Acondominium (plural eithercondominia, as in Latin, orcondominiums) ininternational law is a territory (such as a border area or a state) in or over which multiplesovereign powers formally agree to share equaldominium (in the sense of sovereignty) and exercise their rights jointly, without dividing it into "national" zones.
Although a condominium has always been recognized as a theoretical possibility, condominia have been rare in practice. A major problem, and the reason so few have existed, is the difficulty of ensuring co-operation between thesovereign powers; once the understanding fails, the status is likely to become untenable.
The word is recorded in English since 1718, fromModern Latin, apparently coined in Germany c. 1700 from Latincon- 'together' +dominium 'right of ownership' (comparedomain). A condominium of three sovereign powers is sometimes called atripartite condominium ortridominium.
| Condominium | Sovereign states responsible | Area (km2) | Population | Date created | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abyei Area | 10,546 | 124,390 | 9 January 2005 | The 2005Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended theSecond Sudanese Civil War, created the special status administrative area which is considered to simultaneously be part ofWest Kordofan state andNorthern Bahr el Ghazal state. Following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, the area effectively became a condominium between theRepublic of South Sudan and theRepublic of the Sudan. | |
| Antarctica |  29 state parties | 14,200,000 | 1,300–5,100 (seasonal) | 1 December 1959 | Antarctica is ade facto continental condominium, governed by the29 state parties to theAntarctic Treaty that have consulting status. Only seven of these state parties haveterritorial claims. |
| Brčko District |  Bosnia and Herzegovina: | 493 | 83,516 | 8 March 2000 | Subnational condominium of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina created due to its multiethnic nature.[1] |
| Gulf of Fonseca | 3,200 | 0 | May 24, 1980[2] | El Salvador,Honduras, andNicaragua exercise a tripartite condominium over parts of theGulf of Fonseca and of the territorial sea outside its mouth.[3][4][5] | |
| Joint Regime Area | 0 | November 1993 | As an alternative to delimiting their sea boundary, Colombia and Jamaica share a maritime condominium called the Joint Regime Area in theCaribbean Sea by mutual agreement. The outer portion of theEEZ of each country otherwise would overlap in this area. Unlike other "joint development zones", this condominium appears not to have been purposed simply as a way to divide oil, fisheries or other resources. | ||
| Koalou | 68 | c. 5,000 | March 2008 | The area is administrated jointly by the "Joint Committee for the Concerted Management of the Kourou/Koalou Area" (COMGEC-K). Neither nation expresses sovereignty over the area, with a permanent solution still pending.[6] | |
| Lake Constance | 536 | 0 | No official treaty | Austria and Germany consider themselves to hold a tripartite condominium with Switzerland (albeit on different grounds) over the main part of Lake Constance (without its islands). On the other hand, Switzerland holds the view that the border runs through the middle of the lake.[7][8] Hence, no international treaty establishes where the borders of Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, in or around Lake Constance, lie.[8] | |
| Moselle | 0 | 1816 | The Moselle and its tributaries, theSauer and theOur, constitute a condominium between Germany andLuxembourg, which also includes bridges, about 15 river islands of varying size,[9] and the tip of one island, Staustufe Apach,[10] nearSchengen (the rest of the island is inFrance). | ||
| MOU 74 Box | 50,000 | 0 | 1974 | Officially known as the Australia–IndonesiaMemorandum of Understanding, the MOU 74 Box was established by a bilateral agreement regarding the Operations of Indonesian Traditional Fishermen in Areas of the Australian Fishing Zone and Continental Shelf – 1974. The agreement recognizes access rights of traditional Indonesian fishers fromRote Ndao Regency in shared waters to the north of Australia with regard to the long history of traditional Indonesian fishing there, especially fortrepang, trochus, abalone and sponges. The MOU 74 Box includes theAshmore and Cartier Islands,Browse Island, andScott and Seringapatam Reefs.[11] | |
| Pheasant Island | 0.00682 | 0 | 1659 | Pheasant Island is an island of theBidassoa. Established as part of theTreaty of the Pyrenees, It is formally administered by Spain between 1 February and 31 July each year (181 or 182 days) and by France between 1 August and 31 January each year (184 days).[12] | |
| Tort-Kocho | 0 | 13 March 2025[13] | Tort-Kocho is a road which connects theTajikistaniVorukh exclave inKyrgyzstan to the rest ofTajikistan. Prior to 2025, both the Kyrgyz and Tajikistani considered the road part of their sovereign territory.[14] The road was contested during the2021 Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan clashes when Tajik administrators blocked theOsh–Batken–Isfana road demanding the Tort-Kocho road be unblocked by Kyrgyzstan.[15] As part of the 2025 delimitation of theKyrgyzstan–Tajikistan border, the 10 m (33 ft) wide roadbed and a 15 m (49 ft) "security zone" were declared neutral territory, with Kyrgyzstani politicianKamchybek Tashiev saying the road will not belong to "either the Kyrgyz or Tajik side".[16] |
UnderFrench law,Andorra was once considered to be a French–Spanish condominium, although it is more commonly classed as aco-principality, since it is itself a sovereign state, not a possession of one or more foreign powers. However, the position ofhead of state is sharedex officio by two foreigners, one of whom is thePresident of France, currentlyEmmanuel Macron, and the other theBishop of Urgell inSpain, currentlyJosep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat.[17]
The Tajik side blocked Osh-Batken-Isfana road in Tort-Kocho area and demanded to reopen the road to Vorukh enclave, Batken region administration's representative Musurmanbek Tursumatov told Turmush. [...] The road was blocked since around 10.00 a.m. of May 1 despite the agreement reached on reopening of the road on April 30.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)This article […] is based on the results of a short survey conducted in December 1989 on behalf of the Emirate of Ajman and Gent University (Belgium), in a mountain enclave near Hatta. […] Although we initially had been informed that the site with the petroglyphs [atSinadil in the Hajjar Mountains] belonged to the Emirate of Ajman, we later learned that in fact the Ruler of Ajman, H. H. ShaikhHumaid bin Rashid al Nuaimi, had recently transferred the area toSultan Qaboos of Oman.
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