Sharing Territories: Overlapping

Self-Determination and Resource

Rights Cara Nine
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Sharing Territories
 NEW TOPICS IN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY
Series editor
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
This series presents works of original research on practical issues that are not yet
well covered by philosophy. The aim is not only to present work that meets
high philosophical standards while being informed by a good understanding of
relevant empirical matters, but also to open up new areas for philosophical
exploration. The series will demonstrate the value and interest of practical issues
for philosophy and vice versa.

    

Spying Through a Glass Darkly
The Ethics of Espionage and Counter-Intelligence
Cécile Fabre
The Politics of Social Cohesion
Immigration, Community, and Justice
Nils Holtug
Not in Their Name
Are Citizens Culpable for Their States’ Actions?
Holly Lawford-Smith
Inheritance of Wealth
Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath
Daniel Halliday
Sharing Territories
Overlapping Self-Determination
and Resource Rights

CARA NINE

1
 3
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Dedicated to my parents
 Contents

Preface ix
1. Introduction 1

PART 1: FOUNDATIONAL TITLES AND

OVERLAPPING INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
2. Natural Law, Methods, and Basic Needs 25
3. Foundational Titles and Basic Needs 41
4. Resource Domains: “Enough and as Good” and Sustainability 59
5. Residence 80
6. Social Relations: Relational Autonomy and Place 105

PART 2: FOUNDATIONAL TERRITORIES AND

OVERLAPPING SELF-DETERMINATION
7. Self-Determination and Overlapping Territories 127
8. Place, Self-Determination, and Foundational Territories 153
9. Self-Determination as Functional Autonomy 175
10. Vertical Institutional Structures: Metajurisdictional Authority
and Subsidiarity 195

PART 3: APPLICATIONS
11. Settler Colonialism 219
12. Resource Rights 239
13. The Global Commons: Antarctica and Forest Carbon Sinks 259

Bibliography 283
Index 301
 Preface

Every once in a while, you realize that perhaps you are going about things the
wrong way. This happened to me a couple of years after I published my first book
on territorial rights. My colleague at University College Cork, Owen McIntyre, an
expert on international water law, got me thinking about territorial rights over
rivers. Rivers don’t obey the normal rules of property and territorial rights. Unlike
with land, river resources don’t stay put. We can easily think of dividing up
land for different people to exclusively own. But rivers resist division. They are
essentially shared.
Theories often can afford to ignore things that don’t follow the rules, especially
if those things are uncommon or insignificant. But rivers aren’t unusual or
unimportant. Natural water systems are everywhere and, essentially, are crucially
important. Once I started to see territorial rights from the perspective of rivers,
I began to see why parts of my earlier theory of territorial rights had been, to me,
unsatisfying. This book sets out a newly framed theory with a new set of rules for
use and control. And while it is compatible with a lot of what I wrote in that first
book, some parts of it are not. It might be best for readers to think of these two
books as setting out two distinct theories.
During the past decade, I have developed the ideas in this book through a process
that involved many conversations and exchanges in person, virtually, and by email.
So many valued moments have shaped the contents of this book, and inevitably,
their numbers outstrip my ability to remember them all. This work could not have
grown into a full book without the conversations I have had with people at
workshops, conferences, presentations, coffees, and dinners over the years.
The manuscript was greatly influenced by two manuscript workshops. Margaret
Moore and Paulina Ochoa Espejo organized a workshop at Haverford College with
Avery Kolers, Arthur Hill, Annie Stilz, and Kok Chor Tan participating. Chris
Bertram organized a workshop at the University of Bristol, ultimately over Zoom,
with Kim Angell, Chris Armstrong, Megan Blomfield, Simon Caney, Petra
Gümplova, Matt Longo, Alejandra Mancilla, David Owen, and Juri Viehoff as
commentors. At various stages over the years, I have benefited from frequent
correspondence with Margaret Moore, Alejandra Mancilla, Paulina Ochoa Espejo,
Chris Armstrong, Kim Angell, and Adina Preda. Margaret Moore and Chris
Bertram have been dear mentors and friends to me, and I have learned so much
from their examples.
I owe thanks to the audience and participants at the Climate and Territory
Workshop, Waterloo University; MANCEPT seminar series, University of
x 

Manchester; University of Oslo workshops on the Antarctic; Haverford College

Public Talk Series; University of Warwick; Arizona State University; Center for
Values and Social Policy seminar series, University of Colorado, Boulder; Workshop
on Resource Rights, Berlin; Pluricourts Seminar, University of Oslo; Irish
Philosophical Society Annual Conferences in Cork and Dublin; the Philosophy
Department, University of Louisville; Politics and Public Administration
Department, University of Limerick; UK Association for Legal and Political
Philosophy Conference, Stirling; Society for Women in Philosophy in Ireland;
University of Bielefeld; University of Bayreuth; Territorial Rights: New Directions
and Challenges Conference in Montreal; Bristol University; Constitutional Theory
Seminar Series, Oxford University; Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies,
South Africa; Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg; Cluster of
Excellence: Normative Orders, Goethe University Frankfurt; Helsinki Summer
School in International Law, University of Helsinki; Global Challenges in
Economic and Environmental Ethics Workshop, Humboldt University; Political
Theory Workshop Series, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Berkeley Law
Workshop, University of California, Berkeley; Political Theory Workshop Series,
Stanford University; Freedom Center at the University of Arizona.
The two anonymous readers for Oxford University Press gave me careful,
insightful feedback. I also owe thanks to the series editor, Kasper Lippert-
Rasmussen, and philosophy editor, Peter Momtchiloff, for their support and
patience.
As always, David Imbroscio inspired and supported this project. And Katrin
provided the joy, pride, and wonder that motivated me to be open to change.
The research for this book was supported with funding from the Research
Council of Norway, with a project led by Alejandra Mancilla, “Political Philosophy
Looks to Antarctica: Sovereignty, Resource Rights and Legitimacy in the Antarctic
Treaty System”. It was also supported by a grant from the Irish Research Council
for my project “Territorial Rights and Rivers”. I was fortunate to spend three
short-term research fellowships at the Center for Values and Social Policy
University Colorado, Boulder, in the Philosophy Department at the University
of Oslo, and in the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona.
Portions of the following articles, some of them revised and re-organized, are
included in this book.
“Self-Determination, Group Identity and the Common Will”, Critical Review of
International Social and Political Philosophy, 23(6) 2020: 788–94, DOI: 10.1080/
13698230.2020.1797392
“Colonialism, Territory and Pre-Existing Obligations”, Critical Review in Social
and Political Philosophy. Online Early view. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/
13698230.2020.1766816
“Rights to the Oceans: Fundamental Arguments Reconsidered”, Journal of
Applied Philosophy, 36(4) 2019: 626–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12340
  xi

“The Wrong of Displacement: The Home as Extended Mind”, The Journal of

Political Philosophy, 26(2) 2018: 240–57.
“Rights of Residence”, Philosophy and Public Issues, 6(2) 2017: 9–30.
“Water Crisis Adaptation: Defending a Strong Right Against Displacement
from the Home”, Res Publica, 22(1) 2016: 37–52.
“When Affected Interests Demand Joint Self-Determination: Learning from
Rivers”, International Theory, 6 (1) 2014: 157–74.
 1
Introduction

This book defends the establishment of foundational territories. Usually

lower-scale political entities, foundational territories serve as the building blocks
of larger territorial units. Examples of foundational territories include river catch-
ment areas and urban areas, drawn around individuals who hold obligations to
collectively manage their surroundings. These territorial authorities manage spa-
tially integrated areas where agents are interconnected by dense and scaffolded
physical circumstances. In these areas, individuals cannot fulfil their natural
obligations to each other without the help of collective rules. Because foundational
territories overlap the territories of other political units, this book frames a theory
of nested and shared territorial rights.
International rivers provide typical cases where I believe foundational territor-
ies should be recognized. In July 2020, Ethiopia started filling the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam, or GERD. The largest dam in Africa, GERD features centrally
in Ethiopia’s economic diversification plan. It will double the country’s energy
production, allowing Ethiopia to export energy to its neighbours and to expand its
electricity supply to its citizens. Ethiopia is one of the most populous nations in
Africa and has the fastest-growing economy in the region. Still, Ethiopia remains
one of the poorest countries, and nearly 75 per cent of its labour force is in
agriculture. With the stable increase in energy supply from the dam, the country
hopes to create more jobs in non-agricultural areas.¹
But the GERD project is not viewed by everybody as a benefit. The dam is
strategically placed on the Blue Nile, where Ethiopia can exploit the so-far largely
untapped potential of that river within their territory. The Blue Nile is the major
contributor to the Nile, the longest river in the world and the lifeline of Egypt.
Egypt has strongly objected to the GERD, because they are afraid that the dam will
greatly reduce the surface water flowing into Egypt. Egypt is a water-poor nation,
with less than 1,000 cubic metres of fresh water per person per year. Nearly all of
Egypt’s 98 million people live along the Nile, the major source of fresh water for
the country. Climate change increases risk and vulnerability around water avail-
ability, and 25 per cent of Egypt’s population depends on agriculture for their
livelihood. Historically Egypt has seen itself as defined by the Nile and its use of

¹ Mervyn Piesse, “The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Power for Ethiopia, Disaster for Egypt?”,
Future Directions International (blog), 13 June 2019, http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/the-
grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam-power-for-ethiopia-disaster-for-egypt/.

Sharing Territories: Overlapping Self-Determination and Resource Rights. Cara Nine, Oxford University Press.
© Cara Nine 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198833628.003.0001
2 

the Nile’s unique ecosystem for most aspects of its development. The management
of the dam by Ethiopia threatens the continuity of the resources flowing into
Egypt. Water, silt, and sediment flows, necessary for supplying nutrients for the
Nile’s ecosystem, could be crucially decreased by decisions made at the dam.²
Ethiopia has resisted efforts to legally bind its management of the dam to
include consultation with Egypt (and Sudan, the other downstream state). In
practice, it looks like Ethiopia has gained significant control over Egyptian affairs.
Control of the dam determines “who gets to set the rules about a very, very
important asset for all aspects of [Egyptian] life”.³ It seems like the ability for
Egypt to control its own affairs as a self-determining country has been taken away;
they are at the mercy of Ethiopia’s management decisions over the GERD.
For the most part, contemporary theories of territorial rights take their subject
matter to be the justification of state territorial rights, although sometimes they
include justifications for the territorial rights of substate units and indigenous
groups. They do not have the tools to deal with significant physical interconnect-
edness that crosses territories, such as river catchment areas. This book argues that
cross-border interconnectedness is not merely a problem for international rela-
tions, but rather it points to a deep problem in the way we have gone about
justifying territorial rights so far.

1.1 Desert Islands and Rivers

Margaret Moore opens her recent book on territorial rights with the history of
Bermuda. In 1606, the English set a fleet of ships off to what is now known as
Canada. The purpose of the voyage, which carried supplies and settlers, was to
establish British colonies in North America. A hurricane intervened, and one of
the ships ran aground near an uninhabited island. The fleet then went to work
building a settlement on that island, now called Bermuda. The point of her theory,
she says, is to justify the connection between a people, like those settlers, and the
land, such that they could claim this island as their territory. While Moore
acknowledges that most political histories do not start with uninhabited islands,
her theory still uses Bermuda as a normative model. The justification of territorial
rights aims to connect one people to one particular territory. Once that

² Sherien Abdel Aziz et al., “Assessing the Potential Impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance
Dam on Water Resources and Soil Salinity in the Nile Delta, Egypt”, Sustainability 11, no. 24 (January
2019): 7050, https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247050; Magdi Abdelhadi, “Egypt Fumes as Ethiopia
Celebrates over Nile Dam”, BBC News, 30 July 2020, sec. Africa, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
africa-53573154; Jed Higdon, Brendan Sheehan, and Ryan Eskew, “The Nile River and GERD—The
Politics of Water”, accessed 1 August 2020, http://waterandconflict.web.unc.edu/the-nile-river-and-
gerd/.
³ Ethiopia Starts Filling Disputed River Nile Dam|DW News, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=yYaYCklXCIk.
     3

justification is established, then the people can claim more robust control over
resource rights and other rights associated with holding territory.⁴
Moore’s use of this model is not surprising, because the model is widespread.
Paulina Ochoa Espejo calls it the desert island model. On Ochoa Espejo’s descrip-
tion of the desert island model, groups with territory are thought to be independ-
ent and distinct. Independence allows a group to make decisions and to act without
external control or dependence. After assessing the natural resources on the
uninhabited island where we’ve found ourselves, we can decide to do what we
want with them and to act on those decisions. With mineral-rich land, we could
construct mines and build stone structures. Our economy could thrive on
invented ways to use these resources for the common good. Because our
decision-making is independent, we can theoretically do all of this without
depending on or coordinating with outsiders. Distinctness allows us to tell which
individuals are members of our group and which resources and lands are ours.
When the island divides us from outsiders, it is clear who is a member of the
people. That is, we assume, all the people on the island are members of the people.
And it is also clear which resources are part of our territory; we assume all the
resources of the island are ours. Distinctness allows us, the island people, to utilize
our resources without violating the claims of outsiders. Island resources clearly
belong to us, so we can use them according to our own plans without violating the
claims of outsiders to their own set of resources.⁵
Contrast the desert island model with a river model. On a river model, groups
are assumed to be interdependent and overlapping. Rivers carry essential materials
for life, ecosystems, economies, and cultures. A river passes through cities or
towns, picking up what these places put into the river and leaving what they take
out. What they put in or take out, the river presents it or its absence to the next
town downstream, and the cycle repeats onwards to the ocean. Rivers are not
single lines running through a landscape. They embody whole catchment areas
where streams, tributaries, and underground water filter through rock and soil
and anything else in their way to unite with the river flow. Industrial runoff on a
mountainside will appear in water hundreds of miles downstream.⁶
If we imagine human settlements and territorial rights as established in river
catchment areas—not on isolated islands—the primary features of group life are
not independence and distinctness. Instead, groups are vitally connected to each
other through this flowing resource. They need it to live, to fuel their economies,
to serve their environmental systems, and to support their ways of life.

⁴ Margaret Moore, A Political Theory of Territory, Oxford Political Philosophy (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2015), 1–2.
⁵ Paulina Ochoa Espejo, On Borders: Territories, Legitimacy, and the Rights of Place (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2020), 29–30.
⁶ Cara Nine, “When Affected Interests Demand Joint Self-Determination: Learning from Rivers”,
International Theory 6, no. 01 (March 2014): 157–74, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971914000086.
4 

Moreover, river resources are not subject to distinct division between groups, but
instead are overlapping. River catchment resources are nearly impossible to divide
distinctly between groups, because these resources move around. One group
cannot say that they are going to act only on their share of water in a river,
because to act on some of the water entails acting on the whole river system.
Claims to river catchment resources of the Upstream group will overlap with the
Downstream group. Essentially, many mobile and flowing resources and resource
systems are shared between groups, not divided cleanly between them. On the
river model, groups with rights of self-determination over territory are inter-
dependent and overlapping.
The river model forces territorial rights theory in liberal analytic philosophy to
revise two of its key components: occupancy and collective self-determination.
Occupancy refers to human settlement or possession. This concept is important
for territorial rights theory because acts of occupancy can give rise to occupancy
rights, the right to continue acts of settlement in that area. Occupancy rights are
archetypes of foundational titles. Foundational titles are pre-political rights to
objects or locations that anchor territorial rights in particular places. These rights
anchor people to particular domains or places and provide the first step for
justifying their right to form political communities with territorial rights there,
in that particular place. Historically, “occupancy” referred to the exclusive settle-
ment of areas by people representing a sovereign. It was established by setting
boundaries and engaging in acts of altering the land within those bounds.⁷ These
boundaries marked settled areas as the exclusive domain of the sovereign.
Recently, the term has been used to refer to acts of settlement that do not imply
exclusive settlement. On these views, rights of occupancy are not exclusive rights,
but rather are rights against displacement or removal. Still, rights of occupancy are
argued to constitute foundational titles. Three of the most prominent books
published on territorial rights in the past five years have grounded collective
territorial rights in pre-political rights of occupancy or property rights in a
residence.⁸
I propose that this should change. Occupancy rights are not the only pre-
political rights that can count as foundational titles. If foundational titles refer to
pre-political rights that humans can claim over objects that are central to their
lives, like their place of residence, then these titles ought also to apply to other pre-
political rights as well. Foundational titles ought to include rights to secure access

⁷ Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge [England];
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 61; Hugo Grotius, The Free Sea [Mare Liberum], trans.
Richard Hakluyt, 1609th ed., Major Legal and Political Works of Hugo Grotius (Indianapolis, IN:
Liberty Fund, 2004), 23, https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/armitage/files/free_sea_ebook.pdf.
⁸ Moore, A Political Theory of Territory, chap. 3; Anna Stilz, Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical
Exploration, Oxford Political Theory (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), chap. 2;
A. John Simmons, “On the Territorial Rights of States”, Noûs/Philosophical Issues: Social, Political and
Legal Philosophy 35, no. s1 (2001): chap. 5.
     5

to the objects of our basic needs, like accessing fresh water, rights to continue
using resource domains and resource systems, like river catchment areas, and
rights to access the places of important social spheres. So, in my view, founda-
tional titles can be held in resource systems, like rivers, and the resources extracted
from these resource systems, like fresh water. Given the complex nature of a river,
this means that agents must share foundational titles with others over the same set
of resources. This overlap in foundational titles opens up the possibility for
thinking of resource systems, and other places where foundational titles are
essentially shared, as foundations for the construction of territorial rights.
Collective self-determination refers to the right of a group to rule itself. The self-
determination of peoples has traditionally been employed as part of the answer to
the question: Who gets control over which territory? In international law, the right
to self-determination is articulated in terms of all peoples’ right to “the integrity of
their national territory”,⁹ as well as their rights to political freedoms.
Contemporary theories of self-determination usually identify the rightsholder
as a group that is a state or state-like, with state-like capacities for independent
governance over its own territory.¹⁰ But this view of self-determination ignores
other important features of our political world, where self-determining groups are
overwhelmingly interdependent and exercise control over overlapping territories.
Cities, for example, enjoy limited rights of self-rule, and their territories are nested
within larger-scale political entities. Cities are dependent on larger-scale political
entities like states for economic and other kinds of support. I contend that existing
theories of self-determination come up short in their justification of territorial
rights, because they fail to take on the overlapping nature of self-determination as
a key component of how groups achieve or exercise self-determination. But when
theory is forced to engage overlap, it must answer questions like: If different
kinds of groups, such as the residents of a state and the residents of a city, hold
separate rights of collective self-determination over the same territory, then what
does it mean to be self-determining in this context? Moreover, how should we

⁹ UN, “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Territories and Peoples General
Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV)” (unpublished thesis, 1960).
¹⁰ Anna Stilz, “Why Do States Have Territorial Rights?”, International Theory 1, no. 02 (July 2009):
185–213, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752971909000104; Simmons, “On the Territorial Rights of States”;
Jeremy Waldron, “Proximity and Conflict as the Basis of a State”, 2007; Tamar Meisels, Territorial
Rights, Second Edition, Second ([Dordrecht?]: Springer, 2009); D. Miller, “Liberalism and Boundaries:
Response to Allen Buchanan”, in States, Nations, and Borders the Ethics of Making Boundaries, by Allen
E. Buchanan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Cara Nine, “A Lockean Theory of
Territory”, Political Studies 56, no. 1 (1 March 2008): 148–65, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9248.
2007.00687.x; Moore, A Political Theory of Territory, 51; Avery Kolers, “Attachment to Territory: Status
or Achievement?”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 42, no. 2 (1 January 2012): 101–23, https://doi.org/
10.1353/cjp.2012.0001; Andrew Altman and Christopher Heath Wellman, A Liberal Theory of
International Justice (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Ryan Pevnick, ed.,
“Statism, Self-Determination, and Associative Ownership”, in Immigration and the Constraints of
Justice: Between Open Borders and Absolute Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011), 19–52, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975134.002.
6 

understand the collective right of self-determination? Do different groups have the

same kind of right of self-determination, but different degrees of this right? Or are
there different kinds of rights of self-determination? In addition, how are groups
with rights of self-determination supposed to achieve self-rule, if they overlap
other groups trying to achieve their own self-rule?
I propose that the rights of collective self-determination can be coherently
divided between overlapping groups according to moral principles. As I said,
foundational titles are individual rights that ground the placement of particular
territorial rights in a certain location. Territorial rights, however, are collective
rights. A group with the right to be self-determining is the appropriate holder of
territorial rights. Since foundational titles are individual rights, and territorial
rights are collective rights, we need to explain the transition from the individual
to the collective. How do we identify groups with rights of self-determination over
territory from the set of individuals with foundational titles?
If we presuppose a river model when answering this question, then the answer
must engage the overlap and interdependence between groups. Located individ-
uals can belong to multiple groups with claims to determine rules of law governing
the objects of their foundational titles. Zeinab, an Egyptian farmer in the Nile
Delta, belongs, in my view, to a group that has a claim to determine laws that
govern the river catchment area (RCA) of the Nile, and she also belongs to the
people of Egypt. The interdependence of groups on the river model undermines
the assumption that groups who are candidates to claim territorial rights must
have state-like capacities for independent self-rule. If we assume that dependence
is compatible with self-determination, then groups with narrow remits, like
groups with jurisdictional control over RCAs, can be candidates for limited
territorial rights. These lower-scale units manage key parts of the everyday lives
of individuals, but they usually do not have state-like capacities to institutionalize
robust systems of government that manage overall systems of just distribution of
benefits and burdens across members.
If we do not assume that groups with rights of self-determination must have
these state-like features, then we are free to describe the residents of RCAs as
potential candidates for claiming limited rights of self-determination—at least to
set rules regarding the management of RCA waters and water rights allocation.
This does not require that the RCA also manage things like civil liberties legisla-
tion or welfare infrastructure, or have a police force. Instead, it suggests that roles
of government can be divided between distinct political units, and that these
political units, under certain conditions, have the legitimate political authority
to author rules of law governing local issues. And more, as is the case with
international RCAs, these units do not have to be contained within or fall directly
under the authority of one overarching territorial state.
This move to divide the rights of self-determination between overlapping
political units requires rethinking collective self-determination. First, if the labour
      7

of self-rule is divided between overlapping units, then we need to know how parts
of the rights of self-determination can be divided and allocated. This involves
breaking the right down into its component parts and matching them to different
scales and types of political units. Second, what it means to achieve self-
determination must be understood to allow for a significant amount of depend-
ence and lack of control. Where the RCA has the authority to be self-determining
about water allocation decisions, it will likely be dependent on other units, for
example, to enforce those decisions. Third, the allocation of component rights of
self-determination between groups will be subject to a set of principles. That the
RCA has certain powers and not others must be justified in the context of its
structural relations with other overlapping political units.

1.2 Foundational Territories and Overlapping

Collective Self-Determination

In this book, I present a theory that lays the groundwork for rethinking territorial
rights in liberal political philosophy using the river model framework.
In my theory, foundational titles are individual rights to objects or domains that
anchor territorial rights in particular locations. They include natural use-rights to
access the objects of our basic needs where these rights can be established outside
of conventional systems of law. Foundational titles are use-rights that are not
necessarily exclusive claims themselves, but instead have the weight to constrain
other exclusive claims. For example, my right to access water on your property
does not give me an exclusive right to that water, but it places constraints on your
property right.
Rights that can qualify as foundational titles:

• Use-rights to objects that are used to meet individuals’ basic needs, like
fresh water
• Use-rights to shared resource domains or systems
• Use-rights of residence
• Rights to access certain social relations and the places of those relations

Not all use-rights are foundational titles, and foundational titles are necessary
for establishing claims to a particular territory, but they are not sufficient.
Territorial rights are constituted by rights of groups to exercise collective self-
determination over a territory. Consequently, to hold territorial rights, a group of
individuals with foundational titles must also meet the conditions for claiming
rights of collective self-determination.
Foundational territories serve as the building blocks of larger territorial units
and are usually held by lower-scale political entities like cities and RCA
8 

authorities. On my theory of foundational territories, the boundaries of

foundational political communities should be drawn around people who are
present within and use certain places and landscape features. Defined by physical
proximity, foundational territories are drawn around individuals who hold special
obligations to manage their located actions collectively. These foundational areas
are unique because activities there are spatially integrated—densely and complexly
interconnected.
While foundational titles are grounded in the rights of individuals, foundational
territories are also crucially justified from individual obligations. Residents of
certain geographical areas have an obligation to form a political community
when it is impossible to manage their conflicting obligations without a common
set of rules. This foundational territorial unit is normatively grounded in our
natural obligations to respect each other’s equal moral agency. When we live side-
by-side, we get in each other’s way when attempting to fulfil our obligations.
Traffic jams keep people from attending important meetings, the diversion of
limited resources derails the completion of joint projects, and limited space can
prevent one from fulfilling a promise to attend an event. Physical proximity often
entails this kind of mutual obstruction. Living near others usually means that we
cannot avoid negatively affecting their moral agency. When these cases of mutual
conflict are sufficiently entrenched in areas of spatial integration, people in
relevant proximity to each other have a collective obligation to coordinate their
activities according to minimally just sets of rules. The social and geographical
features of foundational areas explain why every person located there has obliga-
tions to obey the rule of law of that particular territory.
Foundational territories will not normally be states, and they do not need to
have state-like capacities. Residents of a foundational territory are obliged, under
certain conditions, to follow the location-specific rules of their territory that
coordinate their located behaviour. There may be other sets of rules or political
authorities, like states, that they are also under an obligation to obey. I do not
provide justifications for state political authority, but rather offer a justification
for these lower-scale political authorities. To be clear, it may be the case that
foundational territories are geographically larger than some states. RCAs can
sometimes encompass wide regions. But the political structures of an RCA will
be less robust than a state and therefore sit at a lower scale of political organiza-
tion. This leaves open the possibility that the obligation to obey the rules of
foundational territories may be overridden by the obligation to obey the rules
of overlapping political units. Nevertheless, I argue that the political obligations
to obey the rule of law within a foundational territory are weighty, because they
are grounded in our natural obligation to respect the equal moral agency of
others. The significance of foundational territories guarantees them territorial
      9

immunity—it is not permissible to divide or to diminish their geographical

domain.
By differentiating between incidents constitutive of self-determination rights,
we can coherently accommodate interdependent relations between different scales
of overlapping groups. I distinguish three clusters of rights and obligations
associated with self-determination.

Foundational units are constituted by obligations to form and to obey a collective

set of rules managing foundational territories and a territorial immunity against
division. This cluster identifies the initial obligations held by a set of individuals
to be bound jointly by minimally legitimate systems of law. Because the groups
have internal obligations to be jointly bound by a rule of law to coordinate their
located behaviours, these groups are foundational. They have prima facie respon-
sibility for and standing to claim authority over the set of rights that protect
place-specific natural rights and obligations. The foundational nature of these
groups requires territorial immunity against division or diminishment; the
domain of this group cannot be divided or made smaller by internal or
external fiat.

Jurisdictional Powers and Immunities. The second cluster identifies broader

sets of jurisdictional powers and immunities more traditionally associated
with self-determination. These include aspects of internal self-determination:
powers to legislate, adjudicate, and enforce (certain) laws. And it also includes
aspects of external self-determination through a set of immunities against
(certain) laws of outside groups applying within its domain. The powers and
immunities of this cluster come in degrees and are defined by jurisdictional
remit and the assignment of competencies. For example, for the most part, the
United States has jurisdictional immunity against the laws of Canada applying
within US territory. In contrast, in practice, a river catchment authority (RCA)
within the US may not have jurisdictional immunity against higher systems of
government. An RCA rule, such as rules limiting access to certain water
supplies, may be, given certain conditions, overturned by state or federal
legislation. Different groups will have different jurisdictional remits, issues
where they have the authority to make decisions that can be enforced. An
RCA will usually be assigned the remit to make decisions about the distribution
of water rights, for example. Different groups can also be assigned different
competencies, areas of political function, like legislating, policing, and adjudi-
cating, that fall under their responsibility and control. An RCA may be assigned
certain legislative competencies, but not have the authority to establish courts
or a police force.
10 

Metajurisdictional Authority. Metajurisdictional rights are powers to create or to

modify jurisdictional rights and immunities.¹¹ It includes the power to determine
the jurisdictional domains and remits of groups who do not have immunity
against this power. This authority is constrained by territorial immunities at
cluster one, in that foundational territories cannot be divided or made smaller
except when the physical, located conditions that give rise to the foundational
unit call for these changes.

I stress that this is a conceptual taxonomy of the rights and obligations constitu-
tive of self-determination. On this conceptual division, it is conceptually possible
for one political entity to hold only one rights cluster or to hold two or all three.
Finally, I defend principles of institutional design for allocating self-determination
rights between overlapping territorial units. Vertical relationships define which
powers, immunities, and competencies are held by which scale of government; it is
normal for an entity at one scale to be justified in taking away powers from entities
in the same political structure, but at a different scale. It is sometimes thought that
states or state-like units may justifiably take away the power of a city to determine
local zoning ordinances. In contrast, I argue that both lower-scale foundational
units and higher-scale political units like states share metajurisdictional authority
to determine which decisions should fall under whose jurisdictional authority. In
addition, foundational territorial units can claim pre-emptive rights to control the
jurisdictional issues and competencies that serve to protect the place-specific
natural rights and obligations of their members, especially if these rights are
threatened by the decision-making of overlapping units.
When mediation and negotiation between metajurisdictional rights holders is
needed, it will be guided by a narrow principle of subsidiarity and the logic of
achievement.
My tailored version of the principle of subsidiarity specifically argues that
foundational territories should have:

• Metajurisdictional authority, institutional recognition as a constitutional

entity with legal standing to negotiate which unit has jurisdictional authority
over relevant place-specific issues.
• Rights to be substantial participants in political decision-making procedures
concerning relevant place-specific issues due to their presumptive epistemic
standing as experts on these issues.

¹¹ Thomas Christiano, “A Democratic Theory of Territory and Some Puzzles about Global
Democracy”, JOSP Journal of Social Philosophy 37, no. 1 (2006): 81–107; Allen Buchanan,
“Boundaries: What Liberalism Has to Say”, in States, Nations, and Borders the Ethics of Making
Boundaries, ed. Allen E Buchanan and Margaret Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003).
      11

• Presumptive jurisdictional authority over relevant place-specific issues and

limited powers of immunity against intervention by other political units on
these issues when systems that support the place-specific natural rights and
obligations of residents are threatened by decisions of other units.

The logic of achievement assesses whether political units have been successful
at implementing certain functions. At a minimum, the political unit must execute
the basic functions of government, defined relative to its jurisdictional remit and
competencies.
While executing political functions, the unit must:

• Take appropriate responsibility for securing the objects of persons’ basic

needs, relative to the group’s jurisdictional remit and competencies
(Chapter 2).
• Establish systems of rights that are consistent with natural use-rights and
property rights, and respect the provisos of necessity, compensation
(enough-and-as-good), and sustainability relative to the group’s jurisdic-
tional remit and competencies (Chapters 3, 4, and 12).
• Treat persons as equal moral agents. The procedures implicit in political
institutions must reflect the natural equality of persons (Chapters 6 and 8).
• Establish sets of location-specific rules required for people in that location to
fulfil their natural obligations to each other (Chapter 8).
• Make, manage, and execute long-term collective plans, relative to the group’s
jurisdictional remit and competencies (Chapter 9).
• Not be usurpers of the territory. The norms of interaction of the political
institutions should not be formed from processes that fail to respect residents
as equal moral agents (Chapter 11).

Where a political entity, like a state or foundational unit, achieves these criteria,
then it qualifies as a group that may claim a right to exercise jurisdictional powers
over the geographical region where it has realized its achievement.
Foundational territories will cross many existing state boundaries. Where
foundational territorial units overlap two or more states or state-like units, they
should be recognized as constitutional entities or the equivalent in each state with
which they overlap. These circumstances imply a framework of political and legal
pluralism. Political pluralism occurs where “multiple sources of legitimate author-
ity are equally ultimate, in that one is not authorized by the other and neither is
authorized by a putative third”.¹² I am proposing that foundational territorial
units that overlap multiple states will fall under the territorial jurisdiction of each

¹² Victor M. Muniz-Fraticelli, The Structure of Pluralism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 20.
12 

of those states equally. This leads to a situation of legal pluralism, where multiple
systems of law produce different systems of rules for acting on the same issue.
These are areas of shared territory between states. On maps, they would be
represented as a cross-hatched geographical area.¹³

1.3 The Principle of Permanent Sovereignty over

Natural Resources

Let me demonstrate how my theory works by applying it to the principle of

permanent sovereignty over resources under which states have full control over
the resources within their territories. In my view, this principle is not justified,
because of its focus on state control of territorial resources. Instead, I argue that
resource rights would be divided between overlapping territorial units that share
resource rights.
In 1970, Anaconda Copper, a US company, owned the world’s largest copper
mine. The copper mine was not in the US, though; it was in Chile. At the time,
copper was one of the most lucrative commercial metals, and the struggling
Chilean economy depended heavily on its mining industry. Over 80 per cent of
the nation’s foreign exchange and a quarter of its government funds came from
mining. Because the mines were owned by non-Chilean companies, Chile was
highly vulnerable to the effects of foreign decisions. During World War II, for
example, the US put a price ceiling on copper. Because Anaconda was an
American company, it complied with these regulations, and its Chilean copper
was priced far below prevailing world market prices. Chile was forced to reduce
production, and incomes evaporated. To gain more control over the resources
within their borders, in 1971, the Chilean government amended their constitution
to declare that: “The State has absolute, exclusive, inalienable, and imprescriptible
ownership over all mines”, and other natural resources.¹⁴
Not alone in its struggle, Chile’s effort was part of a substantial global move-
ment led by developing nations to wrest control of their natural resources away
from the hands of foreign owners. Prior to the decolonization movement in the
mid-twentieth century, international relations favoured conquerors and con-
quests. Centuries of colonial projects had established foreign occupation and
control over precious natural resources in foreign territories. International polit-
ical and legal regimes were designed to sustain this legacy of foreign domination

¹³ Nine, “When Affected Interests Demand Joint Self-Determination: Learning from Rivers”.
¹⁴ Chile, “Chile: Constitutional Amendment Concerning Natural Resources and Their Nationalization”,
International Legal Materials 10, no. 5 (1971): 1067–72; C. J. Tesar and Sheila Tesar, “Recent Chilean
Copper Policy”, Geography 58, no. 1 (1973): 9–12.
      13

and exploitation.¹⁵ Undoing this legacy required re-imagining claims to territory

and natural resources. The proposal supported by developing nations, like Chile,
was to endorse a principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources.
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1962, the principle of permanent
sovereignty over natural resources holds that each state has a right to freely
dispose of its wealth and its natural resources.¹⁶
This principle entails that the natural resources within state borders fall under
the exclusive control of the government of that country. Governments may decide
to nationalize ownership of their natural resources, or they may decide to open
them up for private ownership, or they might devise some alternative system of
legal rights over these resources. The point is that the rules regarding the devel-
opment and exploitation of territorial resources should be left up to the state. The
principle of permanent sovereignty thus straddles two key parts of territorial
rights: jurisdictional authority over natural resources and ownership of natural
resources. On the former, the state has the authority to legislate, adjudicate, and
enforce a system of law over their natural resources. And on the latter, given
legislative decisions to make public ownership of resources legal, resources may be
owned as property by the state or its people. The principle of permanent sover-
eignty over natural resources has since become the recognized standard for
resource rights in international law.
Despite the benefits of the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural
resources, it has been criticized. For example, cosmopolitan theorists argue that
the principle of permanent sovereignty violates principles of global justice.¹⁷ Many
claim that it is arbitrary or unfair for one country to claim exclusive ownership of
its territorial resources when the redistribution of ownership rights across state
boundaries could result in a fairer allocation of resource rights. These theorists
argue that the territorial sovereignty of states should not prevent this kind of

¹⁵ Nico Schrijver, Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008); Petra Gümplová, “Sovereignty over Natural Resources—A
Normative Reinterpretation”, Global Constitutionalism 9, no. 1 (March 2020): 7–37, https://doi.org/
10.1017/S2045381719000224.
¹⁶ My use of “state” here is intentionally ambiguous. It can refer to the institutions and government
of the state or to its collective citizenry.
¹⁷ Chris Armstrong, “Against ‘Permanent Sovereignty’ over Natural Resources”, Politics, Philosophy
& Economics, 20 March 2014, https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X14523080; Chris Armstrong, Justice
and Natural Resources: An Egalitarian Theory (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017);
Simon Caney, Justice beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005); Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and
Reforms (Cambridge; Malden, MA: Polity, 2002); Charles R. Beitz, Political Theory and International
Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979); Hillel Steiner, “Territorial Justice”, in
National Rights, International Obligations, ed. Simon Caney (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996),
139–48; Kok-Chor Tan, Justice without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Patriotism (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Lea Ypi, “A Permissive Theory of Territorial Rights”,
European Journal of Philosophy 22, no. 2 (June 1, 2014): 288–312, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.
1468–0378.2011.00506.x; Lea L. Ypi, “Statist Cosmopolitanism*”, Journal of Political Philosophy 16,
no. 1 (1 March 2008): 48–71, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–9760.2008.00308.x.
14 

international redistribution. This book sets these distributive justice concerns

aside. Instead, I take up a prior issue in the rights of self-determining groups
over territory. I frame a new account of the kinds of groups that can hold
territorial rights in the first place.
The principle of permanent sovereignty over resources’ focus on state territory
is, I argue, a big problem. The exercise of the principle depends on two conditions:
(1) that the state can identify which resources are theirs, usually by reference to
those resources that are located within their geographical borders; and (2) that it is
possible to govern those resources independently. On its prevailing interpretation,
self-determination is constituted by independent self-rule. To achieve independ-
ent rule over resources, the group needs to be able to successfully divide their
resources from the resources of other states and have the option to make effective
decisions regarding those resources independently. The problem is that these
conditions do not hold in many cases.
Consider the most prominent limit on the exercise of sovereignty over natural
resources: international rivers. When rivers cross international boundaries, nei-
ther of the aforementioned conditions holds. Because water and other river
catchment resources (like fish, minerals, and biota) constantly move across the
border, they are not clearly divisible between states. They are instead shared. Even
if we were somehow able to divide the resources between states, the complex
nature of river catchment ecosystems makes it difficult, if not impossible, to
govern without substantial and sustained coordination with the other partner
states. Trying to apply the principle of permanent sovereignty here would pre-
dictably lead to confusion and conflict. If an upstream state attempted to dispose
freely of the water within its borders, it would rob the downstream state of the
water that normally naturally flows within their territory. It is not surprising, then,
that the International Court of Justice has never cited the principle of sovereignty
as applicable to the allocation of international watercourse resources.¹⁸ When
resources are shared between states, permanent sovereignty does not seem to hold.
Beyond international rivers, shared resources include fish, wildlife, natural gases,
oil, atmospheric resources, and any other resource that is naturally mobile and
crosses borders.¹⁹
The reality of shared resources sheds new light on the principle of permanent
sovereignty over natural resources. When resources are shared, states are no
longer independent. They are instead interdependent. This kind of interdepend-
ence is not something that the principle of sovereignty was designed to be able to
address.²⁰

¹⁸ Stephen McCaffrey, “The Siren Song of Sovereignty in International Water Relations”, in A

History of Water: Sovereignty and International Water Law, vol. 2, III (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), 48.
¹⁹ Schrijver, Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties, 337.
²⁰ McCaffrey, “The Siren Song of Sovereignty in International Water Relations”, 51.
      15

Historically, the solution to resource interdependence in international law has

focused on balancing the rights and obligations of states as equal members of an
international community. In the 1962 resolution on the permanent sovereignty
over natural resources, the General Assembly mentions not only the rights
associated with holding territorial resources but also obligations. Rights must be
exercised in ways that recognize mutual respect for states based on their sovereign
equality.²¹ Nothing about sovereignty shields a state from its duties to other states.
In cases of shared resources, the UN declares that states should utilize shared
resources within their territories in an “equitable and reasonable manner”.
Participating in the use of a shared resource includes both rights and duties to
cooperate in the protection and development of the shared resource with other
partner states.²² For example, the 1911 Madrid Declaration says that states are not
allowed to use international watercourses in ways that injure the territorial
interests of other states.²³ However, this solution still presupposes the desert-
island model of state independence and distinctness. One state must first know
which resources belong to them, and which belong to others, before they can
determine when they are “injuring the territorial interests of other states”. Yet, as
rivers demonstrate, it may be difficult or impossible to divide territorial resources
neatly between horizontal state boundaries.
This book defends another solution. Working from philosophical understand-
ings of the justification of territorial rights, I argue that certain geographical
regions, like river catchment areas and other relevantly interconnected areas,
should be recognized as distinct territorial entities. This solution is not novel.
Others have proposed municipal, regional, or ecosystem management territorial
entities.²⁴ But to my knowledge, this book represents the first sustained defence of
such a view from the perspective of liberal political philosophy—incorporating
theories of self-determination, political obligation, and territorial rights.
In my theory, the boundaries of foundational political communities should be
drawn around people who are present within and use certain places and landscape

²¹ UN General Assembly, “Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, General Assembly

Resolution 1803 (XVII)”, Resolution (United Nations, 1962), sec. 5, http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/ga_
1803/ga_1803.html.
²² United Nations, “Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International
Watercourses” (New York: United Nations, May 21, 1997).
²³ Institute of International Law, “International Regulation Regarding the Use of International
Watercourses for Purposes Other than Navigation” (1911); McCaffrey, “The Siren Song of
Sovereignty in International Water Relations”, 50.
²⁴ Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, New edition (Edinburgh ; Oakland, Ca: AK Press,
2004); Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City, trans. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Anarchist
Library, 1968), https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/henri-lefebvre-right-to-the-city; Henry N. Butler
and Jonathan R. Macey, “Externalities and the Matching Principle: The Case for Reallocating
Environmental Regulatory Authority”, Yale Law & Policy Review 14, no. 2 (1996): 23–66; Ochoa
Espejo, On Borders; Benton MacKaye, The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning
(Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1990). Ochoa Espejo, I take it, is not defending a
comprehensive account of self-determination or political obligations.
16 

features that are spatially integrated. These people have an obligation to form a
political community when it is impossible to manage their conflicting obligations
without a common set of rules. At this level, the groups have metajurisdictional
immunities against division or being made smaller and prima facie rights of
jurisdictional immunity, given certain conditions. We can draw foundational
territories around RCAs and other relevant ecosystems and urban areas. This
solves the problems that arise when we try to divide resource systems like rivers
between territorial units. In my view, it is impermissible to politically divide
certain resource domains or systems when the features of those systems are
spatially integrated. The whole RCA is an indivisible foundational territory with
limited rights of self-determination to manage its located resources.
However, foundational territories share resources with other overlapping
groups. This means that there must be principles for allocating political rights
and powers over resources between overlapping groups. I argue that vertical
allocations of resource rights between units should follow the narrow principle
of subsidiarity and logic of achievement.
Where a group is failing in one of these areas, for example, pursuing resource
development in ways that undermine the autonomous functioning of overlapping
groups, their resource rights should be re-evaluated, using the intergroup mech-
anisms of adjudication or negotiation. In Chapter 10, I suggest that these mech-
anisms could be built into a horizontal federalist system that manages the relations
between groups.

1.4 How to Read This Book

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, Chapters 2–6, defends my theory of
foundational titles. Part 2, Chapters 7–10, defends my theory of foundational
territories. And Part 3, Chapters 11–13, applies these theories to three cases: settler
colonialism, resource rights, and the global commons.
Part 1 is concerned with defending an account of individual rights to resources
and to certain social spheres and places. This sets a backdrop for understanding
individual claims to complicated resource domains like rivers and to global
resources like polar ice. If the reader is not interested in these issues, and wants
instead to get straight to theories of self-determination and territorial rights, they
may want to skip ahead to Chapter 6. Chapter 6 lays the groundwork of relational
autonomy and morally significant social relations and place in my view. This
discussion supports my theory of foundational territories and overlapping self-
determination defended in Part 2. Readers interested in the applied issues of
settler colonialism, resource rights, and the global commons will be interested in
the discussions in Part 3.
   17

1.5 Chapter Descriptions

In Part 1, Chapter 2 first introduces and defends the normative framework that
I use to ground my arguments throughout the book. My theory grows from
modern natural law, especially borrowed from Samuel Pufendorf and contem-
porary feminist views on relational autonomy. I believe a problem with traditional
natural law theory is that it can ignore features of individuals that are deeply
intertwined with others. To adequately address this issue, I adopt the feminist
view of relational autonomy, that an individual’s moral agency is essentially
embedded in social relations and place, and Pufendorf ’s principle of sociability.
Chapter 2 defends the adoption of Pufendorf ’s claim that the fundamental prin-
ciple of natural law is to be sociable. A fundamental natural principle describes
what humans essentially ought to achieve. The fundamental goal is to be sociable,
to live in peaceful coexistence with others under conditions that respect the
natural equality of persons. To proceed from this fundamental principle of natural
law to be sociable to specific rules of natural law, I appeal to a rule-utilitarian
procedure. Rule utilitarianism requires that moral agents follow rules, rather than
evaluate the moral consequences of each action. We evaluate the rules when it
seems that they are in conflict. When there is conflict, the overall capacity of the
rule to direct action towards the goal of sociability tells us which rule should be
followed.
Chapter 2 uses this rule-utilitarian method to derive the natural right to secure
access to the objects of our basic needs. On Gillian Brock’s and Martha
Nussbaum’s capability theories, what marks a human life is the ability to exercise
human agency—the freedom to choose and to achieve through the activities of
self-development and self-transformation.²⁵ Taking relational autonomy into
account, I add to Brock and Nussbaum’s list the basic need to access stable social
relations to support cognitive development and functionality necessary for indi-
vidual autonomy (defended in depth in Chapter 6).
Chapters 3 and 4 argue that foundational titles are best understood as use-
rights. Under normal circumstances, use-rights include a liberty to access and to
use things in the commons and also a special claim-right to those goods while they
are being used. In other circumstances, such as circumstances of extreme scarcity,
use-rights include liberties to access and to use things that are already owned by
others. Chapter 4 clarifies my account of use. In my view, one uses an object when
one physically incorporates it into the way they pursue and maintain their
interests. This conception is open to a wide set of ways that objects can be used,
and I employ it to justify use-rights over resource domains and resource systems.

²⁵ For a good discussion in the context of global justice, see Gillian Brock, Global Justice:
A Cosmopolitan Account (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) (p. 66).
18 

I frame my account of use-rights in these chapters with two water-based cases: a

water hole disaster case (Chapter 3), and the case of taking water from a river
(Chapter 4). For each case, I argue that a proviso condition holds. In the water
hole disaster, the proviso that individuals have the natural use-right to access the
objects of their basic needs constrains other natural and conventional rights. In
the river case, I interpret the “enough-and-as-good” proviso as protecting existing
use-rights to resource systems and resource domains. Where individuals have
legitimate use-rights to a resource domain, the acquisition of property rights in
that domain must compensate users for their loss. Moreover, we can derive a
proviso that demands sustainable systems of rights over resource systems and
domains from the principle of sociability. Both cases illustrate how natural use-
rights are foundational. Natural use-rights to secure the objects of basic needs and
natural use-rights to continue to use resource domains can serve as foundational
titles, pre-political rights to objects or domains that anchor territorial rights in
particular locations.
Chapter 5 argues that inhabitants have natural use-rights to their home. These
use-rights include claims against removal and the right to access and to use their
home exclusively while the home serves its purpose as a home for those persons.
Recently, Margaret Moore and Anna Stilz have each argued for rights against
displacement that bring smaller-scale regional displacement into the discussion,
but they dismiss the idea that removal from one’s home is, on its own, worth much
consideration.²⁶ I do not argue that these regional rights do not hold. Instead,
I think that the right to reside in a region and the right against removal from one’s
home ought to support each other. However, I argue that Moore’s and Stilz’s
theories go wrong in as much as they rely on a fit between individuals who live in a
region and the community identity, values, and opportunities. Yet this fit is often
unrealized. This is a problem, because individuals whose plans and relationships
do not conform to the regional community will fall through the net of occupancy
rights on these theories. My theory does not assume conformity in beliefs, values,
or plans among the individuals who live in an area. By focusing on rights to the
home, I do not make any assumptions about persons outside the home. In fact,
I argue in Chapter 8 that the potential for conflict in a region generates a duty for
people to form political communities together. This makes the right of residence
in the home an essential foundational title for territorial rights.
In Chapter 6, I argue that individuals have natural rights to access certain social
relations and places. The central role that relationships play in individual auton-
omy justifies natural rights for individuals to continue to access specific social

²⁶ Moore, A Political Theory of Territory; Anna Stilz, “Occupancy Rights and the Wrong of
Removal”, Philosophy & Public Affairs 41, no. 4 (September 1, 2013): 324–56, https://doi.org/10.
1111/papa.12018; Stilz, Territorial Sovereignty, 2019. Moore calls her right a “right of residency”.
I am calling both rights of occupancy, to distinguish it from a right to one’s residence, or home.
   19

spheres and places. I argue that individuals draw on a variety of small, overlapping
social spheres to develop their capacity for autonomous moral agency. Family,
religion, profession, education, friendships, and political community all matter, in
my view. And more, diversity, change, and conflict between social contexts
contribute to our autonomous capacities to revise, evaluate, and choose between
various life options. My view stands in contrast to identity-based accounts, like
nationalism, where a significant group has the moral standing on its own to claim
territorial rights. Instead, my view depends on diverse, multiple, overlapping, and
conflicting social relations existing together.
Part 2 starts with Chapter 7, a mostly negative chapter. In it, I identify two
problems within existing theories of self-determination and territorial rights. First,
these theories have a methodological problem of failing to represent the political
standing of small-scale groups in their overall account of self-determination and
territorial rights, even though most theories imply that small-scale groups have
some level of political standing. Second, they face a boundary problem. Two sets of
individuals on territorial rights theory need to match: the set of legitimate
residents of territories and the set of persons who have a justified obligation to
obey the territorial rule of law. Unfortunately, these sets often do not match, and
this throws up practical and normative obstacles. My discussion in this chapter
draws three conclusions. First, theories should vary the justification for political
obligations according to scale. Second, theories should develop a place-based
account of political obligations. And third, theories ought to break down the
right of collective self-determination into its component parts to analyse how
political units at various scales may share these rights.
Chapter 8 defends my theory of foundational territories. I draw attention to the
way that physical proximity often entails a kind of mutual obstruction. Living near
others usually means that we cannot avoid negatively affecting their moral
agency—other people cannot do what they are morally obliged to do because we
get in their way. Residents in places that entail entrenched and scaffolded mutual
obstruction automatically become members of a political association tasked with
coordinating local behaviour, just because of their location. In my view, the
residents of foundational territorial units have an obligation to obey (or to form
and then obey) a political community with jurisdictional powers over location-
specific issues, when it is impossible to manage their conflicting place-specific
obligations without a common set of rules. This political obligation is necessary to
meet the conditions of natural law. First, a foundational territorial unit must
articulate and adjudicate conflicting use-rights and property rights over shared
resources. Second, they must manage localized conflict between the fulfilment of
individual obligations. Because sharing space and resources in a place prohibits
the fulfilment of obligations, people in that place must abide by collective rules to
(a) justify their actions that prevent others from fulfilling obligations, and (b)
establish peaceful relations.
20 

In Chapter 8, I also distinguish three clusters of rights and obligations

associated with self-determination. By differentiating between incidents constitu-
tive of self-determination rights, we can coherently accommodate interdependent
relations between different scales of overlapping groups. Foundational territories
sit at the ground level. They constitute jurisdictional domains that cannot be
divided, diminished, or extinguished by fiat. Nevertheless, it is possible that they
may not hold immunities against higher-level interference in many of their affairs
and procedures. The three clusters are: foundational units, jurisdictional rights,
and metajurisdictional rights.
Chapter 9 offers a novel theory of what it means to achieve self-determination
that allows for the overlapping interdependency of self-determining groups. The
chapter begins by assessing two theories of what it means to achieve self-
determination: self-determination as non-domination and a modified version of
self-determination as non-intervention. I argue that these accounts fail in instruct-
ive ways. The rest of the chapter defends my own theory of self-determination as
functional autonomy. As an account of political self-determination, functional
autonomy provides a semi-quantitative assessment framework for measuring a
group’s capacity to complete its functions autonomously. The framework entails
two assessments. The first looks at the group’s capacity to complete functions, and
the second looks at the available external relations and resources that help or
hinder the group in the autonomous completion of those functions. Group
functions are defined relative to their jurisdictional remit and competencies.
When external resources, interventions, or relations are needed, this fact does
not diminish the group’s self-determination, but rather informs the normative
framework around those connections. Often, external dependency can constitute
essential supports for exercising self-determination, rather than undermining this
achievement.
Chapter 10 defends the narrow principle of subsidiarity applied to foundational
territories embedded within higher-scale governments. While Chapter 8 argued
that foundational territorial units have foundational rights of self-determination,
it was not clear to what extent they could claim jurisdictional or metajurisdictional
rights. In this chapter, I argue that both lower-scale foundational units and higher-
scale political units like states or federal systems share metajurisdictional authority
to determine which issues should fall under whose jurisdictional authority. In
addition, I argue that foundational territorial units hold pre-emptive rights to
control the jurisdictional issues and competencies over local issues that serve to
protect the natural rights and obligations of their members. When mediation and
negotiation between metajurisdictional rights holders is needed, it should be
guided by four ideas. First, foundational territories have metajurisdictional
authority, the institutional standing to negotiate which unit has jurisdictional
authority over relevant place-specific issues and institutional recognition as a
constitutional entity. Second, foundational territories have rights to be substantial
   21

participants in political decision-making procedures over relevant place-specific

issues due to their presumptive epistemic standing as experts on these issues.
Third, foundational territories have presumptive jurisdictional authority over
relevant place-specific issues and limited powers of immunity against intervention
by other political units on these issues when systems that support the place-
specific natural rights and obligations of residents are threatened by decisions of
other units. Finally, the logic of achievement can be used to guide the allocation of
rights between units. The principle of achievement prioritizes the allocation
of rights to units when it can be shown that this allocation would be better
along specific dimensions of comparison.
Part 3 applies the arguments in this book to three different cases. Chapter 11
discusses settler colonialism. On my view, it looks like newcomers who may have
settler colonial intentions and historical residents have an obligation to form a
political association together simply because they live in the same foundational
territory. This chapter argues that my theory of foundational territories can
protect the governmental systems of historical residents from being supplanted
by newcomers. Because my view recognizes the inherent value of existing obliga-
tions, it incorporates backward-looking considerations into what it means to
respect the equal moral agency of persons. Obligations created prior to the arrival
of newcomers continue to bind parties, and the newcomers have duties to try to
avoid obstructing these obligations.
Chapter 12 explains how groups with rights of self-determination over the same
set of resources can share resource rights. I demonstrate how, on my theory,
resource rights can be shared by overlapping groups with territorial rights. The
allocation of resource rights between groups will follow roughly the same prin-
ciples as the allocation of jurisdictional rights and competencies argued for in
Chapters 9 and 10. The allocation of resource rights between units should, first,
support the functional autonomy of each unit, relative to its jurisdictional remit
and competencies. Second, the allocation of resource rights between units should
follow the narrow principle of subsidiarity and the logic of achievement.
Finally, in Chapter 13, I outline an interpretation of the global commons from
my theory of use-rights defended in Chapter 3. A resource domain is a global
commons where it meets both of these criteria: (a) All nations have legal access to
the domain, and (b) the effects of use/management or abuse/mismanagement of
the domain are experienced universally. I resist the idea that if any resource—
regardless of its legal status—is of vital global importance, then it ought to be a
global commons. Moreover, the designation of a resource domain as a global
commons does not morally prohibit its acquisition. For example, the Antarctic ice
is a global commons, but, I argue, this designation does not prohibit the acquisi-
tion of parts of Antarctica by groups or private agents. Likewise, I argue that forest
carbon sinks should not be considered to be part of the global commons, even
though they are central to humanity’s interests globally. These forests should
22 

remain under the jurisdictional control of the groups that have territorial rights
over the regions that contain them. Finally, I argue that territory and property
rights to the Antarctic ice and to forest carbon sinks are constrained by the basic
needs and sustainability provisos. As I argue in Chapter 3, triggering the basic
needs proviso requires appropriate compensation. Therefore, in the case of forest
carbon sinks, humanity must, where they can, compensate the territorial rights
holders for the costs of complying with this use-right to provide for humanity’s
basic needs.
 PART 1
FOUNDATIONAL TITLES AND
OVERLAPPING INDIVIDUAL
RIGHTS
 2
Natural Law, Methods, and Basic Needs

How should international political systems, like rights to territory and resources,
be organized? What rules should we follow when setting up these institutions, and
which rules should these institutions make into law? In answering these questions,
it is possible to employ different methods. One method is to appeal to seemingly
objective, universal values, such as the equality of individuals or individual rights
to subsistence. This approach produces universal principles that ought to con-
strain and guide all human activity, including the construction and maintenance
of political institutions. An alternative approach appeals to conventional rules and
examines the validity and value of existing institutions by asking whether the
systems are legitimate.
I pursue an approach that appeals to universal values, specifically a natural law
approach. This book offers a new adaptation of natural law theory for our
contemporary circumstances. My theory is borrowed from modern (sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries) natural law theory, especially from Samuel Pufendorf
and John Locke, and incorporates contemporary feminist views on relational
autonomy. That humans are fundamentally social is built into my foundational
premises. In my view, the fundamental principle of natural law is sociability, or
peaceful relations with others under conditions that recognize others’ equal
moral agency.
My central goal is to challenge the assumption in traditional natural law theory
that territorial rights do not overlap each other by developing an alternative
account of natural law that embraces nested and overlapping self-determination.
With this framework, I justify the moral and political standing of foundational
territories—lower-scale political units that can cross multiple state territories.
This chapter sets out this book’s natural law framework, the principle of
sociability. Working from interpretations of Pufendorf ’s theory and capability
theory, I argue that the principle of sociability should be interpreted as setting the
justification for natural rights and obligations within a rule-utilitarian framework.
The ultimate goal of the framework is to implement political institutions that
achieve sociability, peaceful relations under conditions that recognize equal moral
agency. Section 2.1 defends the general goal to provide a moral theory of territorial
rights by revising natural law theory. While I acknowledge that natural law theory
is limited, I believe that it plays an important role in the justification of our
political and legal international systems. Section 2.2 presents Pufendorf ’s theory
that the fundamental law of nature is the obligation to be sociable. I also present in

Sharing Territories: Overlapping Self-Determination and Resource Rights. Cara Nine, Oxford University Press.
© Cara Nine 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198833628.003.0002
26  , ,   

this section the rule-consequentialist methodology for deriving natural rights and
obligations from the fundamental duty of sociability. Section 2.3 argues for a
capabilities account of basic needs and for the claim that natural rights to the
objects of basic needs can be derived from my methodology.
This chapter sets the groundwork for Part 1 of this book, defending founda-
tional titles as the grounds for foundational territories and overlapping territorial
rights. Foundational titles are individual natural rights to objects or domains that
anchor territorial rights in particular locations, justified from the principle of
sociability. It also sets the groundwork for Part 2, where I defend foundational
territories as lower-level political units with rights of self-determination.
Foundational territories are justified from the principle of sociability.

2.1 In Defence of a Moral Theory of Territorial Rights

In his 2013 book on human rights, Allen Buchanan laments the methodology
usually employed by philosophers to justify legal systems. Most philosophers,
Buchanan notes, try to justify legal rights by justifying moral rights. But there is no
need for this kind of moral theorizing, he says. Once there is a system of law in
place, this need not be justified “from the ground up”.¹ Instead, systems of law
should be evaluated using a pluralistic, open-minded methodology by appealing to
“some rather uncontroversial values” and showing that the system can achieve
“the desired conclusion by invoking mere duties to protect them”.² Recently, Petra
Gümplová adapted Buchanan’s method to justify state rights to natural resources
within their territories. Permanent sovereignty over natural resources, the right of
states to freely dispose of resources within their territories, can be assessed using
this method by evaluating whether this right protects values internal to the system
of international law.³ Gümplová chooses to assess the principle of permanent
sovereignty over natural resources by asking how well it protects the internal value
of collective self-determination.
In Buchanan’s method and Gümplová’s adaptation of it, the justification of a
system of law proceeds by subjecting that system to a normative evaluation. The
norms employed by this method are supposed to be internal to the system. And
yet, systems of law do not hold isolated norms, unconnected to the way norms are
understood in the rest of the world. Systems of law and the norms that shape them
are constantly negotiated by people and groups who are affected by and author the

¹ Allen Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 9.
² Buchanan, 54.
³ Gümplová, “Sovereignty over Natural Resources – A Normative Reinterpretation”, March 2020, 12.
          27

law.⁴ Buchanan, for example, draws on the individual right to physical security as
an uncontroversial value that a system of human rights law ought to protect. This
value is appropriate to employ here not only because it is a value already
recognized by the system of human rights law but also because it is just simply
widely recognized to be valuable.
My point is that this conventionalist method of justification depends on first
confirming a cornerstone for normative analysis. For some values, understanding
why and how something is valuable might be straightforward, like the value of
physical security. But for others, like the value of collective self-determination, we
need more analysis to understand how and why this value is weighty enough to
use it to justify systems of international law. For example, Gümplová’s use of
collective self-determination as grounding value faces problems. She argues that
the right of collective self-determination is central for justifying the principle of
sovereignty over natural resources, because of its instrumental role in protecting
other uncontroversial values such as freedom from imperial domination.⁵ But this
argument can be circular if we are not clear on what constitutes self-determination
and freedom from domination. If what it means to be subject to imperial dom-
ination is that outsiders exercise jurisdictional control over your territory’s natural
resources, then, merely by definition, the principle of permanent sovereignty over
natural resources looks like it protects a group from this kind of imperialism. And
this would make Gümplová’s justification empty. Conceptions of self-
determination are widely variable, and some undermine others. Gümplová
acknowledges this, noting that self-determination has “inconsistencies in its
application” and is marked by the “failure to sufficiently address the needs and
aspirations of minorities and other potentially self-determining groups trapped in
both old and newly created states”.⁶ In sum, concepts like collective self-
determination call for clarification before they can be used as a cornerstone for
justifying systems of international law.
I maintain that the moral analysis of key norms and concepts in the system of
law regarding territorial rights is an essential part of justifying any such system.
Careful understanding of the norms at play within systems of law and how these
norms are morally justified (or not) provides an important analytic touchstone.
That said, my aim in this book is modest. Buchanan’s method rightfully draws on
a plurality of values, and I am here only offering one, not a plurality, of theories.
My modest aim is to update what has been an important source of thinking about
values in resource rights, territorial rights, and self-determination that come from

⁴ Carol M. Rose, “Crystals and Mud in Property Law”, Stanford Law Review 40, no. 3 (1988):
577–610, https://doi.org/10.2307/1228813.
⁵ Gümplová, “Sovereignty over Natural Resources—A Normative Reinterpretation”, March 2020, 23.
⁶ Gümplová, 23.
28  , ,   

natural law theory. In particular, I want to challenge the perspective in natural law
theory that territorial rights do not overlap each other.
Natural law theory has been a central source of normative reasoning in
international law for centuries. A predecessor of Pufendorf and Locke and widely
thought to be the father of international law, Hugo Grotius played a pivotal role in
establishing key elements of law between states. Importantly, he argued that the
territorial claims of sovereigns must have principles and limits. At the beginning
of the seventeenth century, Grotius argued against the then-common practice of
claiming vast stretches of ocean as exclusive parts of European territories.⁷ His
arguments cemented the international standard that territorial claims are based
on occupancy.⁸
Originally, all of the earth’s resources originally were held in common.⁹ But,
observes Grotius, “as men increased in numbers and their flocks in the same
proportion, they could no longer with convenience enjoy the use of lands in
common”.¹⁰ Because humans continually develop new kinds of technology, like
agriculture, which require more long-term, exclusive control over parcels of land,
some things in the commons will not provide enough to serve all without division
into property.¹¹ Sovereign states are formed from areas where people hold (or can
hold) property, where people occupy the land.¹² Occupancy, in Grotius’ view, is
established by setting boundaries and engaging in construction within those
bounds. Once occupied, the area becomes the exclusive domain of the people
that occupy it. Now, parts of the earth’s surface cannot be occupied. Grotius
believed that acts of occupancy could not be performed on the surface of water,
like in some rivers and oceans.¹³ We can’t effectively construct things on bodies
of water, because the water doesn’t provide a foundation for construction.

⁷ Christopher R. Rossi, “A Particular Kind of Dominium: The Grotian Tendency and the Global
Commons in a Time of High Arctic Change”, Journal of International Law and International Relations
11 (2015): 34; Hugo Grotius, The Free Sea [Mare Liberum], trans. Richard Hakluyt, 1609th ed., Major
Legal and Political Works of Hugo Grotius (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2004), 49–51.
⁸ Christopher R. Rossi, “A Particular Kind of Dominium”, 1; The Legacy of UNCLOS, Lecture series,
Law of the Seas (United Nations), accessed December 18, 2017, http://legal.un.org/avl/ls/de-Marffy-
Mantuano_LS.html#; John E. Noyes, “The Common Heritage of Mankind: Past, Present, and Future”,
Denver Journal of International Law & Policy 40, no. 1–3 (2011): 447–71.
⁹ Mónica Brito Vieira, “Mare Liberum vs. Mare Clausum: Grotius, Freitas, and Selden’s Debate on
Dominion over the Seas”, Journal of the History of Ideas 64, no. 3 (2003): 364; Stephen Buckle, Natural
Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 8–11.
¹⁰ Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, 2005th, ed. Richard Tuck ed. (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty
Fund, 2005), 2, Ch 2, Sec 2, http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/grotius-the-rights-of-war-and-peace-2005-
ed-3-vols.
¹¹ Grotius, Mare Liberum, 23.
¹² Tuck, Natural Rights Theories, 61; Grotius, Mare Liberum, 23.
¹³ Tuck, 60. Grotius admits that a territory, but not a property, can include the length of a riverbed,
even though a river cannot be built on. Similarly, bays and straights fall within a territory if the body of
water is sufficiently bounded by land claimed as part of the territory. Grotius, 2, Ch 2, sec 3–4;
Ch 3, 4–5.
          29

One can own a boat, but not the water beneath it, because a boat provides the
stable materials for occupancy, while the water beneath it constantly changes.
Thus, Grotius established a grounding idea for state territorial rights that is still
used today: occupancy can be used to establish exclusive territorial rights. The
problem is that the interpretation of “occupancy” and how it normatively grounds
territorial rights is susceptible to conceptual shifts. What it means to “occupy” a
place has been adapted to contemporary circumstances. Since World War II, the
world has witnessed a series of creeping territorial expansions into the oceans.¹⁴
The 1945 Truman Proclamations expanded US territorial domain over the subsoil
and seabed of the US’s continental shelf. Similar proclamations expanded terri-
torial claims to columns of ocean water within wider coastal zones in order to
regulate fishing.¹⁵ They argue that the continental shelf is occupied because the
utilization and conservation of the continental shelf region are necessarily con-
tingent on the shore.¹⁶ Russia has appealed to this reasoning to argue that their
territorial claims extend along the ocean floor up to the North Pole. The concept
of occupancy has become malleable, open to shifting amendments and assertions
made by states according to their desires. Different interpretations of “occupancy”
can lead to confusion and conflicting border negotiations. For example, a legal
interpretation holds that all persons who are subject to the state’s rule of law by
living within the state’s territory are occupying the territory for that state. And a
cultural interpretation says that persons living in an area that belong to one
culture are occupying that location on behalf of the political unit that represents
that culture. These conflicting interpretations have led to border disputes and
institutional failures, like the border enclaves on either side of the India-
Bangladesh border. Pockets of land occupied by Indians or Bangladeshis were
embedded entirely in the foreign territory of its neighbour, and this complicated
the “state’s administrative control over the enclave and its residents, who in turn,
were essentially ungoverned and disconnected from their respective home states
for almost seventy years”.¹⁷
The task of this book is to re-examine natural law theory to provide an updated
moral framework for the territorial rights of groups with rights of collective self-
determination. My arguments work “from the ground up” to establish a theory
that justifies (1) the conditions under which groups of people can claim territorial
rights by using territorial space and resources, and (2) the limits of territorial

¹⁴ Alison Reppy, “The Grotian Doctrine of the Freedom of the Seas Reappraised”, Fordham Law
Review 19, no. 3 (1950): 245; Rossi, “A Particular Kind of Dominium”, 43–5.
¹⁵ S.N. Nandan, “The Exclusive Economic Zone: A Historical Perspective” (Food and Agriculture
Organization of the UN, 1987), http://www.fao.org/docrep/s5280T/s5280t0p.htm.
¹⁶ Rossi, “A Particular Kind of Dominium”, 45.
¹⁷ Nitika Nayar, “India and Bangladesh: Exchanging Border Enclaves & (Re-) Connecting with New
Citizens”, Brookings (blog), 12 May 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/
12/sambandh-blog-india-and-bangladesh-exchanging-border-enclaves-re-connecting-with-new-citizens/.
30  , ,   

rights, as emergent from the fact that we live together on this earth, connected and
deeply interdependent, through our occupancy within ecosystems and through
other sociopolitical relations. In Part 1 of this book, I defend a substitute for the
principle of occupancy. I re-interpret natural law as supplying individuals with
foundational titles to use located objects and resources. These foundational titles
locate territorial rights in particular places and also serve as a partial justification
for territorial rights. As outlined in the Introduction, my model for theorizing is
not an isolated group achieving self-determination on a desolate island. Giving
physical, sociopolitical, and environmental interdependence its due, I theorize
from the perspective of overlapping groups—groups that can claim some rights of
self-determination over territory and resources that overlap with other groups,
such as residents sharing a river catchment area that spans state borders. This
perspective requires, I believe, rethinking some of the initial perspectives of
natural law on individuals as independent agents and starting instead with the
perspective that individuals are by nature embedded in groups and places. I start
this discussion on individual, relational autonomy in this chapter and pick it up
again in Chapters 5 and 6.

2.2 The Fundamental Duty of Sociability

Natural law theory considers features of human nature and from them develops
natural rights and obligations that bind all people. This is a normative process that
moves from an “is” to an “ought”. It moves from describing what humans are, to
prescribing how they ought to behave. Most natural law theorists endorse a
natural right of self-preservation.¹⁸ This right is a good example of an “is” turned
into an “ought”. “Self-preservation” describes a consistent human characteristic—
that humans strive for self-preservation. And we can construct a set of moral rules
around this fact. It is morally permissible in certain circumstances for a person to
harm others in self-defence, for example. This also serves as a good example of a
problematic feature shared by most theories of universal moral rules: sometimes
rules conflict with each other. In this case, the fact that humans strive for self-
preservation generates two moral rules that, in some circumstances, are mutually

¹⁸ Samuel Freiherr von Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations: Eight Books, trans. Basil
Kennett (Oxford: Gale Ecco Print reproduction from British Library, 1710), bks. 2, Ch 3–5; bk 3 ch 3;
John Locke, “The Second Treatise of Government”, in Two Treatises of Government and a Letter
Concerning Toleration, ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2003), chap. 2,
http://site.ebrary.com/id/10170809; Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, trans. A. C. Campbell,
1901st-Online Library of Liberty ed. (New York, NY: M. Walter Dunne, 1901), http://oll.libertyfund.
org/titles/grotius-the-rights-of-war-and-peace-1901-ed; John Salter, “Grotius and Pufendorf on the
Right of Necessity”, History of Political Thought 26, no. 2 (2005): 284–302; Alejandra Mancilla, The
Right of Necessity: Moral Cosmopolitanism and Global Poverty (London, New York: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2016).
      31

exclusive. First, that we should not harm others because we cannot threaten their
self-preservation. And second, that it is sometimes permissible to harm others in
order to secure our own self-preservation. We can resolve these dilemmas by
recognizing that some principles are more important than others. These are
fundamental principles in natural law. From these we can derive and interpret
other natural laws.
A fundamental natural principle describes what humans essentially ought to
achieve. Although humans strive to remain alive through self-preservation, I argue
that this is not the ultimate foundation of a natural law theory. Instead, the
fundamental goal is to be sociable, to live in peaceful coexistence with others
under conditions that respect the natural equality of persons. Sociability is a moral
peace.
I adopt the fundamental goal of sociability from the works of Samuel von
Pufendorf. I appeal to parts of Pufendorf ’s philosophy, because Pufendorf
grounds his philosophy in the fact that people live together in groups. A main
criticism of many natural law theories is that they are overly individualistic and
tend to rely on the conception of the individual as independently in charge of her
own reasons and actions. Being a good person, making choices, and acting
according to the rules is entirely up to the individuals; their rewards or punish-
ments under natural law are due to their individual actions. This individualism
ignores crucial aspects of how humans reason and act. Claudia Card reminds us of
this commonsense fact: it is important to reflect on the social circumstances
created by networks of “institutions and histories” that that can affect an individ-
ual’s choices, values, and actions.¹⁹
While I adopt the goal of moral peace from Pufendorf, it is not unique to his
philosophy. Other theorists, such as Grotius, Hobbes, Kant, and Rawls, adopt
versions of this end as an ultimate goal for international politics. In the Law of
Peoples, for example, Rawls’ aim is to get rid of the great evils of human history,
particularly unjust war and oppression.²⁰ Even in Rawls’ domestic theory of
justice, society is designed to be a peaceful cooperative venture, allowing for
mutual flourishing amid disagreement.²¹ The point is not to end here—to end at
peaceful cooperation—we want institutional arrangements to ideally be so much
more. Yet, sociable relations are the foundational, essential principle of institu-
tional design.

¹⁹ Claudia Card, The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2010), 20.
²⁰ Peri Roberts, “War and Peace in The Law of Peoples : Rawls, Kant and the Use of Force”, Kantian
Review 23, no. 4 (December 2018): 661–80, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415418000444; John Rawls,
The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 7.
²¹ John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1999), 4.
32  , ,   

This approach is also similar to Martha Nussbaum’s, articulated in Frontiers of

Justice. Nussbaum adopts what she sees in Grotius’ theory as a principle of
sociability, that humans are deeply compelled to seek fellowship and a peaceful,
common life. Like myself, Nussbaum wants to bring out how to begin a theory
with “the content of an outcome”—how to start theorizing from a goal that guides
the construction of the theory’s constitutive elements.²² One difference between
Nussbaum’s theory and mine is that I do not seek to defend a theory of the
minimally just society. Nussbaum’s theory carefully articulates the conditions
under which a society is minimally just, that is, when the basic entitlements of
people are met. Although later in this chapter I use Nussbaum’s account of basic
entitlements and capabilities to help fill out the right to the object of basic needs,
my goal is to advance a theory of self-determination and territorial rights, not a
theory of justice. One way to think about this distinction is that my target is to
define the contours of the relevant societies that would be subject to Nussbaum’s
assessments of justice. Typically, these assessments are fully applied to nation-
states. But one result of my theory would be to change the way that we identify
which societies have which duties to their members. In my view, theories of
domestic justice would be partitioned and applied across overlapping political
units. Because of this, my theory is focused on institutional design and political
obligations as well as on natural entitlements. I use Pufendorf ’s theory of soci-
ability because it is much richer than that of Grotius or other modern natural law
theorists. With Pufendorf ’s theory, I believe we can see a method for devising
moral principles to evaluate the institutional design of international systems of
territorial rights.
Pufendorf starts with the assumption that people live in groups, and our most
important task is to figure out how to do this well.²³ We are social beings naturally;
we entangle ourselves deeply with others, and we are naturally kind, empathetic,
and loving. Contra Hobbes, Pufendorf argues that humans do not form social
networks merely to protect themselves from the evil-doings of others.²⁴ Yes,
humans are capable of antisocial behaviour—we are sometimes “malicious, inso-
lent, and easily provoked”.²⁵ We recognize that solidifying beneficial relations with
others is necessary, because sociability shields us from antisocial effects and
sustains relations that discourage damaging behaviour. But even more, sociability
arises naturally from a “special harmony of minds or other qualities”, joint
projects, shared goals, and human kindness.²⁶ We are naturally inclined to be
sociable. And while this sometimes comes into tension with self-interest,

²² Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 37, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1c7zftw.
²³ Pufendorf, 310–11 (4.6.3). DOH, 117 (2.1.6). ²⁴ Pufendorf, DJN, 113 (II. 3. 16).
²⁵ Pufendorf, 111 (II. 3. 15).
²⁶ Craig L. Carr and Michael J. Seidler, eds., The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 153.
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Le prêtre, ami d'Antoinette, n'était pas seulement un joyeux
compagnon. Parmi les excellents enseignements qu'il avait donnés
à son élève, figuraient de très belles idées sur la résignation, qui
préparèrent la jeune femme à subir courageusement ses devoirs
d'épouse chrétienne. Comme elle était, avec cela, une personne
bien élevée, pleine de tact, et fort polie, elle évita de laisser voir au
marquis tout l'ennui que lui causaient les corvées conjugales. Mais
son éducation n'allait pas jusqu'à lui faire simuler une satisfaction
qu'elle était si loin d'éprouver et qui eût entretenu la fougue, un peu
assagie déjà, de son époux. Il espaça peu à peu ses visites. Quand
elle s'aperçut qu'il venait obéir, chez elle, à un devoir de galanterie,
elle sut lui faire comprendre qu'elle l'en dispensait, en alléguant des
migraines auxquelles il feignit de croire. Si bien que la séparation
s'effectua entre eux insensiblement. Tous deux reprirent une
indépendance complète. Et aucun des deux n'en fit mauvais usage.
Elle était trop contente d'être tranquille, et d'être exemptée de ces
obligations dont Hubert n'avait pas su lui révéler l'agrément
compensateur. Quant au marquis, les femmes ne l'occupaient plus.
Ce n'était pas que toute ardeur juvénile fût éteinte en lui. Mais il était
occupé de tant d'autres choses! Et puis, il lui eût fallu, pour faire la
cour à une dame, suivre une idée pendant quelques minutes, et il
n'en était plus capable. Et puis encore, les femmes lui semblaient
toutes identiques. Elles ne lui apprenaient rien de nouveau.
Antoinette n'avait jamais eu à se plaindre de lui. Pour rien au monde,
elle n'eût voulu le mécontenter. Il lui avait donné une grosse fortune,
une vie mouvementée, et qui passait pour agréable. Cette existence
était assez vide. Mais elle ne s'en aperçut que rétrospectivement le
jour où elle connut Julien. Et, de même qu'il avait poussé au
tragique, en les lui narrant, les petits mécomptes de sa vie, de même
elle exagéra l'ennui qu'elle avait éprouvé depuis son mariage.
Mais le diable, c'est que depuis que Julien lui faisait la cour, elle ne
s'ennuyait plus du tout, et ne souhaitait aucun changement dans sa
vie. Pourquoi cet homme exigeant demandait-il autre chose? C'était
le plaisir même qu'elle prenait à ces tendres et chastes entretiens, à
ces conversations un peu plus ardentes, le soir, sur la terrasse, qui
la faisait se contenter du «statu quo». Or, le meilleur adjuvant d'un
séducteur, c'est cette horreur naturelle que les dames ont pour le
«statu quo».
Et puis, vers quel inconnu le jeune homme voulait-il l'entraîner? Il
voulait recommencer avec elle tous ces gestes discrédités par le
marquis. Pour elle, le mystère avait été défloré sans plaisir; l'inconnu
n'avait plus de charme.
Heureusement pour Julien, Antoinette était une femme de devoir.
Les mêmes habitudes de sacrifice qui l'avaient fait si docilement se
soumettre aux formalités du mariage l'habituèrent à envisager,
presque avec résignation, un dévouement adultère. Vraiment ce
pauvre garçon paraissait si malheureux!
Le jour où elle se dit cela, elle vit avec clairvoyance qu'elle était sur
une pente fortement inclinée... Jusqu'à ce moment, elle n'avait pas
encore lutté contre sa vertu. Elle n'avait pas eu peur: alors les bons
principes n'avaient pas donné signe de vie. Mais elle s'aperçut tout à
coup que, sans s'en douter, elle était allée très loin du côté du
péché. A cet instant-là, il fallait appeler tout de même les principes à
la rescousse. Il était temps. On eût dit une personne assaillie par les
cambrioleurs et qui pousse en toute hâte les meubles les plus lourds
contre une porte menacée. Mais, hélas! les principes se discutent,
de même que les meubles se déplacent. Et puisqu'elle avait eu
assez de force pour les pousser contre la porte, l'assaillant aurait au
moins autant de force pour les repousser.
Le meilleur rempart d'Antoinette eût été sa vertu naturelle. Mais
Julien en avait triomphé par de lentes et insensibles pesées. La
vertu est un secours plutôt préventif, qu'il ne s'agit pas de faire
donner à la dernière minute.
 CHAPITRE XXIII
Rapprochement.
Cependant l'être simple et lubrique, qui habitait en Julien,
s'impatientait. Et, pour tromper ses impatiences, il cherchait autour
de lui des distractions. Un après-midi, comme Antoinette était partie
en auto, Julien se trouva seul avec madame Jehon et, par politesse,
lui proposa de faire quelques pas dans le parc. Ils allèrent s'asseoir
sur le talus herbu où, jadis, le matin, Julien s'en allait attendre le
facteur avec Lorgis. Là, madame Jehon, qui avait décidément pris
Julien en affection, se mit à parler de sujets sérieux, et qu'il n'écouta
pas. Il ne pensait qu'à une chose: se précipiter sur elle, la posséder
vigoureusement, pendant qu'elle continuerait à dire des choses
raisonnables. Mais il est bien rare que l'on passe de ces rêves
fantaisistes à leur brutale réalisation. Le Julien sage ne songeait pas
une seconde à écouter le Julien bestial. Si encore on avait été sûr
que madame Jehon se fût laissé faire! Dans le doute, il valait mieux
s'abstenir, renoncer à ces idées passagères. Mais, alors, du moment
qu'elle n'était plus un objet de tentation, madame Jehon devenait
une dame bien ennuyeuse. Il n'y avait plus qu'à prétexter une lettre à
écrire et à quitter cette personne au plus tôt.
Julien monta dans sa chambre, essaya de se mettre à lire. Il se
sentait désœuvré. Il était furieux contre Antoinette, qui le faisait ainsi
languir. Ma foi! tant pis! d'ici un jour ou deux, sous n'importe quel
prétexte, il irait passer vingt-quatre heures à Paris.
En principe, la villégiature à Bourrènes devait se terminer dans les
premiers jours d'août. Depuis une vingtaine d'années, en effet, le
marquis allait habiter au mois d'août sa villa des environs de
Deauville. Jadis, il avait possédé des chevaux de course; c'est-à-dire
qu'il avait eu une part d'association dans une écurie importante.
Puis, le propriétaire titulaire étant mort, on avait vendu les chevaux
aux enchères. Ils s'étaient vendus de bons prix et le marquis n'en
avait pas racheté. Il continua à aller aux courses pendant quelque
temps... Ce goût lui passa. Mais la villa de Deauville restait en sa
possession. On continua, par tradition, à aller à Deauville pendant la
semaine des courses. Cette année seulement, comme le marquis
s'était décidé à faire d'importants travaux à Bourrènes, il préféra
prolonger son séjour dans le pays jusqu'à la fin août, époque à
laquelle il se rendrait dans ses terres de Bourgogne.
On avait beaucoup insisté auprès des invités pour les garder tous.
Les Jehon s'étaient fait prier, mais avaient fini par consentir. Ils
étaient propriétaires d'un petit domaine à Saint-Valéry. Jehon y avait
installé un atelier. Le travail le réclamait. Mais le marquis s'était
écrié: «Vous travaillerez ici!» C'était l'occasion pour lui d'organiser un
magnifique atelier, de faire venir de Paris tout le matériel nécessaire.
Comme le sculpteur avait la commande d'un grand monument pour
une ville algérienne, et qu'on devait y faire figurer un dromadaire, le
marquis insista beaucoup pour faire venir un de ces animaux du
Jardin d'Acclimatation. C'est avec peine qu'on le fit renoncer à cette
idée.
Le diplomate n'était plus là. Un château du Midi le réclamait à cette
date. Depuis dix ans, il s'y hospitalisait dans le courant d'août, et il
ne pouvait s'exposer à perdre, les années suivantes, ce refuge d'une
partie de l'été. Quant au colonel et à ses enfants, ils étaient partis
dès le lendemain de la matinée de verdure. Les jeunes filles et le
jeune homme trapu avaient des engagements à remplir dans
d'autres représentations mondaines. Ils continuaient, de château en
château, leur petite tournée d'été.
Les Lorgis consentirent à rester. Leur fils aîné, ayant terminé son
année scolaire, était revenu de Paris dans l'auto paternelle. Firmin
n'était plus le seul mécanicien de la maison et l'arbitre dictatorial des
promenades. N'empêche que le lendemain du jour où le mécanicien
des Lorgis, un gros joufflu d'aspect timide, était arrivé au château, on
ne put avoir à sa disposition un seul des chauffeurs. Firmin faisait à
son camarade les honneurs du pays. D'après des racontars, il
entretenait des relations adultérines avec la femme d'un forgeron,
qu'il devait balader secrètement en automobile. Toujours est-il que
les mécaniciens furent invisibles pendant toute une journée. On
décida qu'on se priverait à jamais des services de Firmin. Le
marquis, dès qu'on signala le retour du fugitif, se dirigea vers le
garage pour procéder à l'exécution. Mais, l'instant d'après, on les vit
qui causaient très amicalement. Le marquis se borna à dire, en
revenant: «Je l'ai tancé sérieusement. Il ne recommencera plus.» On
savait bien qu'il le garderait toujours, et qu'il ne voudrait pas se
séparer d'un interlocuteur si précieux.
Cet après-midi, où Julien s'ennuyait si furieusement, Antoinette était
allée se promener dans l'auto des Lorgis avec madame Lorgis et les
enfants. L'auto de la maison avait emmené Lorgis et le marquis
jusqu'à un village industriel assez lointain, où Hubert voulait montrer
à son cousin des habitations ouvrières. Julien trouva la journée
d'une longueur invraisemblable. Une lettre à sa famille, des cartes
postales à ses amis de Paris ne lui tuèrent que trois pauvres petits
quarts d'heure. Il lut un journal de la veille jusqu'au bas de la sixième
page, s'intéressa à des mouvements de bateaux, à des tarifs de
boucherie, à des ventes par autorité de justice...
Il finit par jouer à l'écarté avec le sculpteur Jehon...
Enfin l'auto qui ramenait ces dames fit entendre sa rauque clameur.
Julien se sentit tout heureux. Il était comme un petit enfant qu'on a
laissé seul à la maison et qui voit revenir sa mère.
Mais il souffrit, quand Antoinette descendit de voiture, de ne pas
pouvoir la prendre dans ses bras et l'y serrer avec une tendre
frénésie. «C'est l'être, pensait-il, que j'aime le mieux sur la terre, et je
ne peux pas m'approcher d'elle. Et non seulement le monde
m'écarte d'elle, mais elle-même s'écarte de moi. Cependant je sais
qu'elle m'aime aussi!» Tout cela le peinait et l'indignait comme une
injustice monstrueuse. Et pourtant, c'était un garçon bien élevé, et
respectueux des barrières établies. Mais il était à bout. Cette journée
de solitude l'avait exaspéré...
La seconde auto avait ramené ces messieurs, et la cloche du dîner
sonnait. Julien, tête nue, était reparti dans le parc, et marchait à
grands pas. Il fut sur le point de remonter dans sa chambre, de faire
comme les enfants boudeurs qui veulent persuader à leurs
méchants parents qu'ils sont malades. Mais il ne voyait pas à quoi le
mènerait ce manège. Et d'ailleurs il avait faim.
Il se contenta, à table, de garder autant qu'il put le silence, et de ne
reprendre d'aucun plat. C'était l'homme qui se soumettait aux
formalités de l'existence, mais qui n'avait aucun goût aux joies
terrestres. Il fut d'ailleurs le seul à donner à son attitude cette subtile
interprétation.
Depuis le départ du diplomate, le bridge sévissait sans retenue.
Aussi était-il facile à Antoinette et à Julien de s'isoler sur la terrasse.
Ce soir-là, il n'y voulut point aller. Il resta derrière les joueurs, à
suivre leur jeu. Il fallut qu'Antoinette, qui était déjà sortie, rentrât au
salon, et lui fit, avec précaution, signe de la suivre.
Il la suivit, sans se presser, l'air impassible et dur. Mais elle ne
remarqua pas cette expression de son visage.
—J'ai des choses à vous dire.
L'après-midi, elle était allée goûter dans une ferme avec Anne et les
enfants Lorgis. Pendant que les enfants jouaient, elle avait eu une
grande conversation avec sa cousine. C'était le pendant des
entretiens de Lorgis avec Julien. Évidemment le couple s'employait
de toutes ses forces à empêcher un rapprochement entre Julien et la
marquise. Antoinette, parlant à Julien, racontait cela comme une
alliée, et rapportait les discours d'Anne Lorgis comme on rend
compte des arguments d'un adversaire. Mais elle eut l'imprudence
de dire que certains de ces arguments l'avaient touchée... Julien, ce
soir d'énervement, n'était pas d'humeur à supporter cela.
Il se prit à déclarer qu'il ne voulait pas être la cause de débats aussi
douloureux dans l'âme de la marquise... Elle ne devait pas souffrir
pour lui: on ne souffre que pour un homme que l'on aime vraiment.
Or, à n'en pas douter, les sentiments qu'elle croyait avoir pour lui ne
répondaient pas à la passion qu'il avait pour elle.
Il sentait qu'il parlait sans ménagements. Mais il avait cette
impression qu'il valait mieux, à cette heure, ne pas la ménager. Elle
eut un regard si touchant de tendresse, qu'il eut besoin d'un effort
sérieux pour ne pas s'attendrir à son tour. Il déclara encore qu'il n'en
pouvait plus, qu'il menait au château une vie anormale, que c'était
au-dessus de ses forces... Puis il ajouta:
—Ah! j'oubliais de vous dire que je m'absente demain pour deux
jours. Je vais à Paris.
Il avait dit cela, en changeant ostensiblement de ton, comme s'il
semblait désirer qu'elle n'établît aucune liaison entre ce projet de
voyage et ce qui avait été dit précédemment. Comme il l'espérait,
elle vit très clairement cette liaison, se leva, et, très irritée:
—Si vous vous en allez à Paris, vous pourrez y rester!
Allons! c'en était fait entre eux des délicatesses de pensée et
d'expression qui jusque-là avaient maintenu leurs relations dans un
si bon ton d'élégance!
Il répondit:
—Soit! J'irai à Paris, et j'y resterai.
Mais il ajouta, par crainte d'avoir prononcé une parole trop définitive:
—Et c'est, au fond, ce que vous souhaitez!
Elle haussa les épaules (ce qui n'avait rien de si désobligeant). Puis
elle lui tendit la main et lui dit, avec une grande politesse:
—Je vous prie de m'excuser si je me retire. Je suis un peu fatiguée
ce soir.
Elle rentra sur la terrasse, dit bonsoir à quelques personnes et, pour
empêcher Julien de la suivre, emmena avec elle Anne Lorgis, qui
avait fini sa partie.
Cette dispute puérile laissa Julien très agité. Il se sentait le cœur
plein de désespoir, et aussi d'une âcre joie. Il descendit dans le parc
et marcha comme un fou. Quelques minutes après, il se trouva
devant la fenêtre d'Antoinette. Cette fenêtre n'était pas éclairée.
Comment se faisait-il? Sans doute la marquise était allée jusque
dans la chambre d'Anne Lorgis pour y causer un instant avec son
amie. Alors Julien se persuada qu'il fallait absolument, le soir même,
revoir Antoinette. On ne pouvait pas passer la nuit sur cette rupture
incomplète. Il fallait s'expliquer plus nettement, se séparer si c'était
nécessaire, mais ne pas se quitter aussi méchamment. Il fallait se
dire n'importe quoi; il fallait se parler encore... Autrement, c'était pour
lui et peut-être pour elle une nuit abominable.
Si la marquise avait été dans sa chambre, et s'il avait jugé
impossible de la revoir le même soir, il en eût peut-être pris son parti.
Mais c'était la possibilité de cette entrevue qui l'amenait à la
considérer comme indispensable... Il se précipita vers l'escalier le
plus proche, de façon à gagner le couloir qui conduisait de la
chambre de madame Lorgis à celle d'Antoinette. Précisément dans
ce couloir donnait une porte de la bibliothèque. A la rigueur, Julien,
s'il était rencontré par là, pouvait dire qu'il allait consulter un livre. Ce
n'était pas très vraisemblable, mais c'était plausible à la rigueur.
Il arriva jusqu'à la bibliothèque. Le petit escalier par lequel il était
monté débouchait presque à côté. Il entra dans la grande pièce
haute et sombre, et laissa la porte légèrement entr'ouverte, après
s'être assuré qu'au bout du couloir il y avait sous la porte de
madame Lorgis une raie de lumière. Par contre, il n'y en avait pas
sous la porte de la marquise: par conséquent, Antoinette était
encore avec son amie.
Il était effrayé à l'idée du temps qu'il allait passer là. L'attente le
rendait fou, et il ne supportait pas les minutes qui semblent des
siècles. Le destin eut pitié de lui. Presque tout de suite, la porte de
madame Lorgis craqua. Une lumière éclata au bout du couloir.
Antoinette et Anne n'avaient pas fini leur conversation. La porte de la
bibliothèque, qui s'ouvrait en dedans, s'entrebâillait de telle sorte que
Julien pouvait apercevoir les deux jeunes femmes. Il s'impatientait
moins. Il avait vu avec satisfaction qu'Antoinette avait un bougeoir à
la main: ainsi madame Lorgis ne serait pas tentée de laisser sa porte
ouverte jusqu'à ce que son amie eût regagné sa chambre.
Julien était un peu ennuyé à l'idée qu'il allait faire peur à Antoinette,
et qu'elle aurait, en le voyant subitement devant elle, un
tressaillement désagréable. Mais il n'y avait pas moyen d'éviter ça...
Il vit, avec une émotion oppressante, les deux amies se donner la
main. La porte d'Anne se referma, et la marquise, lentement, son
bougeoir à la main, s'avança vers l'endroit où Julien était caché...
Il valait mieux se montrer tout de suite, pour qu'elle le vît face à face,
et qu'elle le reconnût bien. Il sortit brusquement, pour se montrer
plus vite. Elle eut le tressaillement attendu; son visage, cependant,
n'exprima aucun effroi. Elle ne l'attendait pas; mais elle n'était pas
très surprise de le voir.
—Je n'ai pu me coucher sans vous avoir revue, lui dit-il, à voix très
basse...
Elle lui fit signe de se taire.
Il allait rentrer dans la bibliothèque...
—Non, dit-elle, c'est au-dessous de la chambre des Jehon.
Il n'osait lui demander d'aller dans sa chambre, à elle. Et puis le
marquis couchait tout à côté.
Ils gagnèrent alors le palier du petit escalier.
Tous ces petits détails d'organisation se donnaient de part et d'autre
à voix basse, mais avec un certain ton de tristesse et de gravité, qu'il
importait de ne pas perdre pour la suite de l'entretien.
Elle avait soufflé sa bougie, pour éviter que du dehors on vît de la
lumière par la fenêtre du petit escalier. Car Lorgis se promenait
volontiers la nuit dans le parc, et les chauffeurs rentraient
quelquefois assez tard. Ils s'approchèrent de la fenêtre fermée. La
nuit n'était pas très claire, mais au bout d'un instant ils se virent tout
de même un peu.
Elle était devant lui, toute blanche et toute triste. Julien n'y put tenir,
et lui dit d'une voix étranglée:
—Pourquoi m'avez-vous fait de la peine?
Elle fondit gentiment en larmes, si bien qu'il ne put se retenir de
pleurer. Ils ne savaient ni l'un ni l'autre exactement pourquoi ils
pleuraient. Mais ils avaient été très énervés; ça leur faisait du bien.
Et ils s'aimaient tous deux infiniment de pleurer ainsi. C'était un
langage sans paroles, un langage animal, qui les unissait bien l'un à
l'autre.
Pour la première fois, il approcha ses lèvres du visage d'Antoinette.
Il pensa qu'il la mouillait avec son visage tout humide, mais comme
elle le mouillait aussi, ça n'avait pas d'importance... Elle lui rendait
ses baisers; les bouches rencontrèrent les joues au hasard; puis des
baisers s'échangèrent tant et tant, que les lèvres à la fin se
rencontrèrent aussi. Mais alors ce fut un peu autre chose. Antoinette
eut un sursaut. Était-ce un sanglot encore? Ce sanglot s'achevait
comme un frémissement. Julien l'avait serrée dans ses bras. Elle se
raidit d'abord, puis, abandonnée, la bouche tremblante, il sembla,
quand elle lui rendit son baiser, que tout son souffle s'exhalait.
C'est à juste titre que dans les anciens récits d'amour le baiser sur la
bouche était le symbole de la possession. Vraiment, c'est, pour
certains êtres, un rapprochement aussi parfait que l'acte définitif:
c'est moins complet et moins officiel, voilà tout.
Il est possible que si Antoinette et Julien avaient disposé à ce
moment d'une installation plus confortable, ils ne s'en seraient pas
tenus au symbole. Quand ils se désunirent après cette étreinte,
Antoinette était si lasse qu'elle dut s'asseoir sur une marche de
l'escalier, et Julien, qui n'était pas très vaillant non plus, ne fut pas
fâché d'être aussi autorisé à s'asseoir.
Ils restèrent l'un près de l'autre sur les marches, ils ne surent jamais
pendant combien de temps. Julien avait passé son bras autour de la
taille d'Antoinette, et lui posait des baisers recueillis sur les tempes
et sur le front. Il commençait à être gêné, et à se demander ce
qu'Antoinette attendait de lui. A ce point qu'il aurait presque souhaité
entendre un bruit dans la maison, qui les obligeât à se séparer.
Alors, machinalement, il tendit l'oreille pour guetter ce bruit... Elle vit
son geste, et elle eut peur... Elle se leva.
—Il faut vous en aller, dit-elle.
Il l'attira tendrement à lui, et voulut encore rencontrer ses lèvres,
mais elle détourna la tête, et il ne put que la baiser un peu au-
dessous de l'oreille. Il n'avait d'ailleurs pas de quoi s'en plaindre, car
ce baiser fut d'une douceur infinie, bien que moins émouvant, moins
significatif, moins solennel que le précédent.
Puis elle le repoussa légèrement, lui fit un gentil signe de tête et
disparut du côté de sa chambre.
Il fallut que Julien descendît avec précaution, et ouvrît aussi
doucement que possible la petite porte qui donnait dans le jardin.
Dehors, il fut tranquille. Il avait, somme toute, le droit de faire le
noctambule. Mais, une fois tranquille, il sentit le besoin de se gâter
son bonheur, de se faire des reproches, de se dire qu'il n'aurait pas
dû s'en tenir là, qu'Antoinette attendait de lui une preuve d'amour
plus complète. Le succès l'inquiétait toujours, et il avait besoin d'un
grand effort d'énergie pour faire tête à la bonne fortune.
 CHAPITRE XXIV
La passion parle.
Très énervé, il ne pouvait arriver à s'endormir. Le baiser sur la
bouche, décidément, ne signifiait pas pour lui la possession.
Et puis il lui semblait que ce n'était pas suffisant pour s'assurer sa
conquête, et qu'elle pouvait encore lui échapper. Il sentait bien
pourtant que ce n'était pas un baiser ordinaire, que celui-là
comportait un acquiescement absolu. Mais, comme on dit dans les
affaires, tant qu'un traité n'est pas signé... Elle avait donné des
arrhes; elle pouvait les laisser perdre, et se dédire.
D'autre part, mais cela il ne se l'exprima que plus tard, c'était un
plaisir bien plus savoureux que de s'arrêter, comme il avait toujours
fait, aux étapes, de profiter de toutes les phases de son triomphe,
pour ne pas gâcher, en poursuivant hâtivement la série progressive
des satisfactions, le bénéfice de chaque joie partielle.
Quelle Antoinette allait-il retrouver le lendemain matin? Il frissonna à
la pensée qu'elle se serait ressaisie, qu'il ne reverrait pas tout de
suite dans ses yeux cette expression d'abandon, qui l'avait enivré
l'instant d'auparavant.
Julien, cependant, ne pouvait s'endormir. Il se leva, mit son pantalon
de chambre, et alla s'accouder à sa fenêtre. Au bout d'un instant,
pour être mieux à son aise, il tira près de la croisée une chaise-
longue de paille. Quelle joie de contempler ainsi le ciel nocturne, un
ciel un peu couvert, pas trop éclatant, un ciel d'une paix infinie!
L'extase de Julien le conduisit enfin au sommeil. Une demi-heure
après, il se réveillait courbaturé, fermait brutalement sa fenêtre au
nez de la Nature, puis courait se blottir dans son lit, en se
cramponnant au sommeil fugitif.
Le lendemain matin, Antoinette ne vint pas au petit déjeuner, mais
Julien ne pensait pas qu'elle descendrait. Il lui semblait qu'elle ne
pouvait se remettre aussi vite des émotions de la veille, et même,
quand elle apparut à la terrasse, à midi, il lui en voulut d'être si
calme, et de parler aux gens comme à l'ordinaire. Julien aurait dû
sentir que jamais, cependant, cet air de tous les jours n'avait été de
tous les jours à ce point...
Il était un peu à l'écart, en train de causer avec Jacques de Delle.
Antoinette vint de leur côté; mais elle ne le regarda pas en lui disant
bonjour; elle lui attrapa seulement la main au passage et la lui
secoua hâtivement. Puis elle tendit une main plus franche à Jacques
de Delle, et partit au plus vite dans une autre direction, comme une
maîtresse de maison qui a oublié de donner quelque ordre
extrêmement important.
Julien, l'esprit ailleurs, écoutait avec force hochements de tête
Jacques de Delle, qui devait s'en aller le lendemain, lui expliquait
pourquoi ce n'était pas lui qui organisait une grande représentation
chez les Grevel, comment il l'avait proposé gentiment, pour quelles
raisons secrètes on s'était adressé à un autre, et à quel point, lui,
Delle, se félicitait hautement d'avoir échappé à cette corvée. Il osait
parler de son besoin de repos, ce personnage agité que Lorgis
comparait un jour à une bicyclette, qui ne peut conserver son
équilibre qu'à la condition d'être en mouvement continuel! Il s'en
allait passer quelques semaines dans la famille de la petite rousse,
des gens très simples, très près de la terre. Il parlait d'eux avec un
ton de sympathie visiblement emprunté, et qui ne dissimulait pas,
pour les personnes averties, le mépris et la haine que lui inspirait
cette humble famille de richards.
Cependant, la cloche du déjeuner ramenait lentement vers la salle à
manger le troupeau dispersé des convives. Antoinette, pendant tout
le repas, remplit ses devoirs de maîtresse de maison de la façon la
plus vigilante, veilla au bien-être de chacun, écoutant avec une
grâce parfaite un des invités qui parlaient, juste au moment où elle
se dérobait d'une façon insensible pour aller grossir d'une unité
attentive l'auditoire un peu restreint d'un autre causeur. Jamais elle
n'avait été autant à son affaire. Elle était comme un soldat craintif qui
fait l'exercice avec plus de conscience et plus de précision qu'à
l'ordinaire, parce qu'il lui est arrivé, la nuit précédente, de sauter le
mur.
Quant au marquis, son innocence peinait Julien. Le loyal jeune
homme faisait tous ses efforts pour ne pas lui parler avec une
complaisance exagérée, et même, dans une discussion sur la
marine, il le contredit au hasard, pour ne pas lui donner toujours
raison.

—Je vous en prie, lui dit Antoinette, je vous en supplie... Vous êtes
sûr de moi. Est-ce que vous n'êtes pas sûr de moi?
—Si, je suis sûr de vous...
—Hé bien, ne me pressez pas... Je vous demande, comme une
preuve d'amour, de ne pas me presser.
Elle disait ces mots: une preuve d'amour, d'une voix rapide et
presque honteuse, comme une petite fille qui récite, et n'ose donner
un sens à ses paroles.
Ils se promenaient bien gentiment dans le jardin, après le déjeuner.
Tout le monde était sur la terrasse et les voyait. Alors ils étaient
simplement un monsieur et une dame, assez liés, qui s'en vont en
causant de choses insignifiantes le long d'une allée. Même ils
affectaient de ne pas se regarder. Elle faisait ses tendres
supplications, les yeux droit devant elle, et en jouant d'un air
indifférent avec une petite branche coupée. Lui regardait à droite et
à gauche, distrait et presque impoli, semblait-il, pour un invité,
cependant qu'il implorait avec passion:
—C'est moi qui vous supplie de m'écouter, et de vous rendre compte
du tourment que j'endure. Je vous sais entourée de gens qui en
veulent à mon bonheur. Anne Lorgis vous a encore parlé ce matin?
—... Ce matin? Oui, elle est venue dans ma chambre...
—J'en étais sûr! Ah! ils sont tous mes ennemis... Anne, Lorgis,
Henri...
—Henri, dit-elle avec une moue, ce n'est pas lui qui me préoccupe...
Ce qui était, en somme, excellent, c'est que leurs appréhensions
n'étaient pas les mêmes. Chacun d'eux avait donc des arguments
pour combattre les scrupules de l'autre. Ainsi, le souvenir d'Henri
obsédait presque constamment Julien. Il avait encore à l'esprit les
paroles de Lorgis: Henri, c'était celui qu'il trahissait dans la maison.
Le volage et sautillant Hubert ne semblait avoir de droits sur
personne; il avait délégué le souci de son honneur familial à ce
sensible adolescent. Mais Antoinette, en parlant de son beau-fils,
corrigea l'idée romantique que s'en était faite l'imaginatif Julien.
Certes Henri souffrait de voir les assiduités de Julien auprès de la
marquise. Il n'en souffrait, dit-elle, que lorsqu'il en était témoin... Il
avait tout de même un peu le caractère de son père. Il était plus
sensible et plus inquiet. Seulement il changeait sans cesse de sujet
d'inquiétude, comme son père de marotte.
L'autre ennui de Julien, c'était l'attitude de Lorgis.
—Il vous bat froid? demanda Antoinette.
—Pas précisément.
—Il ne sait pas bouder. Il vous parle moins, n'est-ce pas? Il a l'air de
vous fuir?
—C'est bien cela.
—Je connais Lorgis. Il fait son possible pour être froid avec vous. Il
suit les recommandations d'Anne. Vous savez qu'elle le mène
comme un petit garçon?
—Mais qu'est-ce que c'est que cette femme-là? dit-il avec irritation.
—Une femme très gentille, croyez-moi. Je n'ai pas d'amie plus
dévouée, plus sûre. Elle a peur pour moi: elle se dit que je vais
bouleverser ma vie... Et c'est vrai... Ne vous fâchez pas, mon ami!...
... Voilà qu'il se fâche! continua Antoinette, la voix pleine d'angoisse.
Est-ce que j'hésite? Je n'ai pas dit que je ne savais pas si je
bouleverserais ma vie. Je dis que je suis résolue à la bouleverser.
—Mais pourquoi employez-vous ce mot? Vous parlez de cela
comme d'un malheur...
—Ce n'est pas un malheur, mais c'est un bouleversement.
... Vous ne pensez pas, ajouta-t-elle avec gravité, que je vais
continuer à vivre comme je vis, et à mentir et à trahir...
Ils étaient arrivés au bout d'une allée. Ils tournèrent sur la droite,
derrière un massif, de façon à n'être plus en vue des gens de la
terrasse.
—Je serai à vous, dit-elle à Julien, mais pas ici... Vous
m'emmènerez...

Il la prit dans ses bras, et l'étreignit avec transport, en lui baisant un

coin de la tempe, que ses lèvres avaient rencontré... Ce transport
était sincère, mais tout de même il le sentait un peu forcé... Non pas
qu'il ne l'aimât pas immensément, non pas qu'il ne fût pas prêt à
l'emmener et à vivre avec elle. Mais l'inconnu l'effrayait toujours.
Dans son étreinte, il n'y avait pas seulement de l'amour, mais de la
résolution et du courage.
Puis il pensa qu'il fallait tout de même prendre une date...
—Partons tout de suite! s'écria-t-il, pour prouver son empressement.
Ce fut au tour d'Antoinette d'être un peu effrayée.
—Non, écoutez! dit-elle... Ne me pressez pas... Puisque nous
partirons sûrement!
—Que ce soit le plus tôt possible, dit-il avec une sombre énergie.
J'ai tellement peur de tous ces gens...
—Ce sera bientôt, dit Antoinette. Et elle lui tendit ses lèvres.
Ce fut un baiser charmant, mais un peu préoccupé... Ce voyage à
organiser...
 CHAPITRE XXV
La passion continue à parler.
Le grand souci de Julien, c'était de n'être pas un pleutre. Or, il avait
fait la cour à une femme, sans savoir exactement comment
l'aventure tournerait. Maintenant que la conquête était faite, il fallait
en subir toutes les conséquences, et les responsabilités. Il allait offrir
à Antoinette une existence beaucoup plus modeste que celle à
laquelle elle était habituée. Certes, il ne s'était jamais dit, quand il
avait souhaité conquérir la marquise de Drouhin, qu'il lui ferait perdre
sa haute situation mondaine. L'avait-il aimée à cause de son titre?
Non, non, cent fois non! Il ne voulait même pas se poser cette
question...
Il l'aimait pour elle-même et il l'aimait avec toutes les obligations que
ce noble mot comporte.
En présence de cette chose grande et magnifique, un amour
partagé, qu'est-ce que pouvait bien peser son goût naturel de la
tranquillité?
Ce qu'il voulait bien s'avouer cependant, c'était sa crainte d'entraîner
cette pauvre Antoinette dans cette aventure hasardeuse. Il
garantissait ses sentiments, à lui. Mais pouvait-il être sûr de ceux de
la jeune femme? Étaient-ils assez puissants, seraient-ils assez
durables pour que la joie de cet amour partagé compensât dans le
cœur de la marquise la perte de tant d'avantages matériels
considérables, et les lui fît oublier pendant des semaines, des mois,
des années?
Mais, même cet argument, honorable en somme, Julien ne voulait
pas l'examiner. Quand l'amour commande, il n'y a pas à discuter: il
faut lui obéir, et ne pas se demander où il vous conduira. Julien s'en
allait vers l'inconnu. Il bouleversait la vie de plusieurs êtres. Le
scandale évidemment serait affreux.
Voilà pourtant quelle était l'œuvre indirecte de Lorgis et de sa
femme! Ils avaient voulu détourner de la famille de Drouhin un
événement fatal, et leur intervention, non seulement n'empêchait
rien, mais avait pour résultat de donner à cet événement un
retentissement énorme! En somme, c'était bien fait pour eux!
Julien revint lentement vers la terrasse, où Antoinette était déjà
repartie. Il marchait dans l'allée, tête baissée. En levant les yeux, il
aperçut la marquise, qui semblait regarder de son côté. Mais il était
loin d'elle, et eut le temps de l'aborder avec un visage paisible, le
visage tout à fait remis d'un amant confiant et ingénu.
Hubert, assis sur un fauteuil d'osier, parlait avec une animation
joyeuse. Comme cet homme était heureux! Et comme tout semblait
heureux aussi autour de lui! Julien aperçut, à gauche du château,
une pelouse creusée en son milieu d'un petit vivier très poissonneux.
Comme on passerait de bonnes heures au bord de cette pièce d'eau
à regarder les poissons glisser dans l'eau, se poursuivre et se
disputer les miettes qu'on leur jetterait!
Mais, en dépit des conseils du sage, on ne sait jouir du présent que
lorsqu'on est menacé par l'avenir...
 CHAPITRE XXVI
En route.
Quand s'en iraient-ils?
La marquise n'était pas fixée. Serait-ce dans huit jours, dans trois
jours, ou le lendemain? Non, ce ne pouvait être déjà le lendemain.
Julien souhaitait, du moment que c'était décidé, que cela fût le plus
tôt possible, car il prévoyait que cette attente lui serait insupportable,
en la présence continuelle de ce petit monde paisible et menacé. Il
était gêné par cette fréquentation constante de ses futures victimes.
Rien, maintenant, ne détournerait la marquise de sa résolution. Elle
n'avait avec elle que cette amie dangereuse, Madame Lorgis.
Certes, Madame Lorgis s'opposerait de toutes ses forces à une fuite.
Mais jamais Antoinette ne la mettrait au courant. La marquise
n'aurait donc personne qui lui ferait entendre une voix prudente,
puisque Julien, lui, n'avait pas le droit de combattre ses projets, et
qu'il devait, au contraire, passer son temps à les encourager et à lui
demander avec instance quand elle y donnerait suite. Il représentait,
lui, la Passion, et n'avait pas à prendre la parole au nom de la
Raison.
Quand il était seul avec elle, il trouvait des accents fort vifs et fort
pressants. Aussitôt qu'ils seraient partis, il l'aurait toute à lui. Ah!
quelle ivresse de la tenir dans ses bras, comme une proie si
longtemps convoitée, de ne penser qu'à cela, d'oublier toute
l'incertitude de l'avenir dans la joie de cette heure admirable!
Ses entretiens avec Antoinette étaient cependant moins libres et
moins aisés que par le passé. Il ne pouvait lui parler que de leur
prochain départ. Toute sa vie, toute la vie autour de lui était
suspendue.
Le couple Jacques de Delle avait quitté le château. Il avait été
remplacé, séance tenante, par un neveu du marquis, le comte Le
Harné, un très haut gaillard roux, qu'accompagnait sa jeune femme,
une petite Américaine brune, aux yeux fiévreux. Le Harné était un
admirable joueur de lawn-tennis, une des meilleures raquettes du
monde. Ils étaient venus passer deux jours. Mais quand il vit le court
remis à neuf, il s'y installa à demeure, comme un homme qui ne s'en
ira plus. Et, faute d'adversaire, il entreprit de former Julien, qui savait
à peine tenir une raquette, s'y mit par complaisance, et se passionna
tout à coup pour ce jeu, qui lui était révélé par un vrai champion. Le
Harné lui trouvait des dispositions extraordinaires, et avait déclaré
qu'il ferait de lui un joueur de tout premier ordre. Julien, après s'être
dit: «A quoi bon? puisque ma vie est consacrée à Antoinette,» finit
par s'intéresser si fortement à ce sport, qu'il ne bougea plus du
court. La première fois qu'il y passa quatre heures, l'après-midi, il fut
un peu gêné en retrouvant Antoinette, qui pouvait lui reprocher de
l'avoir délaissée. Mais la jeune femme l'accueillit très gentiment, et
parut sincèrement heureuse qu'il se fût amusé. Souhaitait-elle le voir
un peu distrait de leur grand projet? Au bout de trois jours, on se
contentait d'en parler à la fin de la soirée, en se quittant... Julien
demandait:
—Hé bien, êtes-vous décidée?
Elle souriait tendrement et disait:
—Bientôt.
Quand ils étaient seuls, il la prenait dans ses bras; leurs lèvres
s'unissaient dans un baiser frénétique. A mesure que l'idée de
l'enlèvement s'éloignait, moins précise, il recommençait à désirer
plus franchement sa chère Antoinette.
Ah! si elle avait voulu, en attendant... puisqu'il était convenu qu'on
devait s'en aller...
Mais il n'osait encore lui demander cela. Il médita un guet-apens, de
l'attirer un jour dans sa chambre à une heure favorable...
Seulement un événement imprévu vint déjouer cette combinaison,
en leur offrant brusquement une occasion facile de s'en aller tous les