Chinese Journal of International Law Advance Access first published online on January 23, 2008
This version published online on February 4, 2008
Chinese Journal of International Law, doi:10.1093/chinesejil/jmm047
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved
Cyprus under British Rule: An International Law Analysis of Certain Land Surveys and Land Assignments Between 1878 and 1955
From 1878 onwards, Great Britain exercised sovereign rights coming close to full sovereignty over Cyprus. The present article demonstrates that, by undertaking certain land surveys and land assignments with regard to religious property in North Cyprus, Great Britain ultimately failed to abide by the restriction on the exercise of its sovereign rights flowing from international law, which in turn referred to the Ottoman Law on Foundations and Endowments. Apart from shedding light on a commonly neglected aspect of colonial law, which is closely linked to key concepts of public international law continuing to shape our present-day discourse, a loose frame of reference for reparation of past injuries is sketched out.
* Dr iur. (St. Gallen), LL.M. (K.U. Leuven), Mag.iur. (Vienna), Diploma of the Hague Academy of International Law; Legal Officer at the office of the European Ombudsman, Strasbourg, and visiting lecturer at the University of Fribourg (CH) and Danube University Krems (email: bernhard_hofstoetter{at}yahoo.com). He is a former Assistant Professor of the University of Fribourg in which capacity the present paper was written. The author is grateful to Profesor Astrid Epiney and Dr Atilay Ileri for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Large parts of this paper have been translated from German by John Morris, whose help is gratefully acknowledged. The views taken in this paper are to be solely attributed to its author. This paper was completed on 25 November 2007.