For the building-unit ownership regime, see
Condominium.
"Joint sovereignty" redirects here. For joint sovereigns, see
coregency.
"Co-dominium" redirects here. For the series of books, see
CoDominium.
A condominium (plural either condominia, as in Latin, or condominiums) in
international law is a political territory (state or border area) in or over which multiple sovereign powers formally agree to share equal dominium (in the sense of sovereignty) and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it into "national" zones.
Although a condominium has always been recognized as a theoretical possibility, condominia have been rare in practice. A major problem, and the reason so few have existed, is the difficulty of ensuring co-operation between the sovereign powers; once the understanding fails, the status is likely to become untenable.
The word is recorded in English since 1718, from
Modern Latin, apparently coined in Germany c. 1700 from Latin con- 'together' + dominium 'right of ownership' (compare
domain). A condominium of three sovereign powers is sometimes called a tripartite condominium or tridominium.
Antarctica is a de facto continental condominium, governed by the
29 parties to the
Antarctic Treaty that have consulting status. Only 7 of these parties have
territorial claims
As an alternative to delimiting their sea boundary, Colombia and Jamaica share a maritime condominium called the Joint Regime Area in the
Caribbean Sea by mutual agreement. The outer portion of the
EEZ of each country otherwise would overlap in this area. Unlike other "joint development zones", this condominium appears not to have been purposed simply as a way to divide oil, fisheries or other resources.
The area is administrated jointly by the "Joint Committee for the Concerted Management of the Kourou/Koalou Area" (COMGEC-K). Neither nation expresses sovereignty over the area, with a permanent solution still pending.[6]
Austria and Germany consider themselves to hold a tripartite condominium with Switzerland (albeit on different grounds) over the main part of Lake Constance (without its islands). On the other hand, Switzerland holds the view that the border runs through the middle of the lake.[7][8] Hence, no international treaty establishes where the borders of Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, in or around Lake Constance, lie.[8]
The Moselle and its tributaries, the
Sauer and the
Our, constitute a condominium between Germany and
Luxembourg, which also includes bridges, about 15 river islands of varying size,[9] and the tip of one island, Staustufe Apach,[10] near
Schengen (the rest of the island is in
France).
Officially known as the Australia–Indonesia
Memorandum of Understanding, the MOU Box was established by a bilateral agreement regarding the Operations of Indonesian Traditional Fishermen in Areas of the Australian Fishing Zone and Continental Shelf – 1974. The agreement recognizes access rights of traditional Indonesian fishers from
Rote Ndao Regency in shared waters to the north of Australia with regard to the long history of traditional Indonesian fishing there, especially for
trepang, trochus, abalone and sponges. The MOU Box includes the
Scott and Seringapatam Reefs,
Browse Island, and
Ashmore and Cartier Islands.[11]
Pheasant Island is an island of the
Bidassoa. Established as part of the
Treaty of the Pyrenees, It is formally administered by Spain between 1 February and 31 July each year (181 or 182 days) and by France between 1 August and 31 January each year (184 days).[12]
In 688 the
ByzantineEmperorJustinian II and the
UmayyadCaliphAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan reached an unprecedented agreement to establish a condominium (the concept did not yet exist) over
Cyprus, with the collected taxes from the island being equally divided between the two parties. The arrangement lasted for some 300 years, even though in the same time there was nearly constant warfare between the two parties on the mainland.[14]
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was legally an Egyptian-British condominium from 1899 until 1956, although in reality
Egypt played no role in its government other than providing some administrators in the country: all political decisions were made by the
United Kingdom and all
Governors-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan were British. The system was resented by Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists, and would later be disavowed by the Egyptian Government, although it persisted due to
the United Kingdom's effective control over Egypt itself, which began from 1882 and continued until at least 1936.
A small area (
Hadf and surroundings) on the
Arabian Peninsula, a part of
Oman, at one time was jointly ruled with the Emirati member state of
Ajman. The agreement defining the Hadf zone was signed in Salalah on 26 April 1960 by
Sultan Said bin Taimur and in Ajman on 30 April 1960 by Shaikh
Rashid bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, ruler of Ajman.[20] This provided for some joint supervision in the zone by the ruler of Ajman and the shaikhs under the rule of Muscat. It allowed the Ajman ruler to continue collecting
zakat (Islamic tax). The ruler of Ajman was, however, not to interfere in the affairs of the local people, the Bani Ka'ab (a branch of the
Banu Kaab), which were the sole responsibility of shaikhs who were under Muscat rule. The agreement was later terminated.[21][citation needed]
The
Holy Roman Empire hosted numerous condominia within its boundaries. Many
princes and especially
Imperial knights and
counts mortgaged partial ownership or rights within their lands to the Emperor, sometimes in perpetuity. Most of these were located in the
Swabian Circle, close to the Emperor's personal domains in
Further Austria. Some condominia were shared by lesser princes, especially in cases of inheritances held in common by branches of a princely line. Disputes over condominium contracts were submitted to the
Imperial court at
Wetzlar, or petitioned to the Emperor himself. Some cases within the Holy Roman Empire included the following:
The City of
Bergedorf was a condominium of the Imperial cities of
Hamburg and
Lübeck, and the terms were extended beyond the Holy Roman Empire's dissolution until 1868, when Lübeck sold its rights in Bergedorf to Hamburg.
The Imperial village of
Holzhausen was a partial condominium, two thirds of which was immediate to the Emperor and the remaining third subject to various landlords.
Nauru was a tripartite condominium
mandate territory administered by Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom from 1923 to 1942 and again in 1947 as a
UN trust territory until independence in 1968.
New Hebrides formed a French–British condominium in 1906 until independence in 1980 as a republic, now called
Vanuatu.
Samoan Islands from 1889 to 1899 were a rare tripartite condominium under joint
protectorate of Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. It would later become
Samoa and
American Samoa.
Togoland, formerly a German protectorate, was an Anglo-French condominium, from when the United Kingdom and France occupied it on 26 August 1914 until its partition on 27 December 1916 into French and British zones. The divided Togoland became two separate
League of Nations mandates on 20 July 1922:
British Togoland, which joined
Gold Coast (present-day
Ghana) in 1956, and
French Togoland, which is now the nation of
Togo.
Tangier International Zone, an
international zone nominally under Moroccan sovereignty but jointly administered by several European powers in 1924. It was returned to full Moroccan sovereignty in 1956.
The term is sometimes even applied to a similar arrangement between members of a Monarch's countries in (personal or formal) union, as was the case for the district of
Fiume (what is today
Rijeka,
Republic of Croatia), shared between Hungary and Croatia within the Habsburg Empire since 1868.
Between 1913 and 1920
Spitsbergen was a neutral condominium. The
Spitsbergen Treaty of 9 February 1920 recognises the full and absolute sovereignty of Norway over all the arctic archipelago of
Svalbard. The exercise of sovereignty is, however, subject to certain stipulations, and not all Norwegian law applies. Originally limited to nine signatory nations, over 40 are now signatories of the treaty. Citizens of any of the signatory countries may settle in the archipelago. Currently, only Norway and Russia make use of this right.
In 1992,
South Africa and
Namibia established a Joint Administrative Authority in the enclave of
Walvis Bay, prior to its cession to Namibia in 1994.[24]
The
Saudi Arabian–Kuwaiti neutral zone was established in 1922 by the
Uqair Convention. It was a 2,000 square mile area designed to accommodate the
Bedouin people, a
nomadic group who regularly crossed through the
Saudi and
Kuwaiti border. The area was partitioned in 1970 after a 1938 discovery of oil near the zone brought speculation that there may be oil in the condominium.
In 2001, the British government held discussions with Spain with a view to putting a proposal for joint sovereignty to the people of
Gibraltar. This initiative was pre-emptively rejected by Gibraltarians in the
2002 referendum.[26][27]
In 2012, the Canadian and Danish governments were close to an agreement to declare
Hans Island a condominium, after decades in dispute. On 11 June 2022, the Danish, Greenlandic, Canadian, and Nunavut governments compromised to divide Hans Island in half after 17 years of negotiations. On 14 June 2022, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister
Mélanie Joly, Danish foreign affairs minister
Jeppe Kofod, and prime minister of Greenland
Múte Bourup Egede signed a treaty to divide the island. By this, Canada and the
Danish Realm, via Greenland, have an international land border of 1,280 m (4,200 ft), which follows a rift in the surface of the island that runs from north to south near the center of the island, forming a semi-circle with the westernmost part. After ratification, the island contained the
third shortest land border between countries and created a second land neighbour for Canada and the Danish Realm, each of which
previously only had one, with the
United States and
Germany respectively. It also created the northernmost international land border in the world, as well as the second land border between European and American countries, the previous one being between
French Guiana (
department of
France) and the
South American countries
Brazil and
Suriname.[28]
In the talks between the UK and the
People's Republic of China in 1983–84 over the
transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, one of the British proposals was to transfer the sovereignty of
Hong Kong and its dependencies to the People's Republic of China while the UK would retain the rights of administration of the territory.[29] The proposal was rejected and negotiations ended with the UK agreeing to relinquish all rights over Hong Kong to China in 1997.
^Case Concerning Land, Island, and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/Honduras, Nicaragua Intervening) (International Court of Justice 1992),
Text.
^
abSmith, Barry.
"Fiat Objects"(PDF). Department of Philosophy, Center for Cognitive Science and NCGIA, SUNY at Buffalo (NY). pp. 24–25. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
^Jozo Tomasevich. "The Chetniks". War and Revolution in Yugoslavia. Stanford University Press, 1975. Pp. 103. "The condominium in Croatia was the most important example of Italo-German collaboration in controlling and despoiling an occupied area [...]".
^Stephen R. Graubard, (ed.).Exit from Communism. Transaction Publishers, 1993. Pp. 153–154. "After the Axis attack on Yugoslavia in 1941, Mussolini and Hitler installed the Ustašas in power in Zagreb, making them the nucleus of a dependent regime of the newly created Independent State of Croatia, an Italo-German condominium predicated on the abolition of Yugoslavia."
[1]
^Günay Göksu Özdoğan, Kemâli Saybaşılı. Balkans: a mirror of the new international order. Marmara Üniversitesi. Dept. of International Relations, 1995. Pp. 143. "Croatia (with Bosnia-Hercegovina) formally became a new Axis ally – the
Independent State of Croatia (NDH). This was in fact, Italo-German condominium, [...]".
^John R. Lampe (ed.), Mark Mazower (ed.). Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe. Central European University Press, 2003. Pp. 103. "[...] the Independent State of Croatia (hereafter NDH, Nezavisna Drzava
Hrvatska), in reality an Italo-German condominium[...]"
^The UAE: Internal Boundaries and the Boundary with Oman. Vol. 6. pp. 477–478.
ISBN1-85207-575-9.
^"Ajman/Muscat condominium". Archived from
the original on 30 December 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2017. I don't know when the Hadf zone agreement was terminated, but it certainly was.
^The treaty was ratified by the Parliament of Canada, the Folketing (Parliament of Denmark), the Inatsisartut (Parliament of Greenland) and the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut.