35 Fall 2025 The 1923 Treaty of Peace with Turkey – the Treaty of Lausanne142 – followed the Treaty of Sèvres. Article 16 of the Treaty states that Turkey “renounces all rights and title whatsoever over or respecting the territories situated outside the frontiers laid down in the present Treaty and the islands other than those over which her sovereignty is recognized by the said Treaty.”143 The Treaty parties did not grant sovereignty to another state in place of Turkey; the Treaty explicitly stated that the future of these territories was “to be settled by the parties concerned.”144 This provision was considered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Eritrea v. Yemen, in an award concerning a maritime boundary dispute over the sovereignty of a number of islands in the Red Sea claimed by both the State of Eritrea and the Republic of Yemen.145 As with the Land of Israel, these islands were under Ottoman sovereignty before the First World War, and Turkey (as successor) ceded its rights to these territories through Article 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Tribunal, consisting of a panel of five arbitrators, three of whom served as Presidents of the International Court of Justice, noted: “… in 1923 Turkey renounced title to those islands over which it had sovereignty until then. They did not become res nullius—that is to say, open to acquisitive prescription—by any state, including any of the High Contracting Parties (including Italy). Nor did they automatically revert (insofar as they had ever belonged) to the Imam. Sovereign title over them remained indeterminate pro tempore.”146 The Tribunal reaffirmed this finding later in the award, stating that: “[N]one of the authorities doubts that the formerly Turkish islands were in 1923 at the disposal of the parties to the Lausanne Treaty, just as they had formerly been wholly at the disposal of the Ottoman Empire, which was indeed party to the treaty and in it renounced its sovereignty over them. Article 16 of the Treaty created for the islands an objective legal status of indeterminacy pending a further decision of the interested parties; and this legal position was generally recognized…”147 Applying the reasoning of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Eritrea v. Yemen to this case, it follows that, as a territory ceded by Turkey under Article 16 of the Treaty of Lausanne, the legal status of the West Bank is also one of indeterminacy until its status is resolved by the interested parties.148 administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil or religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Article 96: “The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval”). 142. Treaty of Peace, signed at Lausanne, Jul. 24, 1923, 28 U.N.T.S. 11. 143. Id. Art. 16. 144. Id. 145. Territorial Sovereignty and Scope of the Dispute (Eri. v. Yemen), XXII 209-332 (Perm. Ct. Arb. 1998). 146. Id. at ¶ 165. 147. Id. at ¶ 445. 148. Indeed, the Award states that the legal status of the islands in dispute applied also with regard to other territories ceded by Turkey under Article 16: “Although ‘territories’ and ‘islands’ are separately mentioned, their treatment under Article 16 is identical.” Id. at ¶ 158.
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