3.2 Modes of Acquiring and Losing State Territory

Territory — the state's physical basis (land, internal waters, territorial sea, airspace above) — is acquired and lost by recognized modes. The classical five (acquisition): Occupation — the acquisition of terra nullius (land belonging to no one): effective occupation — intention + actual taking (administration and control). The historical paradigm: the colonial- era claims; modern relevance: islands and polar territory; Prescription — acquisition by long, continuous, uninterrupted, public and peaceful possession of another's territory, acquiesced in (time + acquiescence doing the legal work); the doctrine's caution: title by prescription is contested precisely where the possession began in wrong; Accretion — title by nature's work: alluvion (gradual deposit), avulsion (sudden natural change — the rule that boundaries follow the old channel unless agreed), the birth of islands in a river's own side (the boundary-river rules every neighbour of Nepal knows); Cession — transfer by treaty: the sovereign's voluntary act (sale, gift, exchange — the classic era's transactions). Nepal's own history is cession's illustration: the Sugauli Treaty (1816) — a imposed cession of the territories west of the Kali and east of the Mechi/Sikkim line; and the reciprocal returns of 1856/1860 (Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur) — cession by agreement after alignment; Conquest and subjugation — acquisition by force, completed by annexation: now unlawful — the Charter's force-prohibition (Art. 2(4)) and the Stimson…