People, Territory, and Sovereignty

Lung-chu Chen

"It is for the people to determine the destiny of the territory and not the territory the destiny of the people." This is the famous dictum of Judge Hardy C. Dillard in the Advisory Opinion on Western Sahara rendered by the International Court of Justice.

The question about Taiwan's indeterminate status, about who owns Taiwan, has received a lot of attention lately. The question relates to people, territory, and sovereignty. As far as Taiwan's international legal status is concerned, in the past it was undetermined after the conclusion of 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan, but today its status is determined after the evolution of many years. Today, Taiwan is a sovereign independent state, fulfilling all the requirements of statehood, and Taiwan's sovereignty belongs to all the people of Taiwan.

Determined or undetermined, a territory's international legal status affects not only a piece of land, but the fundamental human rights, well-being, way of life and common destiny of all its inhabitants. According to the traditional definition, sovereignty is the supreme power, a product of the era of absolute Monarchs. In the global village of ever-increasing interdependence, the concept of absolute sovereignty is outdated. The outdated concept of sovereignty emphasizes land, while the contemporary one emphasizes people, namely, popular sovereignty.

The title to a territory involves not a property transaction, but the well-being of its entire inhabitants. The inhabitants concerned decide the destiny of their territory. In the contemporary world community, any solution to a territorial dispute must comply with two interrelated principles —— peaceful settlement of disputes and self-determination of peoples.

After several decades of collective efforts, the Taiwanese people have developed their distinct political, economic, social and cultural systems, built their island nation, and realized effective self-determination. The future of Taiwan, of course, must be decided by the 23 million people of Taiwan.