La questione del confine italo-francese sul Monte Bianco

Abstract

Even though the common interest of France and Italy in relation to their Alpine border should be enhancing co-operation on cross-border issues (such as improving climate change adaptation as well as preventing and managing risks) a dispute on the delimitation of the border in the area around Monte Bianco has arisen in last years. As any other international dispute on territorial borders, it presents three different plans of analysis: the interpretation of boundary treaties and their official maps; the legal weight of “other” maps; the relationship between the boundary treaty and subsequent practice of the Parties (above all the relevance of effectivités). This article shortly discusses these questions and suggests that the course of the boundary line follows the crest of the mountain.