True.
And as best as I can tell, the main distinguishing factor is that “real” knights and dames are called “Sir” or “Dame” publicly, a-la Sir Elton John or Dame Judi Dench, while honorary knights just put the initials of the order behind their names, like Colin Powell K.C.B. (Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath)
At the end of the day the British physically left the island in 1774, but specifically asserted they were not abandoning their claims. This practice was extremely common among European countries in the New World in this era, to assert “claims without settlement.” France was the first country that we know of to settle on the island at all, if indigenous people ever visited or settled on the islands we do not have any archaeological or historical record of it, although it’s certainly possible as we continually find that pre-historic indigenous people frequently surprise us with their ability to reach distant islands.
The French gave their claim to the Spanish–note that the competing French/Spanish settlement and the British settlement were on different islands, no European country really had established settlement on the entirety of the islands at this point.
Spain briefly captures Britain’s settlement in 1770, but quickly return it to Britain to avoid war over it. The island is eventually evacuated by Spain from 1806-1811 due to fears of British invasion as part of the Napoleonic Wars and Spain’s inability to defend the islands. After the Napoleonic Wars when Argentina becomes independent, it asserts a claim to any Spanish claims in the South Atlantic, and eventually gives a German merchant/adventurer the right to exploit resources on the islands and build a settlement there, which he completes in 1826, the British come back a few years later asserting ownership of the island (the German merchant’s settlement had been destroyed a year prior to the British return by the crew of an American warship, who attacked the island in response to a fishing dispute, dismantled the settlement and declared unilaterally that the island’s government was “dissolved.”)
After 1832 it’s been disputed as to who rightfully controls it. There is not, nor will there ever be a magic legal answer. Territorial claims of this kind were incredibly common in the colonial era and the only real resolution is when the parties would finally come to a formal treaty arrangement over it, which never happened for these islands.
The UN has a statement out calling for general decolonization in the 1960s, and developed its list of Non Self Governing Territories and etc. Argentina started to clamor about the Falklands more at this time, claiming the Statements were amenable to its assertions about the islands. However the actual text of the UN’s decolonization resolution is gravely at odds with any sort of outcome the Argentinians would want (they want control of the Falklands, regardless of the wishes of the Falkland Islanders.) Meanwhile the specific UN resolution on the Falklands only calls for Argentina and Britain to “work out the matter peacefully” with no specific onus as to how it should be settled.
Note very specifically what the UN has said the end state should be for Non Self Governing Territories:
(a) - Sovereign Statehood
(b) - Free association with an independent State
(c) - Integration with an independent State
Note how it says (b) and (c) should be attained:
Free Association - Should be the result of a free and voluntary choice by the peoples of the territory concerned, expressed through informed and democratic processes.
Integration - Should have come about in the following circumstances:
(a) - The integrating territory should have attained an advanced stage of self-government with free political institutions, so that its peoples would have the capacity to make a responsible choice through informed and democratic processes
(b) - The integration should be the result of the freely expressed wishes of the territory’s peoples acting with full knowledge of the change in their status.
In a legal sense, the only legal way for the Falklands to become part of Argentina, at least in so far as international law is concerned, would be for the Falklanders to freely choose that option themselves. There is no provision for a unilateral Argentinian military takeover. At that point you are asserting “right of conquest” the most ancient extant mechanism for asserting a territorial claim. But the right of conquest is subject to the conqueror holding enough power to hold onto their conquest, which Argentina was unable to do, and is unlikely to ever be able to do vs the United Kingdom, so that is not a great avenue for them either.
The best case scenario for the Argentinians would have been continual “light pressure” and basically make themselves a pest to the British over it. Get the British to sign some long term treaty basically saying they would evacuate the islands over x number of decades, in a process where the British government would fully pay for all the costs of moving the people out. With the stipulation that anyone who wished to stay behind would be allowed to do so, and would retain their property rights, but that it would be understood after the “transfer date” they would be subject to Argentina (there would probably be a requirement that they be accepted as Argentine citizens etc etc.) That sort of deal MAYBE could have been possible, but after the Argentine invasion, very unlikely. The Islands themselves are very nationalistic in bent now and would make a huge row if any such thing were even suggested.
Exactly right. Ironically, the one thing the Argentinian general assured in the botched invasion of 1982 was that the Falklands would remain British for a very long time to come.
Thank you for your time and informative answer.
Thank you all.
I didn’t see this question until now.
As far as I am aware, the issue was never raised politically so nobody bothered to answer it. However, there is no absolute definition states are required to adhere to in the context of the Monroe Doctrine (which wouldn’t apply for other reasons, anyway). The islands are 500 kilometers, or 300 miles, out to sea in the Atlantic. They are clearly not mere offshore islands, nor are they part of a major chain such as the Caribbean. Geographically, this makes them less likely to be considered an integral part of “The Americas”.
TL;DR - this is a political question, not a scientific one.
Thank you.