Condominium (international law)
|
|
In international law, a condominium is a territory in which two sovereign powers have equal rights. Although a condominium has always been recognized as a theoretical possibility, condominiums have been rare in practice. The biggest difficulty with condominiums/condominia is solving disputes between the two sovereign powers, and ensuring co-operation between them; which is one reason why so few have existed in practice.
Examples of condominiums
- Neutral Moresnet was shared from 1816 until 1919 between The Netherlands (later Belgium) and Prussia (later Germany).
- Sudan was a British–Egyptian condominium until 1956.
- The Canton and Enderbury Islands were a British–American condominium from 1939 until 1979 when they became part of Kiribati.
- The New Hebrides formed a French–British condominium until independence as Vanuatu in 1980.
- Under French law, Andorra was once considered to be a French–Spanish condominium, although it is more commonly classed as a co-principality.
- In 2001, the British government proposed sharing sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain, but this was decisively rejected by the people of Gibraltar in a referendum in 2002.