ABSTRACT
The references in arguments for territorial sovereignty are not natural: they cannot be verified by referring to sense data. The nature has not carved the flag of China to the islands that rightfully belong to China or pained red and white the territories that belong to Indonesia. Thus territorial claims are always matters that call for interpretation. Right to sovereignty over a territory is thus inherently, “produced in acts of interpretation”, as Steedman1 has said. The references of these claims need to be interpreted through the context of the logic of international law (UNCLOS), historical practice, international recognition, etc.2 The empirical fact that there is a continental shelf, for example, from a certain distance from a disputed territory makes sense in an argument only in the context of legal interpretation. The practice in which a claimant does not react to the historical use of an island by one country makes sense as a reference in territorial claim only though the logic of historical argumentation: if the practice has been that this island is used by this country and this practice has been undisputed, this can be used as an argument for the claim that this island should be recognized as part of the state that uses it.3
