The boundary between Italy and France in the Alpine region is set by the treaty signed in Turin, on 24 March 1860, by the Kingdom of Sardinia and the French Empire concerning the cession to the latter of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice, as well as by the actual delimitation agreements – implementing the 1860 Treaty – signed by the same parties on 27 June and 25 November 1860, 7 March 1861, and 26 September 1862.[1]
The border line was primarily drawn in adherence to the principle of the watershed. The line was later modified in four areas by the 1947 Treaty of Peace between Italy and the Allied Powers at the end of the Second World War.[2]
In the 1990s,[3] a dispute between the two States arose due to the French official cartography differing from the Italian one in three points, namely the Mont Blanc summit, the Dôme du Goûter and the Col du Géant. While France reportedly frames the issue in terms of the existence of “diverging interpretations”, thus seemingly implying the equal legitimacy of both stances, Italian Governments have more than once deemed the French counterpart as providing a “unilateral interpretation” of the 1861 Convention – which appears to be a euphemism for non-compliance with treaty obligations. A written reply (dated 22 October 2015) by the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Benedetto Della Vedova, to parliamentary question no. 4-04473 maintained that the French “unilateral interpretation […] ignores the general approach of the [1861] treaty and the constant practice on the field” (the latter clearly being effectivités carried on by Italy). Indeed, he remarked that
The treaty and the practice show, in a clear and continuous way, the actual respect of the criterion of the watershed in the areas, also by means of the uninterrupted exercise of full Italian sovereignty over them (rescue operations, levying of taxes owed for in situ real estate, such as the Torino Hut, policing activities).
More recently,[4] the Italian Government qualified the French position as resting on factually flawed historical rights dating back to the 19th century rather than on a treaty. This may be a misrepresentation of the French position, which is in fact a legitimate way of untying a complex legal knot – for sure, too complex to be dealt with here.[5]
Be that as it may, since the mid-2010s the territorial dispute has been fueled by no less than three episodes[6] – occurred in September 2015, June 2019 and October 2020 – that saw France trying to put in place some effectivités in the region and were met with Italy’s opposition. The first such events triggered the abovementioned response by Mr Della Vedova, which in the remaining part continues as follows:
The episode of 4 September 2015, when the mayor of Chamonix decided the deployment on Italian soil of a fence and chains and locks applied to otherwise movable barriers, was not echoed by the French Government. Should this episode not remain isolated, the Italian Government is ready to formally remind its counterpart of its well-known national positions on this matter and their legal bases, with the hope that this could work as a general clarification. In the same period, at the beginning of September, the joint study mission carried out on the Mont Blanc massif by the Istituto Geografico Militare and the French national geographic agency could not arrive at shared conclusions about the areas of the Dôme du Goûter, the Mont Blanc summit and the Col du Géant, since the French geographers refused, upon instruction, to ratify the watershed criterion for these areas.
Should diverging readings officially endorsed by Paris remain in the future, the Italian Government is willing to demonstrate once more, as it has always done in the past, its openness to deal with the issue at a diplomatic level, through ad hoc delegations comprising experts in legal history and cartographers. By the way, such a working group had been proposed to our counterpart in August 2000. The Italian Government had, on its part, promptly notified the selection of its delegation, but the group could not meet as France never appointed its own representatives.
As Italy holds its stance on the tracing of the State border, should further actions by [French] local authorities and their endorsement by Paris make clear that the watershed criterion is formally put into question, the Government will not refrain from restating once more the Italian points of view, if needed through an accurate survey of the international accords that set the boundary or a joint analysis of the parties’ conduct on the field.
Mr Della Vedova’s final words – which called for “compliance with the peremptory norm of international law that dictates the inviolability of international frontiers” – voiced the Government’s readiness to intervene should analogous events have happened. The occasion came a few years later, when a similar move by France became the object, in the Italian Senate, of parliamentary question no. 4-02207. The new Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Ivan Scalfarotto, replied in writing to the interrogating MP with an answer dated 5 June 2020 (an identical communiqué was delivered on 12 October 2020 to the proponents of question no. 4-03541, during the 406th Meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, XVIII Legislature). The text of the reply is as follows:
The issue revolves around a historical boundary dispute between Italy and France, that do not recognize the same border line on the Mont Blanc massif. The Italian official cartography, which is also used by NATO forces and recognized at the global level, is based on the 1861 delimitation convention […] that, according to the existing historical-legal studies, appears to be the only authentic treaty instrument on the matter. On the contrary, French cartography, that would draw the Mont Blanc border 82 hectares further into the Italian territory, does not rest on a treaty instrument, but it would seem to stem from a unilateral interpretation by Paris and from alleged “historical rights” that can be traced back to the erroneous reproduction of maps over the years, starting from the 19th century. These rights are in disagreement both with the border line set by the 1861 convention and with the consistent practice on the field, which shows a full and continuous exercise of sovereignty by Italy over the areas “claimed” by France.
The issue is back in the news due to the adoption, in late June 2019, of a local measure by the French municipalities of Chamonix and Saint Gervais to temporarily ban, following a deadly accident, paragliding activities in the proximity of Mont Blanc, thus including, however, parts of the Italian territory – such as the whole peak of Mont Blanc – in the area covered by the measure. This was adopted with no prior consultation with, nor prior notification to, Italian local authorities, in contrast with what had been agreed to in 2016 and 2018 at a technical level by the mixed Italo-French commission for the maintenance of the boundary line.
As a consequence, this Ministry, through the [Italian] embassy in Paris, immediately and formally manifested to the French authorities, with firmness, the traditional Italian position on the border line, both as a reaction to the “violation of boundaries and national sovereignty” symbolically carried out by means of the administrative measure of the French local authorities, and with the aim of avoiding that an alleged Italian acquiescence to the French claims may be invoked in the future, with the effect of undermining our position.
In addition to expressing Italy’s displeasure at the violation of the boundary, the note verbale sent to the French authorities recalled that in the past, on multiple occasions, Italy has shown its availability to initiate bilateral consultations with France to examine the divergences in the respective maps of Mont Blanc. At the same time, we restated our openness to dialogue with the French authorities with a view to coming to a joint solution to the dispute.
For Italy, at stake is not only an economic interest, but also a symbolic one, which must be protected, as Paris’s claims would assign to France the whole summit of Mont Blanc (the highest peak in Europe) and the Torino Hut.
Lastly, it must be noted that the French authorities replied to the Italian request by stating that the administrative measure adopted in June 2019 by local authorities concerns “a geographical area that has been for many decades the object of a dispute between France and Italy”. In this regard, French authorities declared their availability to address the question within the mixed commission for the maintenance of the boundary line.
Mr Scalfarotto then concluded by reaffirming the Government’s commitment to tackle the issue with France at both a political and a technical level. Along the same lines, in a press release by the Farnesina dated 21 October 2020,[7] an official note by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Luigi Di Maio, was said to have been sent to French authorities, reminding them of their express availability to handle the controversy through the abovementioned mixed Italo-French commission, as well as of the common intention to “avoid all unilateral actions by local authorities” in the disputed area.
In his message, Mr Di Maio also asked the French Government to prevent the Haute-Savoie Prefecture from including “in official local measures the Italian territorial areas beyond the border, which, as such, are under Italy’s national sovereignty”. At any rate, “such unilateral measures, which cannot and must not impinge on the Italian territory, will be devoid of any effect and will not be recognized by Italy”. This request originated from a further French deed, this time undertaken on 1 October 2020 by said prefecture in order to protect the natural site around Mont Blanc. The incident was also addressed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ms Emanuela Del Re, in her written reply – dated 2 February 2021 – to parliamentary question no. 4-04272. Recalling the two countries’ understanding on the need to avoid unilateral actions, and referring to a recent note verbale by the Quai d’Orsay expressing France’s availability to solve the dispute within the mixed commission, she reiterated the idea that Italy’s contestation of French measures,
from the standpoint of international law, is capable of avoiding the formation of acquiescence, on Italy’s part, toward any hypothetical invocation of a de facto change in the State’s border caused by the unilateral measures carried out by the Haute-Savoie Prefecture.
Ms Del Re went on by writing that
The issue of unilateral measures over the disputed areas was most recently debated during the annual meeting of the mixed commission, on 19 November 2020. Our French counterpart, in recognizing the continuous validity of the 1861 convention and the attached cartographic materials, noted that the problem would descend from a diverging interpretation by the two States. On our part, however, we restated the importance of avoiding misunderstandings on a highly sensitive question for our Government that might be engendered by the adoption of unilateral measures encroaching upon the sovereignty of the Country, pending the carrying out of in-depth analyses of cartographic materials and the smoothing out, as much as possible, of the differences on the border line.
In October 2020, two Italian members of the European Parliament (MEPs) queried the European Commission about the dispute (questions nos. E-005668/2020 and E-005844/2020). On 26 February and 29 March 2021, respectively, both questions were answered in analogous terms by Ms Ylva Johansson on behalf of the institution. The replies reminded the interrogating MEPs that it is for each Member State to determine the extent and limits of its own territory, a matter in which the European Union (EU) has no competence to act.
Paolo Turrini
A quotable version of this post was published in the Italian Yearbook of International Law: Turrini, “The Dispute with France over the Territorial Boundary in the Mont Blanc Area”, IYIL XXX (2020), 2021, pp. 497-502; available here.
[1] Respectively, Traité conclu à Turin, le 24 mars 1860, entre la France et la Sardaigne, pour la réunion de la Savoie et de l’arrondissement de Nice à la France, Art. 3 (the text of the convention can be found in de Clerq (ed.), Recueil des traités de la France, Vol. 8, Paris, 1880, p. 32 ff.); Protocole dressé à Paris, le 27 juin 1860, pour régler les bases de la délimitation entre la France et la Sardeigne, en exécution de l’art. 3 du traité conclu à Turin le 24 mars 1860, Art. 1 (ibid., pp. 59-60); Protocole dressé à Nice le 25 novembre 1860 pour fixer la délimitation entre la France et la Sardeigne, Art. 1 (ibid., p. 150 ff.); Convention de délimitation, signée à Turin le 7 mars 1861 entre la France et la Sardaigne, Art. 1 (ibid., p. 185 ff.); and Procès-verbal N. 2 d’abornement de la frontière entre la France et l’Italie, dressé à Turin le 26 septembre 1862, d’après la convention signée à Turin le 7 mars 1861 par les plénipotentiaires des deux pays et ratifiée par les deux gouvernements (available in Adami, Storia documentata dei confini del Regno d’Italia, Vol. 1, Confine italo-francese, Roma, 1919, p. 374 ff.). The treaties of June and November 1860 and that of March 1861 draw the boundary along the “current border” (limite actuelle) between the Duchy of Savoy and Piedmont, whereas the more recent 1862 agreement seems to revive the “ancient border” (ancienne limite) – the latter line being an ambiguous reference but possibly favoring France.
[2] Treaty of Peace with Italy, 10 February 1947, Art. 2. These areas, however, do not cover the boundary segments currently disputed. As a curious side note, in the final months of the Second World War, some French actors promoted the annexation of the Aosta Valley to France, with a move known as mission Mont-Blanc: see Nicco, “La questione valdostana e la Conferenza di Parigi”, in Del Boca (ed.), Confini contesi: la Repubblica italiana e il Trattato di pace di Parigi, Torino, 1998, p. 75 ff., p. 78 (this chapter and those by Giovana and Panicacci shed light on the events, related to the boundary between Italy and France and having some legal relevance, that led to the Treaty of Paris).
[3] The issue was first raised in the Italian Parliament at the turn of the century with questions no. 4-00019 (1996) and no. 4-23419 (1999), which were answered in writing by two Undersecretaries for Foreign Affairs, Mr Piero Fassino and Mr Umberto Ranieri, respectively.
[4] I.e., in Mr Scalfarotto’s reply quoted infra at length.
[5] A summary of the legal and factual events is proposed in Aliprandi and Aliprandi, La découverte du Mont-Blanc par les cartographes: 1515-1925, Ivrea, 2000, pp. 136–137, and in greater detail in Id., Le grandi Alpi nella cartografia: 1482-1885, Vol. 2, Ivrea, 2005, pp. 93–168, especially p. 159 ff. The authors side with Italy, but they repeatedly remark the country’s acquiescence to certain French claims since the 19th century, despite these were perhaps known to the Italian authorities (should this be the case, such an aware acquiescence might be legally relied on by France). There is merit, however, in saying that acquiescence is to be excluded due to the fact that Italian cartography has never endorsed Mieulet’s map, which expresses the French point of view: see Starita, “La questione del confine italo-francese sul Monte Bianco”, RDI, 2020, p. 167 ff., p. 173 (this author, too, supports the idea that the boundary in the Mont Blanc area follows the watershed, with legal arguments different from the principled position espoused by Aliprandi and Aliprandi).
[6] The three cases here briefly presented are those officially addressed by Italian authorities and cannot be understood as an exhaustive list of all relevant episodes. For instance, in 2014, near the Little St Bernard Pass (some kilometers from the Mont Blanc), a French bulldozer moved a boundary marker 150 meters into the Italian territory: “Aiuto, la Francia ci ‘ruba’ un pezzo del Monte Bianco”, La Stampa, 25 June 2015.
[7] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, “Nota Farnesina – Monte Bianco”.
Italy's Diplomatic and Parliamentary Practice on International Law 