While the last few years have seen a strong attention by international lawyers towards alleged breaches of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, much less attention has been devoted to the effects produced by such interventions upon the victim state. Article 2(4)'s main function is arguably to protect the 'territorial integrity or political independence' of states, and the aims and effects of military interventions often undermine states' territorial sovereignty well after the cessation of the hostilities. The thesis sheds light on the extent to which international law protects states' and peoples' territorial sovereignty by studying the phenomenon of unlawful territorial situations. An unlawful territorial situation can be defined as a territorial occupation established and maintained as a result of a violation of international law, such as in the case of the illegal use of force. The thesis analyses unlawful territorial situations through the lenses of the legal-normative concepts of effectiveness, legality and legitimacy. The concept of effectiveness as a device for transforming effective realities into law was considered one of the fundamental principles of international law during the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century. It deeply influenced the notions of statehood and territorial sovereignty as inherited by contemporary international law. However, the second part of the 20th century has seen the emergence of principles of substantive legality limiting the action of effectiveness as a source of territorial entitlement. The thesis shows how a situation of territorial unlawfulness can be defined with regard to four international legal principles: the prohibition against the change of territorial status through the use of force; uti possidetis iuris, self-determination; and territorial integrity. The thesis appraises the significance of effectiveness vis-a-vis these principles in the context of unlawful territorial situations. It argues that while effectiveness is no longer a fundamental principle of international law, it plays an important role when accompanied and enhanced by the legitimacy of the underlying claim, or by the external legitimation of an authoritative body, e.g. the Security Council. Whereas legitimacy is a concept supposedly built on the fundamental principles of the international community, it goes beyond positive legality, and it often represents a less objective, less transparent and less egalitarian device of power acceptance and recognition. However, adopting legitimacy as a device for transforming illegal effectiveness into a legal one, is paradoxically a way for the international community to safeguard the integrity of its principles of substantive legality, despite making them in some cases peripheral to the actual regulation of disputes.

[From the introduction] The main purpose of this thesis is to analyse and assess the practice of Saudi Arabia and its neighbouring states with regard to the settlement of their land boundary disputes in the light of the principles of international law. To this end, it will first try to discuss the evolution of the Saudi boundaries along with the acquisition of the Saudi territory and to determine the basic factors responsible for the land boundary disputes between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its neighbouring states. Secondly, it will evaluate the peaceful methods which have been applied by Saudi Arabia and its neighbours in settling their boundary disputes. This study, however, does not extend to examine the settlement of Saudi Arabia's maritime boundaries with its neighbouring states. The reason for this is that the thesis focuses on international land boundaries, and to include maritime boundaries would broaden the subject and make it difficult to provide a proper discussion within the constraints of a PhD thesis. This is especially so as there are 10 states which share maritime boundaries with Saudi Arabia.

La création des métropoles ne relève pas simplement d'une réforme supplémentaire de l'organisation territoriale française. Elle en exprime un changement de paradigme, découlant d'un nouveau contexte lié à la globalisation économique et se traduisant par la mise en concurrence des territoires. Cette création est indissociable d'un processus de plus grande amplitude de recomposition des territoires selon une problématique distincte de celle des lois antérieures dites de décentralisation. Cette recomposition territoriale ne surgit pas ex nihilo. Les prémisses en sont notamment décelables dans le changement de nature de l'intercommunalité, ayant substitué l'intégration à la coopération. Ce processus produit une déconstruction des cadres juridiques du modèle territorial hérité de plus de deux cent ans d'histoire. C'est ainsi, en particulier, que par-delà l'éclatement de l'uniformité, la distinction même entre collectivités territoriales et établissements publics perd son intelligibilité et ses critères constitutifs, ou que le principe de libre administration tend à être privé de sa propre substance. La reconfiguration du droit des collectivités territoriales requiert ainsi de nouvelles typologies conformes aux mutations des régimes juridiques. / No English summary available.