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Emory International Law Review

Abstract

A Pan-Arab uprising against the Ottomans must have seemed unlikely in the late nineteenth century. Yet, grounded around a common language, history and culture, Arab nationalists demanded their unification in a single nation state. To achieve this aim, they allied with the British and the Entente but soon discovered that territorial and self-determination commitments made to them were not always forthcoming and were interjected with secret agreements and unilateral acts to which they were not privy. While Gulf sheikhdoms entered into consensual protectorate treaties with the British, the former Ottoman territories of the Middle East and the Levante were still contended by the imperialist forces of Britain and France. They continued to administer and exploit these through the League of Nations’ mandate system from 1922 until the early 1940s. During this time, the mandates were considered fully fledged states with a distinct legal personality, albeit lacking independence. From the late 1920s onwards, the Arab nationalist agenda concentrated on the imperial and colonial character of mandates and produced a number of socio-political movements, including Baathism, which culminated in the fulfilment of the “dream” of a unified Arab state in the form of the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958 and the rise of Nasser as the chief architect of a new era of Arab nationalism that sought to demonize foreign control and domination in the region. Arab nationalists during the period examined in this article lacked vision, anticipation, and diplomacy and relied heavily on the prima facies justice of their claims. Despite their efforts, it is clear that they were mostly bystanders in the international law developments of that time. The article considers the period from 1880 to 1957.

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