by A. G. NOORANI
The Thai-Cambodia border clashes show yet again that maps have no binding juridical significance unless they are accepted by both sides.
11th century Preah Vihear temple. PHOTO/UNESCO
INFORMATION is sparse about the recent clashes on the frontier between Thailand and Cambodia. At the centre of the dispute is the 11th century Khmer temple of Preah Vihear. The International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled in favour of Cambodia on June 15, 1962, upholding its claim to the temple. It was designated a World Heritage Site under Cambodia’s management in July 2008. The temple looks out from the edge of a steep escarpment over a wide area of northern Cambodia. At its front entrance, away from the cliff, is Thailand, which never quite reconciled itself to the ICJ’s adverse ruling.
On July 4, 1962, Srindi Dhanarajata, Prime Minister of Thailand, said that while Thailand would honour its obligations under the United Nation’s Charter “it will do so under protest and with reservation of her intrinsic rights”. Two days later Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman wrote to United Nations Secretary-General U Thant in even more ominous terms:
“I wish to inform you that, in deciding to comply with the decision of the International Court of Justice in the case concerning the Temple of Phra Viharan [as Thailand calls the temple], His Majesty’s Government desires to make an express reservation regarding whatever rights Thailand has, or may have in future, to recover the Temple of Phra Viharan by having recourse to any existing or subsequently applicable legal process, and to register a protest against the decision of the International Court of Justice awarding the Temple Phra Viharan to Cambodia.”
As in the Sino-India boundary dispute, the parties disagree even over place names. There is, however, a very sound lesson to be drawn from the litigation and its result, the court’s verdict. It is the sheer insanity of India’s map phobia, which is now 50 years old, promoted as it was from the summit of power. On September 2, 1960, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told the Rajya Sabha that the book A Geography of China by Wang Hung-Leng, or that part of it depicting large parts of Indian territory as part of China, would “presumably” be seized under the Sea Customs Act.
The court’s verdict establishes all too clearly that maps have no binding juridical significance as evidence unless they are agreed and accepted by both sides. No number of Indian or Chinese maps can alter the legal position. It was, as every informed person knows, Nehru’s decision on July 1, 1954, unilaterally to alter official maps – even those of 1950 – that showed the entire boundary from the China-Afghanistan-India tri-junction in the west to the China-Nepal-India tri-junction as “undefined” which contributed to the impasse.
To his circular letter to the Leaders of Asian and African countries, dated November 15, 1962, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai simply annexed both the maps, with results not hard to imagine. They did not enhance India’s credibility. There is no difference between an assertion in words and one through maps. A map is only a cartographic statement; an illustration, not a document of title. It can be cited as an admission or assertion. No map has any evidentiary worth at all if published after a dispute has broken out.
Treaty vs. map
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