Durand Line

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In 1839, long before the formation of Pakistan, British negotiator Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British Indian government, signed a document defining the boundary between India and Afghanistan. There is no vernacular version signed by the Afghan ruler Amir Abdur Rehman Khan, and it has been challenged as a forgery. Other accounts, however, claim that it has, in any case, expired, as it was to have been a 100-year agreement.[1] The 1839 agreement reflected a disadvantageous military position of Britain, but the British began to enforce it circa 1893.[2]

Most importantly, however, it does not recognize the political geography of the area, only its physical characteristics. The line cuts through traditional lands of the Pashtun people, a situation exacerbated by the formation of Pakistan. Further, it has been argued that it establishes the sovereignty of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan.[1]

While various Afghan governments have challenged it, the position of the Government of Pakistan is that it is a legitimate action of British India, inherited by the new nations under the legal doctrine of uti possidetis juris. This type of matter could be heard, as a dispute between nations, in the International Court of Justice, but never has been submitted there.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 An Expose’: The Durand Line Agreement is Illegal, Government of Balochistan in Exile, 12 May 2006
  2. Peter J Middlebrook and Sharon M Miller (12 December 2006), "All along the watch tower", Asia Times