If Donald Trump takes Greenland, will Orkney and Shetland be next?
Only a madman would argue that Orkney and Shetland are not legally part of Scotland...
“Why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.”
As substantive legal arguments go, Donald Trump’s text message justifying the potential seizure of Greenland from Denmark left something to be desired. I am no scholar of international law but I suspect that ‘but we had boats too’ would be a fairly novel approach in any modern courtroom, international or otherwise.
The jokes make themselves, but if Trump’s bullying, quasi-legal tactics over Greenland succeed, they will take us down a dangerous path – and could even become a threat to Scottish island communities as well.
Denmark wanted their islands back
As the manufactured crisis over Greenland shows, where there is sufficient greed and insufficient conscience, all it takes is for a technical chink in the armour to be found.
Take my home islands of Orkney. When the Northern Isles were pawned to Scotland by Denmark in the 15th century, it was on the understanding that the islands could be redeemed for a fixed payment.
At various points in the decades that followed, Denmark sought to redeem that sum and regain control of Orkney and Shetland, only to be rebuffed time and again.
That was the nature of the ‘old ways’ of geopolitics, in which might made right and military power (sometimes with a fig leaf of tortured legal justification) was the basis for state power. By at least some interpretations, Denmark had the right to reclaim Orkney and Shetland – but once they were in Scottish hands, there was very little chance of that happening.
A sovereign US foothold in Europe
Having grown up there, I can tell you that, barring a few eccentric souls, no one now seriously considers the Northern Isles to be anything other than comfortably part of Scotland and the United Kingdom (albeit proudly with our own distinctive history and interests).
If the tenuous Trump claims undermining Danish sovereignty in Greenland were successful, however, then all manner of novel legal interpretations could be played and preyed upon.
What if Trump’s next step were to decide that a sovereign US foothold (or failing that, another gold-plated golf course) is needed in the North Sea? That long-forgotten legal wrangling could, perhaps, be revived for the sake of muddying the waters and engineering a conflict, just as is currently happening over Greenland.
If it seems like a daft idea, that’s because it is. Only a madman would argue that Orkney and Shetland are not legally part of Scotland (whether or not we now have a madman in the White House is of course another question).
The Northern Isles are not under imminent threat of annexation by the US, Denmark or anyone else, nor will Trump Tower 2.0 be rising above the streets of Lerwick or Kirkwall any time soon.
If we return to a world where ‘might makes right’, however, the most tenuous claims could become viable once again – and insecurity and uncertainty will reign. That is what we lose when international law and basic norms of respect between sovereign states are eroded.
It starts with ‘but we had boats too’. A return to gunboat diplomacy may not be far behind.
William Deans is chief of staff to Alistair Carmichael MP and holds an MSc in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict
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