Frontiers in North Africa

2.6 Libya's borders

Libya's borders arise from three different categories of negotiations - negotiations over the location of existing precolonial boundaries (Tunisia-Tripolitania and Egypt/Sudan-Cyrenaica); negotiations over the interpretation of treaties drawn up between colonial powers or different administrations within a colony (the Ghat region and the Chad-Libya border); and negotiations over border locations in response to domestic or European issues (the 1935 proposed Chad-Libya boundary). Libya's eastern borders result from agreements between Egypt and Italy in 1925 and 1926, which superceded an earlier arrangement between the Ottoman empire and Egypt in 1841, and from agreements in 1934 between Britain and Egypt (as the condiminium powers in Sudan) on the one hand and Italy on the other. The latter agreement transferred the Sarra triangle to Libya - the territory allocated to Sudan under the 1899 convention and lying to the south of the 22N parallel (Brownlie 1979; 102-109, 133-140).

The western borders - with Tunisia and Algeria - arise initially from negotiations between French authorities in Tunisia and Algeria and the Ottoman authorities in Tripoli. From 1902 onwards, these were paralleled by discussions between France and Italy and these arrangements were later codified by further discussions in 1919. The final settlement was established in 1955 and 1956 by treaty between the newly independent government of Libya and the French government (Brownlie 1979; 27-43).

The border between Tunisia and Libya has been demarcated and is not in dispute, being confirmed by the Tunisian-Ottoman treaty of 1910 (Brownlie 1979; 141-148). The creation of the border itself, however, represents French success in delimiting the boundaries of border tribal territories and concerting this into a definitive territorial boundary by military pressure. It almost certainly represents an eastwards move from earlier conventions and is still the subject of confused land ownership patterns which transgress the border itself (Joffe 1984; 24, Joffe 1982; 34).