Modern states claim rights of jurisdiction and control over particular geographical areas and their associated natural resources. Boundaries of Authority explores the possible moral bases for such territorial claims by states. The book maintains throughout that the requirement of states’ justified authority over persons has normative priority over, and as a result severely restricts, the kinds of territorial rights that states can justifiably claim, and it argues that the mere effective administration of justice within a geographical area is insufficient to ground moral authority over resident ... More

Modern states claim rights of jurisdiction and control over particular geographical areas and their associated natural resources. Boundaries of Authority explores the possible moral bases for such territorial claims by states. The book maintains throughout that the requirement of states’ justified authority over persons has normative priority over, and as a result severely restricts, the kinds of territorial rights that states can justifiably claim, and it argues that the mere effective administration of justice within a geographical area is insufficient to ground moral authority over residents of that area. The book argues that only a theory of territorial rights that takes seriously the morality of the actual history of states’ acquisitions of power over land and the land’s residents can adequately explain the nature and extent of states’ moral rights over particular territories. Part I of the book examines the interconnections between states’ claimed rights of authority over particular sets of subject persons and states’ claimed authority to control particular territories. Part II organizes, explains, and criticizes the full range of extant theories of states’ territorial rights, arguing that a little-appreciated Lockean approach to territorial rights is in fact far better able to meet the principal desiderata for such theories. Part III of the book looks closely at the more property-like territorial rights that states claim—in particular, their claimed rights to control over the natural resources in and around their territories and their claimed rights to control and restrict movement across (including immigration over) their territorial borders.