‘A Land without a People’: An Evaluation of Nations' Efficiency-based Territorial Claims

Abstract

This paper considers the role of efficiency arguments in grounding territorial rights from a liberal perspective. The view advanced here is pitted against some recent arguments voiced by Margaret Moore opposing the inclusion of any efficiency criterion in our moral reasoning about territorial entitlement. Though I argue against this view, my own conclusion -favouring the adoption of only a moderated version of such principles -is a relatively mild one. It maintains, on the one hand, that the beneficial use of land is morally relevant to determining its rightful owner, but, on the other hand, it also recognizes the limitations of any such principle of utilization. Ultimately, there are good moral reasons for viewing the way in which a given land has been put to use as a relevant component (though admittedly only one) of our account of territorial entitlement.Among the arguments voiced by groups or their representatives laying claim to a particular territory, one sometimes encounters the embedded contention that a national group possesses a right to the piece of land in question by virtue of its superior utilization thereof. While this essay affirms that grounding any concrete territorial right will often involve more than a single consideration, as well as a POLITICAL STUDIES: 2002 VOL 50, 959-973 © Political Studies Association, 2002