Pillars and perspective: demarcation of the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary

From 1911 to 1914 an Anglo-Belgian boundary commission demarcated the 885 km boundary between the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia along the watershed of the Congo and Zambezi rivers with a total of just 46 markers. Such low-density boundary demarcation with widely spaced pillars was typical of early British boundary-making in southern Africa. Less than fifteen years later, a second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission was created to re-demarcate the boundary. Not only was it unique for a colonial boundary in southern Africa to be re-demarcated, this second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission worked for six years with a budget that exceeded any previous British boundary commission in colonial Africa. This commission marked the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary on the ground with nearly five times the number of pillars as the first commission, literally etching the boundary in the African landscape. Its techniques of survey and boundary demarcation set a new standard, serving as a model for later British colonial boundary commissions and influencing boundary-making theory through the present day.     

清代阿拉善蒙古与甘州、凉州二府的划界纷争及边界调整

清康熙年间,阿拉善蒙古归附清廷后,与河西府(县)展开了长达数年的划界纷争。该文利用档案、地方志等相关文献资料,对清代河西走廊北部汉蒙交接地区的凉州、甘州二府与阿拉善蒙古边界纷争事件的过程、起因进行了详细考察,分析了在此事件处理过程中,国家与地方社会复杂而多元的互动关系。清代以来河西走廊北部边界的变迁,不仅折射出传统社会政治大环境的改变,而且也是区域农牧经济互动消长的反映。     

The role of the Irish boundary commission in the entrenchment of the Irish border: from tactical panacea to political liability

The abortive saga of the Irish Boundary Commission has largely been dismissed as a minor footnote that warrants little elaboration in the discussion of Ireland's partition. This is unsurprising considering that its final report was hastily suppressed so as to prevent the destabilisation of the nascent regimes in Northern Ireland and the then Irish Free State. However, the concept of the Commission derives from the intensifying controversies of Irish Home Rule and partition, and the consequent difficulties in establishing how and where a boundary was eventually drawn as well as to the status of the entities it would be dividing. The Commission was legally conceived in Article 12 of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty but confusion over its wording protracted a sequence of events that ensured that it was almost three years before it actually met. Article 12 was eventually interpreted in a restrictive manner, which exposed inherent flaws that were either ignored or naively underestimated when it was originally adapted from part of the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. Furthermore, the complexities of evidence were inadequately scrutinised by a small and under-resourced panel that operated under considerable political pressure to delimit a precise line that satisfied subjective terms of reference. Nevertheless, the revoked Commission served as a crucial catalyst in defining the Irish Free State's relationship with the British State and in entrenching the territorial framework of Northern Ireland's six counties that exists to this day.     

"边疆"一词在世界主要法系中的镜像:一个语源学角度的考察

法系是比较法学的基础概念。本文主要利用语源学的方法,分析了世界三大主要法系——中华法系、罗马法系和伊斯兰法系——中领土、疆域、边疆等概念所反映的不同镜像,力图将不同的地方性知识构成较为全面的世界法律文化图景。     

清代伊克昭盟长城沿线“禁留地”诸概念考释

清初陕北边外禁留地承自明代烧荒形成的隔离蒙汉的黑色地带。乾隆八年,双方在边外五十里一线划出有形界线,称黑(牌)界,该谓附会于烧荒形成的黑色地带,是汉人对边外自然景观记忆延续的反映。黑界以内,伊克昭盟各旗汉族移民的耕地范围并不相同,使得黑界与移民垦殖北界之间形成宽窄不一的土地,由此衍生出当时文献未言,却实际存在的所谓黑界地。牌界地是指边墙与牌界之间的土地。伙盘地是移民定居和租耕之地,具有不连续分布的空间特征。白界地一称晚出于民国绥远编纂的文献,实为牌界地的异写,其产生可能与牌借地、白借地称谓有关。陕绥双方对诸称谓的不同书写,反映各自从己方利益和地方本位的角度,对重构清代鄂尔多斯南缘汉族移民垦殖史的不同表达和现实立场。     

达旺历史归属论

文章认为,门隅地方古代史是我国西藏地方史的一个组成部分,在与西藏地方史一道融入中华民族整体发展史的进程之中,达旺成为门隅政治、宗教、文化中心.英国入主阿萨姆后在相当长时期内沿袭了沿喜马拉雅山南侧坡脚的传统习惯线.1910年英属印度提出战略边界计划,谋图将传统边界线北移至山脊,目的在于建立封锁印度民族解放运动的防火墙.英国对战略边界在达旺地区的走向多次修改,但根本目的没有改变,是在不同形势下出于维护对印度殖民统治需要而做出的扩展或收缩的调整,战略边界计划及有关活动是英国单方面作为.直至1951年中国西藏地方政府仍然对达旺进行有效治理.