Reports
Discussion Papers
No.980 Claimability in International Relations: Oil Discoveries, Territorial Claims, and Interstate Conflicts
October 2025
ABSTRACT
Interstate conflict is rare not primarily because states settle disputes peacefully but largely because they have no serious dispute. To address this simple but oft-neglected reality, I provide a comprehensive measurement of states’ claimable areas. Focusing on three international norms that emerged after the world wars (territorial integrity, minority protection, and maritime sovereignty), I code geographical extents of states’ claimable areas for 1946-2024. I illustrate the usefulness of this dataset by applying it to oil and conflict. By leveraging the records of over 600,000 wildcat drills, natural experiments, and difference-in-differences, I demonstrate that fuel resources increased interstate conflicts only when discovered in areas claimable to multiple states. The extensive analyses of validity, heterogeneity, and mechanisms, as well as the “most-similar” case study, provide further evidence. These findings expand the emerging literature on territorial norms by providing comprehensive, rigorous, and contemporary evidence for claimability in international relations.
Keywords: Claimability, Territorial dispute, Oil, Gas, Interstate conflict, War
PDF available at https://hdl.handle.net/2344/0002001835
Please note that discussion papers are works in various stages of progress and most have not been edited and proofread and may contain errors of fact or judgment. Revised versions of these papers may subsequently appear in more formal publication series. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s). The IDE does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included and accepts no responsibility for any consequences arising from its use.