Conclusions

Abstract

The term “historic title” — the emphasis being on the qualifying adjective “historic” — clearly brings out, in spite of the deficiencies inherent in the employment of this term, the distinctive feature which distinguishes this international territorial title from the remaining modes of acquisition of territory. This difference is marked by the fact that, while all the other titles rest on an instantaneous act having an immediate effect, to which act the origins of such titles can be traced, the historic title is the outcome of a lengthy process comprising a long series of acts, omissions and patterns of behaviour which, in their entirety, and through their cumulative effect, bring such a title into being and consolidate it into a title valid in international law. In these final remarks it is proposed to focus attention on the italicized word of the foregoing phrase, because recent writers seised of the problems attendant on historic titles have, with increasing frequency and with a steadily growing emphasis, referred to the notion of “historical consolidation” as to the legal concept which underlies the process of the formation of an historic title.¹.