Contents | Key Points | Map | Foreword | One | Two | Three | Four | Appendix: The Rio Protocol | Notes | Author

Territorial Disputes and Their Resolution The Case of Ecuador and Peru

Foreword

After nearly six decades of sporadic warfare over a relatively small stretch of disputed border, Ecuador and Peru signed an accord on October 26, 1998, that provides a definitive settlement of the remaining issues in their ongoing border conflict. The accord may not spell the end to future territorial disputes in the region, but it is historic in that it involves many actors working over many decades to achieve a settlement to a long-standing dispute. In this Peaceworks, Beth Simmons expertly summarizes not only the history of this dispute, but the principal institutional mechanisms in the international realm that are available to help resolve such interstate conflicts over disputed territory.

     When nations clash, international society fortunately provides them with a variety of alternative ways to settle their disputes short of war. However, countries are often less amenable to resolving disputes with such pacific means when it comes to issues as fraught with national passions as territorial borders.

     Even as recently as four years ago, Ecuador and Peru renewed a war they originally fought in 1941 over a long-disputed border. For nineteen days in January 1995, these two Latin American nations waged an intense border war that involved five thousand troops and all branches of both countries‘ armed forces. Moreover, the relatively brief border conflict gave both countries new reasons to replenish and upgrade their military arsenals, as both Ecuador and Peru announced plans to equip their air forces with sophisticated jet fighters.

     As Simmons explains in this Peaceworks, the one component of international legal machinery that helped prevent the conflict from escalating and provided a supporting mechanism for the warring countries to settle all the issues in their dispute was the 1942 Rio Protocol, a treaty framework for third-party dispute settlement of the issues surrounding the 1941 war. Simmons, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, is an expert on the political and international legal dimensions of border conflicts. During her Jennings Randolph Program fellowship here at the Institute, Professor Simmons continued her work on a compilation and analysis of border conflicts around the world. She selected for this Peaceworks the Ecuador-Peru border conflict as one of a series of case studies in the variety of international third-party dispute resolution mechanisms.

     Over a period of decades, both Ecuador and Peru have resorted to a range of third-party involvement to settle their border conflict. While they did not meet a May 30, 1998 deadline to reach agreement on all of the outstanding issues, the process created under the Rio Protocol at least kept the disputing nations engaged in the process of trying to settle the remaining issues. Success came a relatively brief five months later in the form of an arbitration decision rendered by the „Guarantors„—the regional powers overseeing the protocol‘s execution.

     The Institute‘s special interest focuses on the role of the Guarantors—Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, and the United States. In examining the protocol, Professor Simmons illustrates the power of international law in treaties and the legal principles that serve as their foundation. Indeed, the treaty framework is noteworthy for the conditions it places not only on the disputing countries, but on the Guarantors themselves: Under the protocol‘s provisions, the Guarantors were treaty-bound to mediate and possibly arbitrate—which, in the end, the parties did resort to—all aspects of the dispute to the best of their ability.

     Several factors contributed to favorable prospects for a settlement of this border dispute: commitment by the political leadership in both Ecuador and Peru, a change in popular attitudes in both countries, and the role played by the four Guarantor nations under the Rio Protocol. Nevertheless, there are also some serious reservations about calling the treaty framework a total success. After all, the parties had been trying to settle this dispute under the Rio Protocol for more than a half-century. Ecuador‘s earlier rejection of the protocol‘s basis—pointing to new geographical information that was unknown at the time of the protocol‘s signing and also to the fact that it signed the treaty after its defeat in the 1941 war—probably served as the most formidable obstacle.

     Yet circumstances change, as Simmons points out, and new realities created a new negotiating environment: The Fujimori government in Peru faced a poor economy and few resources to devote to similar military engagements in the future. Ecuador‘s stronger showing in the 1995 war meant that any concessions it made would no longer be seen as coerced. These new realities provided the impetus for both countries to press for the May deadline and, eventually, an October agreement.

     The institutionalization of such dispute-resolution mechanisms raises some issues for U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. The growing economic integration between North and South America holds the promise that the continent will find a recourse to these more institutionalized means of dispute settlement, not only over trade and financial issues, but also over more difficult issues such as disputed territorial sovereignty. To be sure, the Free Trade of the Americas Area, slated to be established and extend the benefits of free trade throughout the Western Hemisphere by 2005, is premised on the openness of borders among all its nations.

     Additionally, as Professor Simmons asks, can the success of the United States in the guarantor process serve as a model for resolving conflicts on other continents? As she points out, the circumstances that led to success in the Ecuador-Peru case may be difficult to replicate in other disputes.

     This work fits into the Institute‘s broader interests in the resolution of interstate conflicts. The Institute has just approved a grant to the Inter-American Dialogue for a comprehensive examination of eight to ten of the most potentially dangerous past disputes in the Western Hemisphere. The Institute is also publishing a paper on the diplomatic dynamics of the Ecuador-Peru conflict by Luigi Einaudi, U.S. special envoy to the Ecuador-Peru peace process. The paper will appear as a chapter in a book on the management of complex international mediation, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, to be published by the Institute‘s Press later this year. Based on these efforts and other work of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Institute is developing conflict resolution training programs with the Organization of American States and other organizations that will draw on the Ecuador-Peru experience.

     The Institute has examined other sources of conflict in Latin America, ranging from Cynthia McClintock‘s masterful examination of guerrilla insurgencies in El Salvador and Peru in her Revolutionary Movements in Latin America, recently published by USIP Press, to Wendy Hunter‘s look at the changing nature of civil-military relations on the continent in her State and Soldier in Latin America: Redefining the Military‘s Role in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (Peaceworks No. 10, October 1996).

     In this timely Peaceworks, Beth Simmons helps shed light on the source of some of Latin America‘s more protracted conflicts, as well as on the international legal machinery at these countries‘ disposal to help resolve these border disputes. In so doing, she has contributed to the significant body of literature that will obviously become more important to U.S. foreign policymakers as the growing interdependence of regional markets draws the two continents even closer.

Contents | Key Points | Map | Foreword | One | Two | Three | Four | Appendix: The Rio Protocol | Notes | Author

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