Second, in cases where the parties to the dispute formed part of a single colonial territory, the internal lines that divided them into distinct administrative units will be sanctified as their international boundaries (the
uti possidetis principle).
the Chamber would emphasize that the
uti possidetis iuris principle requires not only that reliance be placed on existing legal titles, but also that account be taken of the manner in which those titles were interpreted and applied by the competent public authorities of the colonial Power, in particular in the exercise of their law-making power (38).
"[T]he extension of
uti possidetis to modern breakups leads to genuine injustices and instability by leaving significant populations both unsatisfied with their status in new states and uncertain of political participation there ..." (42) Thus, the principle of
uti possidetis may lead to unfortunate stalemates within the international community in instances of civil/internal warfare.
(11) This Note argues that the most logical resolution to the clashes between Somaliland and Puntland can be found in the ICJ's legal mechanisms for solving international border disputes, most notably
uti possidetis. (12) The Court's jurisprudence can be applied to render a temporary ruling on the location of Somaliland's frontier, with the prospect of stabilizing the disputed territory until a permanent solution is developed for co-existence with a federalized Somalia.
In legal parlance this doctrine is called
uti possidetis juris.
La historia americana se conectaria con la busqueda de los titulos para probar los derechos territoriales adquiridos segun el principio de
uti possidetis (14).
The principle of
uti possidetis (142) "was appealed to in order to limit fragmentation of newly liberated European colonies, whose boundaries were usually arbitrarily drawn, and which included several, and in some cases many, distinct and conflicting ethnic groups." (143) And, in its simplest form it holds that the borders that a country had at the time of decolonization must be preserved.