During the late 19th Century there was considerable debate in the United States among members of the legal profession, the general public and even some scientists about the validity of using tree rings to determine tree age. In an earlier boundary dispute case in Maryland (1830) the Honorable Theodorick Bland rejected the use of tree rings to establish the date when a purported witness tree was marked with an identifying blaze. Bland did not believe that there was enough scientific evidence or legal precedent to support this idea. A review of the current scientific literature of the time, however, indicates that most scientists, especially in Europe, accepted that tree rings could be used to determine age. In the United States, however, this idea was debated, particularly in the late 19th Century, in both the popular press and scientific publications. The main argument of opponents such as A. L. Child was that the number of tree rings was often wildly in excess of the known age of the tree. These inconsistencies were likely because of the inexperience of the observer, mistaking earlywood and latewood for separate rings, and the presence of a small number of false rings, sometimes called secondary rings. The great ages reported for the giant sequoias may have also raised doubts among the public. Among scientists, however, the relationship between ring number and tree age and between ring width and climate became widely accepted. Several cases heard in both Federal and State Courts as well as Bernhard E. Fernow’s Age of Trees and Time of Blazing Determined by Annual Rings laid to rest any doubt of the relationship between tree rings and age in temperate forests, i.e. one ring equals one year’s growth, and showed that the date when a witness tree was blazed could be easily determined from a cross-section of the trunk.

This thesis considers the maritime boundary dispute between China and Japan in the East China Sea in an attempt to resolve the dilemma of continental shelf entitlement and delimitation. The dispute concerns how to delimit a maritime boundary where the parties rely on the different basis for continental shelf entitlement provided for in Article 76(1) of UNCLOS, namely natural prolongation and distance, and the area to be delimited is less than 400 nautical miles when measured from the coasts of both States. China asserts its entitlement based on natural prolongation to the outer edge of the continental margin, while Japan claims a 200 nautical mile distance continental shelf. Using the doctrinal approach, this thesis notes that delimitation must be carried out in accordance with entitlement and focuses on an analysis of the meaning of Article 76(1), enquiring into the role of natural prolongation in the establishment of the outer edge of the continental margin beyond 200 nautical miles. It re-assesses the ICJ's decision in the Libya/Malta case where it was held that unless the delimitation area is at least 400 nautical miles, natural prolongation is irrelevant. This thesis considers the status of natural prolongation under customary international law and UNCLOS, arguing that natural prolongation is a valid basis for continental shelf entitlement. In critiquing the Libya/Malta decision, this thesis argues that there is no 400 nautical mile rule in UNCLOS, that the determination of each State's entitlement must be conducted on an individual basis, the length of the delimitation area being immaterial. Arguing that the two criteria of natural prolongation and distance are equally valid, this thesis found that they could be applied simultaneously over the same area to determine the area of overlapping entitlements, which is then the area to be delimited. Other connected issues to this dispute including the role of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island dispute and the duty of States in disputed maritime areas are also discussed in relation to the main delimitation question. On the basis of the analysis, two options for delimiting the East China Sea were considered: the three-stage methodology and an alternative involving the use of a median line to divide the area of overlapping entitlements. In both methods, the position taken was that natural prolongation and distance should be reflected as relevant circumstances. Thus, it was acknowledged that both methods could produce similar results. However, the second option was shown to be preferable as it is embodies the quality of objectivity compared with the threestage methodology where adjusting the line in the second stage to take account of relevant circumstances proved to be subjective and unpredictable.

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The present thesis analyses and clarifies the phenomenon of hybrid warfare. While the term has established its place in the political lexicon, current definitions and explanations are inadequate and unhelpful. This thesis addresses that shortfall by providing a concise strategic definition and a unifying theory of hybrid warfare. As a thesis grounded in the Realist tradition, the analysis focuses on the strategic implications with a view to aid in practical policy-making. Following a theoretical examination of the context and the intellectual history of the term, hybrid warfare is defined as a deliberately opaque blend of conventional and unconventional warfare. The rules of the international order and its 'guardian powers' are a key to understanding hybrid warfare and this thesis provides that understanding through the concept of the quinity. Based on the trinity, a concept emanating from Clausewitzian thought, the quinity blends traditional notions of war with the contemporary international order. The unique set of circumstances which such a combination creates is then combined with the proposed definition and operationalised through an examination of the defence policies and doctrines of the leading global powers. Hybrid warfare, whether practiced by state-like actors like Hezbollah, or states like Russia and China, can be said to represent the future of warfare, at least in the near- to mid- term. As a form of warfare which is not limited to any one domain, hybrid warfare is examined in its land, air, and maritime iterations by analysing the cases of the 2006 Lebanon War, the 2014 Ukraine crisis, and the South China Sea disputes. Its combination of opaqueness, effectiveness, impact, and strategic surprise makes it a carefully balanced and finely calibrated tool of international coercion.

The following study develops a structured focused comparison of two South American territorial crises: the Beagle Channel Crisis between Argentina and Chile (1977--1978) and the Cenepa Crisis between Ecuador and Peru (1994--1995). From a conventional perspective, the Beagle Channel Crisis should have escalated to war because it was a fully militarized inter-state crisis carried out by a military dyad. In contrast, the Cenepa Crisis should not have ended in war because it was a democratic dyad and the dissatisfied state was the weaker power. Yet the opposite happened in both cases: in the Beagle Channel Crisis the escalation process was contained, whereas in the Cenepa Crisis the situation escalated into an intensive war. / Based on a comparison of these two dyads, this study argues that deterrence strategy alone is not sufficient to prevent war. Only an interaction of deterrence strategy and third party involvement can contain an escalatory process, constituting a tool for strengthening deterrence.

The settlement of the maritime boundary disputes between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea, is politically deadlocked. While diplomatic settlement efforts have been ongoing for the past several decades, neither side in each case appears prepared to back down from its respective maritime claims. Bilateral consultations and negotiations have been unable to prevent occasional flare-ups and, as tensions remain significantly high, it may not be long before one of the not infrequent confrontations spirals out of control. The existing status quo in each case is unstable and does not favour either side, both from the perceptive of contaminating bilateral relations as a whole, but also to the extent that it holds hostage the multiple benefits that could otherwise be generated from the exploitation of the seabed energy resources in the contested waters. Indeed, while important discoveries of commercial hydrocarbon accumulations have been made, and in fact, some of them are currently being developed in the peripheries of the East China Sea and the Aegean, the full mineral potential of the contested areas remain unproven and unrealised due to the ongoing maritime and territorial conflicts. That being the case, the debate surrounding these two conflicts has progressed to the point where there is an urgent need for a meaningful discussion on finding a practical way forward. It is the purpose of the present thesis to address this need, first, by undertaking a detailed analysis of these disputes on the basis of the legal rules and principles of international law and; second, by critically evaluating possible institutional designs of interstate cooperation on the exploitation of offshore oil and gas resources in disputed areas. This thesis considers that because of the near-impossibility of settling the maritime and territorial disputes in the East China Sea and the Aegean, at least in the short term, and the remote possibility of meaningfully utilising the resources in the given areas while these conflicts persist, provisional interstate cooperation in the form of joint development constitutes the best alternative course of action for disputing states to coordinate the exploration and exploitation of resources without having resorted previously to boundary delimitation settlement. On the basis of the above analysis, this thesis discusses the prospect of realising joint development regimes in the East China Sea and the Aegean and their appropriate institutional design in the light of the legal, historical, political, and geographical characteristics of the disputes in question. The overall aim of the present study is to discern useful guidelines that can be used to inform and support diplomatic discussions on bilateral cooperation over disputed seabed energy resources by addressing three key objectives: - Better understanding of the longstanding East China Sea and Aegean maritime boundary disputes under the rules of the public international law of the sea, as developed to date having regard to international jurisprudence and state practice. - Conceptualisation and better understanding of the legal characteristics and functional benefits of joint development regimes. - Critical evaluation of variations in the design of joint development regimes having regard to successful or unsuccessful precedents in the practice of states.

Geography has been a central element in shaping conflict through the ages, and is especially important in determining which states fight, why they fight, when they fight, and more importantly, where they fight. Despite this, conflict literature has primarily focused on human geography while largely ignoring the geospatial context of ‘where' conflict occurs, or crucially, doesn't occur. Territorial disputes are highly salient issues that quite often result in militarized disputes. Terrain has been key to mitigating conflict even in the face of major variance in state capability and power projection. In this study I investigate how terrain characteristics interact with power projection, opportunity, and willingness and the impact this has across territorial disputes. Exploring terrain's interaction with these concepts and its effect among different types of conflict furthers our understanding of the questions listed above.

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