|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mission - Overview - Departments - Islands Plan - Constitutional Review - FIDC - FLH - FCO - RELATIONSHIP WITH UK
By Lyubomir Ivanov Introduction My personal interest in overseas territories such as the Falklands, stems from their very special if not non-standard aspect. In the epoch of globalisation, these territories are increasingly becoming bridges between the principal world centres of power and influence. Indeed, the Falkland Islands are associated with the major centre of economic, technological and political development that is Europe. At the same time, their geographical location enables them to serve as an additional bridge to another such prospective centre like South America. Besides, the Falklands nation is among the very few ones having their homelands bordering Antarctica. These unique advantages offer development opportunities that many other nations are lacking. The Falklands Today Unlike
most overseas territories (bar Greenland and French Guiana), the Falklands
is not exactly what is usually termed a ‘mini-state’, being as large
as Ulster and enjoying an EEZ larger than that of the UK itself.
Its land territory offers ample space for agriculture (including
organic production) and urban development, as well as good potential for
tourism. The Islands are
endowed with enviably plentiful good harbours, their waters are rich in
fish and squid, with estimated considerable oil deposits in the Falklands
continental shelf too. The
Islands further benefit from being one of the gateways to adjacent
Antarctica. A
most precious asset of any country is its human resources of course,
including its demographic potential (which in the Falklands case is
comfortably increasing but still tiny) as well as its civil society basis
and its political framework. One
is greatly impressed by the practice of Falklands democracy, by the public
awareness and participation, by the high standards and quality of
statesmanship demonstrated by the Falklands Councillors in the first
place. One major benefit from
the link with Britain appears to be the present democratic system of
Falklands government providing for a responsible democratic management of
the country on a sustainable basis. The
governance of the Falklands, starting with its legislature and ending with
say the fisheries patrolling, is an increasingly sophisticated and complex
business conducted by the Falklands Islanders and their elected
politicians in a fairly mature and efficient manner.
In the meantime, more positions are being taken by locals rather
than by people contracted overseas. Therefore,
perfecting the Falklands democracy appears to be a key instrument in
ensuring the country’s further prosperity and well-being. The
present constitutional status of the Islands provides for a degree of
self-government going well beyond that of devolved Scotland for example,
with exclusive ownership of the Islands’ natural resources (including
any possible oil deposits and revenue), its own legislation, as well as
immigration policies of its own. Nevertheless,
the adoption of the Falklands Constitution in 1985 has been followed by
considerable evolution in the practice of government.
This evolution ought to be appropriately reflected in the current
constitutional review, including the necessity of relieving the Governor
institution from its ‘schizophrenic’ duty of representing both Stanley
before London and London before Stanley, repeatedly pointed out by
Falklands Governors themselves. It
would seem that the actual constitutional framework could be naturally
enhanced in several aspects such as: (1)
Having an elected prime minister and cabinet of
ministers with ministerial responsibility; (2)
Having native Falklands governors (rather than
Foreign Office officials) nominated by the Falklands Prime Minister and
appointed by the Queen; (3)
Appropriate arrangements with the UK ensuring that
the Foreign Office would act on foreign policy matters related to the
Falklands in accordance with prior authorisation by the Falklands
Government; (4)
Eventually, concluding a comprehensive legal
agreement regulating the relationship between the Falklands and the UK,
similar to the way in which the relationship between the USA and the
Northern Mariana Islands is regulated by their Compact of Free
Association, or the way in which the relationship between the Netherlands
in Europe, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba is set out by the Charter
of the Kingdom of Netherlands. Needless
to say, both the scope and pace of such evolutional development are up to
the Falkland Islanders themselves to set.
In particular, the apparent hesitation at this stage of the
Falklands political leaders to assume ministerial responsibility would
probably leave that reform for another constitutional review.
However, democracy necessarily requires the division of powers and
separation of executive and legislative branches.
Otherwise one sees the Stanley public meetings sort of playing the
role of ‘parliamentary control’, similar to Parliamentary Questions in
the Westminster House of Commons and the House of Lords. Self-determination
is a well-established principle of contemporary International Law.
The practice of its exercising however is a political rather than
legal process, indeed the UN Charter enshrining that same principle has no
relevant list of nations/peoples appended, leaving open the key practical
question: Who is entitled to self-determination and who is not?
In each particular case, for self-determination to take place there
should be a community of people considering themselves a distinct
nation/people in the first place, then they must claim their right to
self-determination and the opportunity to choose a self-determination
option of their preference, and last but not least, that claim needs to be
recognised by the respective central government. More
often than not this process goes not without obstacles and hardship; it
suffices to mention the self-determination of the Kurdish, Palestinian,
Timorese or Tibetan people. This
has nothing to do with numerical strength as some people wrongly believe;
indeed the Kurds number over 20 million.
At the same time the New Zealand possession of Tokelau, whose
population is just half that of the Falklands, has its right to
self-determination duly recognised both by New Zealand and the UN alike. The
Falkland Islanders are a nation same like the Scots, the Welsh or the
English – or the people of Tokelau for that matter,.
Moreover, their right to self-determination has already been
officially and formally recognised and guaranteed by the British
Government through the process of enacting the 1985 Falklands
Constitution. This act of
transfer of prerogatives from London to Stanley entails that any future
decisions regarding the sovereignty of the Falklands would be up to the
Islanders alone to make, and this is irreversible.
Once recognised/granted, self-determination cannot be taken away. Yet
even the Falklands self-determination has been achieved not without the
determined bold effort of the Falkland Islanders themselves, a turning
point probably being their successful rejection and blocking of the
attempted ‘lease back solution’ back in the 1970s. It
must be pointed out that Falklands self-determination is an internal
affair between the Falklands people on the one hand, represented by their
elected government exercising sovereignty on the Islands themselves, and
the British government on the other hand exercising Falklands sovereignty
internationally. Neither
Argentina nor the UN could be parties to this bilateral business. Any
recognition of the Falklands self-determination by third parties like the
UN is desirable but not crucial at all.
While such recognition will come inevitably in the context of more
global political developments expanding the practice of self-determination
worldwide, it is nevertheless worth keeping the pressure on the UN
Decolonisation Committee for recognition and abandonment of its double
standards. The
UN involvement is useful in countries like Western Sahara or Timor, where
there could hardly have been any self-determination without it.
However, all the other ‘non self-governing territories’
presently monitored by the UN Decolonisation Committee are exercising
their right of self-determination regardless of any UN sponsorship.
A comparison between the Freedom House annual ratings of the
‘decolonised’ (the present 16 territories subject to UN ‘decolonisation’)
and their ‘decolonisers’ (the 24 members of the Decolonisation
Committee) would suggest that the former are three times more democratic
than the latter. And surely,
as such better off, too. To
cap it all, the ‘decolonisers’ themselves happen to administer such
territories as Tibet (China), West Papua or Irian Jaya (Indonesia),
Kashmir (India) and Chechnya (Russia), where democracy is scarce and
self-determination denied. Naturally,
the 16 UN-labelled ‘non self-governing territories’ seek to adopt the
high standards of their respective ‘administering power’, ie. those of
Britain, the USA, France and New Zealand, rather than those of Cuba, Iraq,
Congo, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and other Committee members. Nevertheless,
the UN Decolonisation Committee could be useful in educating the people of
the UK Overseas Territories about the available legitimate options of
self-determination other than independence and full integration thereby
compensating for the present somewhat narrow-minded insistence by the
Foreign Office that any devolution of more power would be granted only
within the context of a timetable for independence. The
Argentine sovereignty claim cannot be an obstacle to the Falklands
self-determination either. Such
claims may exist before the self-determination and continue to stay in
place for some time after its exercise, as demonstrated by the precedents
of Mayotte, Belize, Kuwait or Guyana. When
the Comoro Islands exercised their self-determination (independence from
France) in 1974, the island of Mayotte opted otherwise and since then is a
‘territorial collectivity’ of France still claimed by the Comoros.
Belize became independence in 1981 while subject to a Guatemalan
sovereignty claim which was subsequently scaled down, remaining confined
only to part of southern Belize today.
At the time of its independence in 1961 Kuwait was subject to an
Iraqi sovereignty claim which stayed in place until as late as 1994.
Prior to Guyana’s independence in 1966, Venezuela used to claim
two-thirds of its territory (Essequibo region), a claim that has not been
formally renounced yet. Argentina’s
claim could possibly end up in one of the following two definitive
solutions. The
first solution – which has essentially been implemented ever since the
Falklands War – is the gradual diminishing of that claim to a point when
it would become (if not already) purely notional and hardly of any
practical relevance, like the Syrian claim to the Turkish province of
Iskenderun (Alexandretta) or the Guatemalan claim to Belize or the
Venezuelan claim to Essequibo. Traditionally,
the ‘Malvinas claim’ has been of symbolic value for the Argentines
(part of their national identity almost) to the extent of outweighing any
material gains that could possibly result from pursuing a rational
negotiated settlement. While
these Argentine priorities may change in the future along with evolving
public attitudes, the willingness of the Falklands to make material
concessions could be expected to decrease further as the time goes.
In other words, so far the Argentine approach has been a typical
case of a ‘too little too late’ losing strategy, where one party
offers each time what would have been acceptable to the other party last
time but no longer is. The
second solution is a negotiated settlement.
For Buenos Aires this would mean dropping its claim in exchange for
some concessions by the Falklands, say a final delimitation of their
respective EEZ waters with reasonable amendments in favour of Argentina.
An agreed EEZ delimitation is anyway prompted by the Law of Sea
Convention, however unless Argentina puts forward a realistic proposal
that could be acceptable to the Falklands, the present de facto
delimitation is bound to become final.
(This delimitation already involves sizeable concessions to
Argentina rather than following the midline principle.)
Similarly, at present Argentina refrains from pursuing other
available means of settlement like arbitrage or the International Court of
Justice, apparently being aware of the legal weakness of its claim. The Gibraltar lesson – yet to be duly taken – is that the British Government is in no position to overrule the free will of the people of the UK Overseas Territories anymore. This lesson will have an impact on the future of other Overseas Territories, never mind how specific the case of Gibraltar might be. (It is geographically in Europe, part of the EU etc.) Indeed, the present Gibraltar controversy underlies the necessity of treaty-based regulation of the relationship between the UK and its Overseas Territories, ensuring in particular that the Foreign Office is Gibraltar’s Foreign Office representing Gibraltar before third parties like Spain, not the other way round. From
a wider perspective, the present shameful dealings of the Foreign Office
over Gibraltar are at odds with both the mainstream UK foreign policy and
the will of the UK Parliament alike, sending wrong signals which might
encourage the resurrection of various territorial disputes around the
world. The
new Gibraltar constitution recently approved by that country’s Assembly
envisages a status similar to the Crown Dependency status of the Channel
Islands, plus possible representation in Westminster and in the European
Parliament. Devolved
integration with the UK is now becoming more popular in Gibraltar, indeed
according to a recent opinion poll it is supported by the plurality of
Gibraltarians. The basic
formula of this option is full self-government, leaving the UK Government
responsible for foreign affairs and defence matters, citizenship (but not
immigration) and currency, similar to the relationship between the
Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
An important detail would be that such relationship could be
severed unilaterally by Gibraltar but not by the UK. The Falklands' Future The present Falklands’ form of government may arguably evolve into one of the following two principal options of self-determination: the option of free association or devolved integration (which are the same thing), and the option of full independence. There
is no need to make any early choice between the possible options of
self-determination. That
should better come as a result of natural evolution and building upon what
the Falklands have already achieved. Self-determination
also entails the freedom to change one’s mind subsequently, for future
generations may decide differently. I
believe that any future choice between independence and devolved
integration would be the choice between two good options rather than
between a good and a bad one. Here
follow a few relevant considerations that might provide the starting point
for a more comprehensive analysis. (1)
Devolved Falklands would not lose the UK as its
special gateway to such an advanced and important world region like
Europe, including the Falklands associated status with the EU.
Probably, this was one of the reasons for Aruba to cancel its
independence agreement with the Netherlands and preserve its
constitutional link with the Netherlands/EU instead; (2)
Devolved Falklands would keep the benefits of UK/EU
citizenship, including the right of abode in the UK and Europe, consular
and other diplomatic services by the Foreign Office (how many embassies of
its own could the Falklands afford?); (3)
Devolved Falklands would continue to enjoy its
present degree of absolute security guaranteed by Britain and thus by
Britain’s allies (USA and NATO) who have no match in the field of
security. On the contrary,
smaller states tend to be heavily dependent on the goodwill of their
larger neighbours for their survival.
In the Falklands case, no regional Latin American arrangements
whatsoever could nullify the risks of unexpected negative developments on
the mainland that would render the Falklands vulnerable; (4)
Devolved Falklands would keep its influential lobby
in London rather than be left alone with fairly modest own capabilities
for influencing the international developments that affect the Islands. Should
the Falkland Islanders opt to keep their relationship with Britain, they
ought to identify the UK interest in that relationship.
Indeed, why should the UK be interested in keeping its
constitutional link with the Falklands?
The existing sentiments generated by the Falklands War are still
vivid and deep – that War probably changed Britain as much as it changed
the Falklands themselves – but would be less telling for the next
generations. As
funds become available (eg. should oil be discovered in commercial
quantities) then the Falklands might possibly think about sharing the
defence burden, just as the Channel Islands do contribute to the UK
Treasury for the defence and foreign service provided by the UK.
This certainly does not mean bearing the costs of RAF Mount
Pleasant or of naval protection – surely the people of Brize Norton do
not pay for RAF Brize Norton but are taxed for defence like anyone else in
the UK. With a current defence
budget of 32 billion US dollars and a population of 60 million, defence
expenditure would amount to some 533 dollars per capita, suggesting that a
fair Falklands contribution could be no more than 1.6 million dollars
annually. There would be a
case for deducting the FIDF (Falkland Islands Defence Force) costs though. If
the principle of such contribution is agreed, then its actual
implementation could be adjusted to take into account the fact that the
Falklands – unlike the Channel Islands or the UK – still has the top
priority of building its essential infrastructure such as a national road
network, a deep water port facility, and possibly a second urban
settlement besides Stanley. [At
present the aggregate Falklands contribution to defence, FIDF included, is
some 1.1 million dollars per year which includes the annual construction
of family houses for accompanied postings at the British tri-services
military base at Mount Pleasant on the Falklands.] With
respect to the link to Europe/EU via Britain, the Falklands should settle
on a degree of association with the EU that suits them best, ranging from
full EU integration like Gibraltar or French Guiana to opting out like the
Channel Islands or Greenland. Apart
from its possible arrangements with the European Union, the Falklands may
adopt a flexible approach providing also for a free trade agreement with
the emerging Free Trade Area of the Falklands. This
is to say that Britain’s responsibility in the sphere of foreign affairs
would be more of formal and technical nature, whereas the Falklands
foreign policy would be made by the Falklands prime minister and cabinet
of ministers with a particular minister being possibly responsible for
that. In
any case, there is no reason why the Falkland Islanders should base their
exercise of self-determination on anything but weighing the practical
gains and losses for themselves pertaining to each option.
To
sum it up, in terms of internal development independence could hardly
bring to the Falklands anything they do not have already or cannot achieve
by natural evolution towards devolved integration.
In external aspect – which however does affect internal
development – independence might somewhat restrict Falklands’
capabilities to pursue its national interest.
Therefore, an appropriate form of devolved integration (free
association) would see to combine the advantages of both independence and
affiliation to an important country, while minimising their respective
drawbacks. This is an abridged version of an essay by Bulgarian academic Lyubomir Ivanov. The full text can be found in a collection of essays by Ivanov et.al. entitled ‘The Future of the Falkland Islands and its People’ published by Double T. Publishers (October 2003). Our thanks to Dr Ivanov for allowing us to republish his work. Dr
Lyubomir Ivanov of the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences is a former member of the Bulgarian Parliament .
He holds many public offices, and is an advisor to the Bulgarian
Minister of Foreign Affairs.
|
|
Introduction, Acronyms,
Census,
Freedoms, Geography,
Government, Governors,
Lifestyle,
Listed Buildings, Poetry,
Royal Visits
|
|
| Copyright & Disclaimer |
Site Designed and Maintained by eb-host.com |