BOUNDARIES

BOUNDARIES

Natural or artificial separations or divisions between adjoining properties that show their limits.

Boundaries are used to establish private and
public ownership by determining the exact loca-
tion of the points at which one piece of land is
distinguishable from another. They are also used
to mark the functional and jurisdictional limits
of political subdivisions. For example, in the
United States, boundaries are used to define vil-
lages, towns, cities, counties, and states.
The setting of boundaries is a characteristic
of the modern era of history during which cen-
tralized states emerged that required both pro-
tection against attacks and definition of their
populations.Historically, natural objects such as
rivers and mountains served this purpose. Accu-
rate determination of boundaries requires sur-
veying and cartography, which were not widely
used until the early nineteenth century. But even
in the late twentieth century, with scientific
information methods available, mapmakers
occasionally are forced to turn to ancient land-
marks and memories when attempting to set
boundaries. For example, for centuries the bor-
ders within the Arabian peninsula had been
loosely defined by tribes’ grazing patterns. Fol-
lowing Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait
and subsequent defeat in 1991,UNITED NATIONS
mapmakers attempted to determine the exact
border between Iraq and Kuwait. The United
Nations enlisted the help of British border
expert Julian Walker, who sought out elderly
guides who could describe the locations of land-
marks referred to in earlier records and provide
a starting place for demarcation of the border.
Boundary disputes can last for centuries,
undermining efforts to end long-standing ani-
mosities. In May 1994, at the signing of the his-
toric self-rule accord for Palestinians in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the
chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organi-
zation, Yasir Arafat, suddenly refused to sign six
maps appended to the agreement. After much
discussion with his advisers, Arafat added an
Arabic disclaimer to the maps which made the
point that the boundaries of the ancient West
Bank town of Jericho were still in dispute, and
then he signed the accord.
Several types of maritime boundaries exist, such as the territorial sea, which is a belt of
coastal waters – controlled by the adjacent state and subject to rights such as those of foreign ships to passag -whose boundary is a line
measured three miles from the low-water mark
along the shore; contiguous zones, which extend
beyond the territorial sea to a maximum of
twelve miles, within which the controlling state
may act to prevent or punish violations of its
regulations; and a two-hundred-mile exclusive
economic zone, subject to a nation’s rights of
exploration, exploitation, conservation, and
management of marine life, which was author-
ized by the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.
Marine boundaries provide fertile ground
for international conflict. In June 1990, the
United States and the Soviet Union signed an
agreement resolving a 1,600-mile-long maritime
boundary dispute that began in 1977. The area
at issue, some 21,000 square nautical miles, contained
valuable fishing grounds and possible oil
and gas fields. The conflict had its origins in
1867, when czarist Russia sold Alaska to the
United States. It was not until more than 100
years later, while establishing their respective
200-mile fisheries zones off the coasts of Alaska
and Siberia in the Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, and
Arctic Ocean, that the two countries realized
they had each set a different boundary for
Alaska.
Even marine boundaries that have been
widely accepted for years can be suddenly ignored. For example, in March 1995, Canada
seized a Spanish trawler fishing for halibut in
international waters just beyond Canada’s 200-
mile boundary. Foreign Affairs Minister Andre
Ouellet of Canada claimed that a catastrophic
decline in fishing stock in recent years gave
Canada moral authority to extend its jurisdiction
beyond the internationally recognized 200-
mile maritime limit.
Boundaries in inland waters, such as the
Canadian-U.S. boundary through the Great
Lakes, follow a median line equidistant from the
opposite shores. Boundaries in navigable rivers
are set at the middle of the thalweg, which is the
deepest or most navigable channel, as distinguished
from the geographic center or a line
midway between the banks (United States v.
Louisiana, 470 U.S. 93, 105 S. Ct. 1074, 84 L. Ed.
2d 73 [1985]). As the thalweg shifts owing to the
accumulation of sediment in the river, the geographic
boundary also shifts. The island exception
to the rule of thalweg provides that if there
is a divided river flow around an island, a
boundary once established on one side of the
island remains there, even if the main downstream
navigation channel shifts to the island’s
other side (Louisiana v. Mississippi, 516 U.S. 22,
116 S. Ct. 290, 133 L. Ed. 2d 265 [1995]).
Boundary disputes between states often
attract attention from the media and from legal
scholars because they invoke the U. S. Supreme
Court’s seldom-used original jurisdiction. The
most typical path to the nation’s high court is by
appeal, either from a federal court of appeals or
a state supreme court. Article III, Section 2 gives
the Court original jurisdiction to try cases
“affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers
and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be
a Party.”
In 1993, the state of New Jersey filed a complaint
in the Supreme Court against the state of
New York, alleging that filled portions of Ellis
Island belonged to New Jersey. In 1834, a compact
between New York and New Jersey,
approved by Congress, established the boundary
line between the states as the middle of the Hudson
River. Ellis Island, then only three acres,
became part of New York according to the compact.
The United States in 1891 decided to use
Ellis Island as a port to receive immigrants. Over
the next 42 years, the federal government added
24.5 acres to the island to facilitate its use as a
portal for the more than 100 million immigrants
who passed through the island facilities. Although the Ellis Island Immigration Center
closed in 1954, the site has remained an important
historical landmark. The Supreme Court in
1994 appointed a SPECIAL MASTER, Paul Verkuil,
to determine whether the filled portion of the
island belonged to New York or to New Jersey.
New Jersey v. New York, 513 U.S. 924, 115 S. Ct.
309, 130 L. Ed. 2d 273 (1994).Verkuil found that
although the original 1834 compact designated
the island as the property of New Jersey, the
compact did not establish boundaries for the
filled portions of the island. In a report filed
with the Court in 1997 (520 U.S. 1273, 117 S. Ct.
2451, 138 L. Ed. 2d 209 [1997]), Verkuil concluded
the filled portions belonged to New York
according to the original compact, which set the
boundary line as the middle of the Hudson
River. The Supreme Court concurred with the
Special Master in its final order and degree in
1999 (526 U.S. 589, 119 S. Ct. 1743, 143 L. Ed. 2d
774 [1999]).
The Supreme Court heard another boundary
dispute in 2000 involving the states of New
Hampshire and Maine. New Hampshire officials
filed a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to
decide whether the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
is located in one state or the other.At stake in the
case was approximately $3 million per year in
income taxes that Maine assesses against the
nearly 1,400 New Hampshire residents who
work at the shipyard. New Hampshire has no
state INCOME TAX, and its residents who work at
the shipyard asserted that the assessment constituted
taxation without representation.
The shipyard sits on Seavey Island, a 272-
acre tract in the Piscataqua River between Kittery,
Maine, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
New Hampshire contended that the island’s border
lies along the Main bank of the river, putting
the shipyard in Maine. In 1976, the U.S.
Supreme Court set the ocean boundary between
the two states at a point in the mouth of the Piscataqua
(New Hampshire v. Maine, 426 U.S. 363,
371, 96 S. Ct. 2113, 2118, 48 L. Ed. 2d 701
[1976]). The 1976 decision left unclear how that
boundary extends up river to Seavey Island. The
Court nevertheless decided that the doctrine of
judicial ESTOPPEL precluded New Hampshire
from asserting a position that contradicted its
position in the 1976 case (New Hampshire v.
Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 121 S. Ct. 1808, 149 L. Ed.
2d 968 [2001]). The Court’s decision brought a
conclusion to a controversy that began heating
up in the early 1990s and that had involved a
series of hearings in the Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee in 1997.
On June 14, 2003, in Pikeville, Kentucky,
representatives of the Hatfield and McCoy families
signed a truce officially ending the most
famous mountain clan feud of them all. Some
60-plus descendants of the two families, which
engaged in a bloody dispute that claimed at least
a dozen lives at its height in the 1870s and 1880s,
signed a peace proclamation to put the feud in
the history books once and for all. The Hatfields
and McCoys belonged to a single rural community
that was artificially separated by the boundary
line between Kentucky and West Virginia.
The interfamilial dispute escalated over competing
claims to timber rights on both sides of a
meandering body of water.
Some observers believe that the traditional
role of boundaries as buffer regions protecting
the national security of nations began to change
in the 1950s. Lawrence Herzog, professor of
Mexican-American studies at San Diego State
University, described the evolution of large-scale
cities along the borders of nations, which he
called transfrontier metropolises, that share ecological
resources such as water and environmental
problems such as sewage control and AIR
POLLUTION. Traditionally, divergent laws and
customs in boundary areas have discouraged
economic development by interfering with the
movement of labor and commodities across
borders. But with the emergence of two important
world regions—Western Europe and the
United States-Mexico border zone—economic
development in cities along borders has become
intertwined.
According to Herzog, such border urbanization
has generated legal and political concerns
not previously addressed by INTERNATIONAL
LAW. The emerging need for transborder cooperation
in the areas of transportation, land use,
and environmental regulation requires the
development of new planning and policy guidelines
that address the changing role of boundaries.
FURTHER READINGS
Epstein, Richard A. 2000. Private and Common Property.
New York: Garland.
Herzog, Lawrence. 1991. “International Boundary Cities:
The Debate on Transfrontier Planning in Two Border
Regions.” Natural Resources Journal 31.
—. 1990. Where North Meets South: Cities, Space, and
Politics on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Austin, Tex.: CMAS
Books.
Spranking, John G. 2000. Understanding Property Law. New
York: Lexis.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Estoppel; Fish and Fishing; International Waterways; Territorial
Waters.