From Alaska to Bakassi: When Governments Transfer Land Without the People’s Consent

Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million, transferring control of a land long inhabited by Indigenous peoples. The treaty changed sovereignty, but the communities living there were not treated as equal participants in deciding their political future. The circumstances differ from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Bakassi dispute, but they raise a similar question: should governments be able to decide the fate of territories without fully considering the people whose homes, identity, property and livelihoods are tied to them? Bakassi makes this question especially relevant to Nigeria. After the ICJ ruling and the 2006 Greentree Agreement, Nigeria transferred the peninsula to Cameroon in 2008. Although safeguards were included for residents, many inhabitants faced painful concerns over nationality, property, livelihoods and their right to remain in their ancestral communities. In my view, obeying an international judgment should not end a government’s duty to its people. Any territorial settlement must be judged not only by the lines it draws on a map, but by how well it protects the dignity, rights and future of the communities affected.

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