur]

The Falklands/Malvinas were terra nullius when the French colonised the islands in the 18th century. They were then sold to Spain, a transfer of sovereignty which Britain recognised. However, upon decolonisation and under the principle of uti possidetis, sovereignty should have been transferred to Argentina, which declared independence in 1816. In 1833, Britain expelled the islands' inhabitants. Argentina's Foreign Minister Don Manuel Moreno was told by Prime Minister Palmerston that Argentina "could not reasonably have anticipated that the British Government would permit any other state to exercise a right as derived from Spain which Great Britain had denied to Spain itself."

Writing in the Yale Law Journal, W Michael Reisman affirmed that "Upon acquiring independence, a former colony", i.e. Argentina, "ordinarily inherits all the territory of that colony. This principle, enshrined in Latin America and, a century later, in Africa, would certainly appear to apply to the Falklands [Malvinas]." For Britons, the legal status of the islands is an open-and-shut case: Britain has no legal right to the islands. This has been reiterated at the General Assembly.

Why Britain is in the wrong over the Falklands