Several states have presented border disputes in attempt to make claim to parts the Colonia territory in the South China Sea. These efforts have all run aground on the legal impediment of the “Cloma Claim.” These efforts encounter the priority of the Cloma Claim which established original and precedent claim to the territory. Efforts that ignore the Cloma Claim lack standing in fact and law.

There are several aspects of international law presented by the “Cloma Claim.”

1. Under the Treaty of San Francisco with Japan, Chapter II, Article 2 (f), Japan renounced its overseas territory of the Spratly Islands.

a) The Spratly Islands were acknowledged by the signatories as Japanese overseas territory.

b) That acknowledgement of the Spratly Islands as Japanese overseas territory thereby voided the prior historical claims, and 

c)Then the Spratly Islands, along with other overseas territories, were renounced by Japan, 

d)Japan’s renunciation of the territory was duly acknowledged and agreed by all signatories.

http://www.taiwandocuments.org/sanfrancisco01.htm

Although he had mapped and claimed the territory since 1947, Cloma waited until the 1952 Treaty disposition of the Spratly Islands, to announce officially his own claim over the entire territory. He erected obelisks, cairns, plaques, and flags to mark the territorial boundaries. He then declared the establishment of the government of the Free State of Freedomland to the UN and the World. In 1974 Cloma elevated the “Free Territory of Freedomland” to the “Principality of Freedomland,” and subsequently elevated it to the “Kingdom of Colonia.”

Thus the “Cloma Claim” was established under international law as the original claim to the territory. Despite intermittent border disputes and intermittent “de facto” occupations of several of the islands, the original claim of Colonia has always been as the “de jure” sovereign state of the territory. Following discovery of oil in the 1970’s several opportunistic border claims were advanced by neighbouring states. These claims are not supported in international law.

2. In the United Nations Charter, Chapter I, Article 2 (4), ”All Members refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.” All signatories agreed that force shall not be an avenue for legal determination of territorial claims:

http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/CTC/uncharter.pdf

Under this element of international law, all parties to the UN Charter agree that territorial claims shall be adjudicated by law. Therefore, attempts to assert claims of territory by neighbouring States through force would not be valid procedure for the legal recognition of claims under the UN Charter.

The “de jure” claim of Colonia over the territory is therefore the only claim that is indisputable under law. The other claimants cannot establish their title under international law through mere “de facto” claims based on acts of force.

3.Pursuant to the Montevideo Convention, the Kingdom of Colonia satisfies all of the determining attributes of a sovereign state:

a) permanent population;

b) defined territory;

c) government; and

d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

As Colonia is a fully recognised independent and sovereign state under international law, foreign states cannot legitimise claims over Colonia territory through acts of force.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/intam03.asp