Scottswan, I've read many good sources and there is no mention of Vernet asking for British permission. That's brought across in a text by Pepper and Pascoe that has become popular on the Internet, but the only support they offer is that Vernet may have asked the British Consul to countersign the land grants he was awarded in 1828. Yet, countersignment means validating a document, its authenticity basically. It wouldn't imply that Britain was "co-granting" or attributing ownership to herself.
I make that point in
footnote 14 of my blog entry. Other footnotes refer to other odd statements in that text, which are echoed in Wikipedia and other non-rigorous sites despite it not being an authoritative source. I guess this is due to the 'direct-democracy' nature of Wikipedia and Google, as I discuss in
footnote 1.
How does Bouchard relate to Jewett? Saying that he was going round the globe claiming parts of it sounds to me like saying that San Martin traveled to Peru for sightseeing and shopping. Bouchard was fighting in the war for the independence of the Spanish colonies in South America under the Argentine Navy. His participation included circumnavigating the globe attacking Spanish resources under a letter of marque from Buenos Aires. The only thing close to a claim that I know of is when he attacked Spanish dominions in current California, planting his (Argentine) flag while he was testing the rebelliousness of the local population, who weren't too keen on supporting the emancipating efforts so he just left. I guess he may have repeated the procedure in Central America before joining San Martin in his voyage to liberate Peru. Anyway, Jewitt's case is quite different, as Buenos Aires had the will of exercising ownership of the islands and followed the legal process, which goes beyond planting a flag and casting a proclaim.
Claiming land was not enough to gain title. There has to be a precedent (e.g., the land belonging to no one) and the claim had to be followed by uninterrupted and peaceful occupation and exercising acts of government. This is not simply a matter of who claimed first.
Borders were not *that* flexible, this was after Westphalia. There was more flexibility compared to current times due to the recognition of rights of conquest, but it was conditioned to a state of war, which was not the case between Britain and Argentina or Spain in 1833.
As can be read from authoritative sources, the plaque left by the Britons who departed from Port Egmont in 1774 doesn't have the legal significance that you seem to be attributing. It would not compete with peaceful occupation and use of the territory by Spain and Argentina. It would work to keep the British claim alive in 1774, but that doesn't override the fact that British rights were doubtful in 1774, particularly outside of Saunders Island, where Port Egmont was located, and that there was a 55-year period of acquiescence after that, which would very probably imply prescription. I go into these kinds of issues on the second and third posts.
Tendentious texts often mislead in regards to requests for arbitration too. Contrary to what they sometimes say, it was Britain that refused arbitration. The instance that was refused by Argentina was only for the so-called dependencies, which required resolving on the status of the islands first. Good sources explain it better:
The difficulty in satisfactorily explaining its position was why Britain refused to discuss sovereignty over the islands with Argentina and to submit the dispute to arbitration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Argentina requested in 1884 that the case be submitted to arbitration. Argentine has been the only nation ever to make this request. Britain offered in the 1940s and 1950s to submit only the Falkland Island Dependencies to arbitration. Britain's refusal to arbitrate weakened its claim. Jennings [who was Chairman of the International Court of Justice] wrote that "there must be a strong presumption against the validity of such an alleged title where the claimant is not willing to have that claim properly determined in a Court of Law." (Gustafson, "The Sovereignty Dispute Over the Falkland Malvinas Islands", Oxford University Press, p. 33)
British writers have criticized the Argentine unwillingness to submit to judicial settlement claiming that this attitude testified to the weakness of the Argentine legal position. However, it must be emphasized that these proposals involved, not the Falklands themselves, but only their so-called "Dependencies." Moreover, at the time these proposals were made, British state activities in the area and their expansion towards the Antarctic - in competition with Argentina - were being directed from and based on Britain's occupation of the Malvinas. Therefore, submission to the International Court of Justice would have implied that the Court might take into account the British presence in Malvinas in assessing the relative intensity, effectiveness and legal significance of the state activities of each litigant in the so-called "Falkland Islands Dependencies" without this analysis being influenced or affected in any way by the underlying territorial dispute involving the Malvinas themselves. This attitude was consistent with what had happened in the past when Britain had rejected all proposals for amicable settlement of the Malvinas dispute made by Argentina in the nineteenth century, including arbitration. Here again, in the post-World War II proposals, the legitimacy of the British presence on the Islands, a decisive factor in approaching the more general controversy involving legal title to what Britain herself has described as their "Dependencies," was deliberately removed from the scope of judicial inquiry. (Hope, "Sovereignty and Decolonization of the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands", Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, VI.2, p. 396)
I have found many learned and well-intentioned people believing arguments emanating from P&P, like the ones you're giving. A lot can be revealed from reading authoritative sources instead, with critical thinking. We (Argentines) are often unreasonable and excessively passionate, but not that much.
We're a country of 40 million people, there is a thinking class here, though it's often not very visible...
As to why Argentina doesn't insist nowadays with the ICJ and claims for negotiations instead, that's a complex subject that I intend to comment in the third entry I will publish in that blog. On the other hand, that story about Argentina not existing is answered in
footnote 3 of the first post and, in the third, I plan to look into the applicability of the self determination principle.
