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Åland: A Precedent for Internationally Safeguarded Autonomy

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Abstract

For many contested inner- and interstate issues, the subject of dispute is a conflict between the principle enshrined in international law of the territorial integrity of sovereign states and the right to self-determination by peoples. This has been a key political theme since the American and French revolutions as in international law since the ratification of the Charter of the United Nations in 1945. The Åland conflict is regarded as the first conflict “in which the states involved cited the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, and regarding which an international commission of international lawyers expressed an opinion in relation to a solution to the conflict”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Charter of the United Nations includes among its goals the creation of friendly relations between the nations, based on the respect for the basic principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples (Article 1, clause 2). In order to pursue its goals, the members of the UN should “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” (Article 2, clause 4).

  2. 2.

    There are considerable controversies in international jurisprudence and in politics regarding the precise legal character of the right to self-determination, in particular regarding the bearer of this right, the people or the nation (Fisch 2011). However, the older literature is also of importance, e.g., Thürer (1976); Heidelmeyer (1973); Sureda (1973); Rabl (1973); Decker (1955).

  3. 3.

    The text of both agreements in: Gardberg (1995, pp. 90–97).

  4. 4.

    On the thoroughly fractured relation of Woodrow Wilson to the right of self-determination, which he was only willing to grant to European peoples, see Ambrosius (2008); Clements (1992); Walworth (1986).

  5. 5.

    Accordingly, France did not ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1992.

  6. 6.

    For a detailed account, see Viefhaus (1960, pp. 74–100).

  7. 7.

    For more detailed information on this subject, see Jahn (2015).

  8. 8.

    For a detailed account of the frequently changing strategic situation in the Baltic Sea and northern Europe, and of the various attempts to use the Åland Islands as a negotiating object for political-military alliances of Finland and Sweden, see Gardberg (1995).

  9. 9.

    According to Gardberg (1995, p. 9), the German troops already left Åland in the summer of 1918.

  10. 10.

    For a detailed account, see Mack (1993, pp. 138–142), Sureda (1973, pp. 29–34).

  11. 11.

    Today, only 295,000 Swedish speakers remain in Finland (5.8% of the total population).

  12. 12.

    Regarding further stipulations of the language law of 1922, see Modeen (1997, p. 72 et seqq.). Today, a municipality is bilingual when there are at least 8% or at least 3000 Swedish-speaking persons (Daftary 2000, p. 14).

  13. 13.

    Of 1455 students from Åland in 2016, 450 studied in Finland and 926 in Sweden (Åland in Figures 2017).

  14. 14.

    On the political debate in Åland on this issue, see Eriksson et al. (2006, p. 117).

  15. 15.

    For a detailed account of the consequences of Finland joining the EU for the autonomy, see Fagerlund (1997).

  16. 16.

    In the literature on the Åland issue, it is incidentally mentioned that the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia that had already flared up over Nagorno-Karabakh was presented to the Council of the League of Nations in 1921, but that it found no resolution to the conflict (Jansson 1997, p. 3).

  17. 17.

    The essential reference on the creation of the agreements remains Viefhaus (1960). Accordingly, territorial autonomy was only to be created for Carpatho-Russia (Ukraine) within the Czechoslovak Republic, which was never realised, however.

  18. 18.

    In German international jurisprudence, occasional attempts are being made to deny statehood from the de facto states, and to describe them as de facto regimes, thus since Frowein (1968). According to the traditional principle of international law, the international recognition of states is not a decisive criterion for statehood, since many states have only been recognized by some states, but not by others, e.g., during the period following 1949 with regard to the People’s Republic of China, or the GDR, today the Republic of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PRIF – Peace and Research Institute Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Egbert Jahn

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  1. Egbert Jahn
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Correspondence to Egbert Jahn .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ADA University, Baku, Azerbaijan

    Azer Babayev

  2. PRIF – Peace and Research Institute Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

    Bruno Schoch

  3. PRIF – Peace and Research Institute Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland

    Hans-Joachim Spanger

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Jahn, E. (2020). Åland: A Precedent for Internationally Safeguarded Autonomy. In: Babayev, A., Schoch, B., Spanger, HJ. (eds) The Nagorno-Karabakh deadlock. Studien des Leibniz-Instituts Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-25199-4_5

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