The arbitral tribunal in Graz – shaping of the organizational concept of resolving a border dispute and the subtext of this trial

Abstract

The dispute over the Austro-Hungarian border at Morskie Oko was, after the predatory partition of Poland in 1772, a continuation of a border conflict between the Kingdom of Poland and Hungary which started in the 16^th century. The attempts to amicably delineate the border did not yield any results for the majority of the 19^th century. In 1879, Christian Hohenlohe, a Prussian Prince, bought a border estate situated on the Hungarian side (a village called Jaworzyna) and he subsequently took steps with a view to seize the disputed territory. However, Count Władysław Zamoyski purchased lands in Galicia (Zakopane), located on the other side of the border, in 1889 and then he firmly resisted the claims of the Prussian magnate. The conflict concerning private property (a civil law conflict) continued to escalate and resulted in violence in the area and ended up in courts afterwards. However, without determining the political (state) affiliation of the disputed territory, no decisions made by the courts could be binding for the feuding parties. In the face of danger to safety and peace at the Austro-Hungarian border (there were even threats aimed at Galician court clerks with the use of firearms by Hungarian gendarmes), the governments in Vienna and Budapest came to a covert agreement and delineated a demarcation line. It was deemed that public disclosure of the compromise as well as of the concessions made by both parties would be used in political conflicts in both countries. As a consequence, it was decided that the blame should be put on the international arbitral tribunal. The paper presents solutions as well as the legal and political instruments used by both governments in order to secure such a court decision which would implement the international agreement they had previously reached and, at the same time, it would allow to lay the blame for the concessions on the tribunal.