Territory, Sovereignty, and the Construction of the Colonial Space

Abstract

Abstract Assuming the colonial territory as the object of observation, this chapter looks at the relationship between Empire and international law from a spatial perspective. It focuses, first, on the concept of territorial sovereignty in Europe and the right of European states over their own territory; second, it verifies how that concept and that right were used by international lawyers of the second half of the nineteenth century to define legally the non-Western space. This led to a recognition of the different ways through which the concept of sovereignty worked in the Ottoman Empire and in sub-Saharan Africa. In the first case the legal status of the Balkans principalities is analysed, stressing the concept of suzerainty and the role played by consular law in the relationships between the Ottoman Empire and European states; in the second case the debate concerning the definition of territorium nullius and the right of occupation of Western states in Africa is reconstructed, focusing on the exceptionality of colonial law.