Greenland's sovereignty does not require military means [View all]

[TomWilm]

Under international law, the sovereignty over Greenland is well established. In addition to various recent agreements, this issue was settled in 1934 by the “League of Nations” (the predecessor to the UN). The background was that Norway had occupied parts of the coast of East Greenland, and Norway's then Minister of Defense, the later notorious Vidkun Quisling, ordered his navy to be ready for battle against Denmark.

Norway was so confident in its superiority that it referred the matter to the League of Nations' international court, the “Permanent Court of International Justice“ in The Hague (the predecessor of today's International Court of Justice, ICJ).

Norway also emphasized to the court that Greenland was “a favourite resort of the Norwegian hunters” and that Denmark had failed to “exercise sovereignty over those foreigners.” A statement by Danish Prime Minister J.C. Christensen was highlighted: “As we have no warships in Greenland waters, nor any police-force capable of expelling the Norwegian hunters, we have no means of intervening.”


Nevertheless, the ruling went in Denmark's favor, precisely and despite the country's documented inability to defend the area with military means. Sovereignty was established as belonging to our weak state, as it had instead merely ensured that the state administration extended to the entire realm, including Greenland.

The court ruled that Denmark, through its established legal situation in Greenland, had exercised its authority over this large island. This had been done to a sufficient extent to create a valid claim to sovereignty, particularly as the Greenlandic territory was consistently included in all Danish laws and treaties (the Greenlanders themselves were not asked or mentioned in the ruling).


The example of Greenland show that international law concluded national sovereignty does not depend on military armament, warships, and fighter jets. At that time, warships were far more widespread than fighter jets, but the fact that Denmark was unable to deploy a large fleet to Greenland did not affect the ruling.

The ruling was upheld before the US established bases up there, which therefore not affected this decision. This does not even concern the military’s dog sleds, which were first used as a temporary defense against German troops in WW2 and then restarted when Denmark joined NATO.


One thing is a hundred-year-old ruling on international law, another is the reality of today. If Denmark insists on mainly giving military answers, weak as they will be, to threats from the United States - then this is how it will play out, and fail.

Denmark has starved out all other possibilities than the military ones, our diplomacy has much less muscles now than 30 years ago - but our Foreign Minister did an OK job in Washington yesterday, so, there might be some hope...



Written by myself