The Ihlen Declaration was a statement made on 22 July 1919 by the Norwegian Foreign Minister

Nils Claus Ihlen Nils Claus Ihlen (24 July 1855 – 22 March 1925) was a Norwegian engineer and politician for the Liberal Party. He served as Foreign Minister of Norway from 1913 to 1920. Early life He was born in Skedsmo as the oldest son of Wincentz Thu ...

on the topic of

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

sovereignty Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme authority. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate au ...

over

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. The declaration became an issue when the question was raised whether the statement was binding on

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The question eventually went all the way to the

Permanent Court of International Justice The Permanent Court of International Justice, often called the World Court, existed from 1922 to 1946. It was an international court attached to the League of Nations. Created in 1920 (although the idea of an international court was several cent ...

in the form of the Eastern Greenland Case in 1933.

The declaration

In a meeting on 4 July 1919, Denmark agreed not to object to any claim to

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

which Norway might submit at an upcoming peace conference if Norway did not oppose the Danish claim at the same conference to the whole of

. At the time, Norway occupied certain parts of Eastern Greenland. In response, Ihlen made the declaration verbally on 22 July 1919 that "the plans of the Royal

anish The name Anish is derived from Sanskrit. It means "supreme". The name also shares references to Shiva, Krishna and Vishnu. Notable people with the name include: *Anish Kapoor (born 1954), Indian sculptor *Anish Giri (born 1994), Dutch chess player ...

Government respecting Danish sovereignty over the whole of Greenland... would be met with no difficulties on the part of Norway".

Eastern Greenland Case

However, Norway continued to occupy Eastern Greenland into the 1930s. That led Denmark and Norway to agree to take the case to the

in 1933, and led to several questions: Are affirmations made by one government to another binding? Was the declaration valid if it was made in violation of Norwegian municipal law Article 46 - invalidity (Article 27 - observance) of the

Norwegian Constitution The 'Constitution of Norway'' (complete name: The Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway; Danish: ; Norwegian Bokmål: ; Norwegian Nynorsk: ) was adopted on 16 May and signed on 17 May 1814 by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll. ...

requiring consent by the

Norwegian Parliament The Storting ( ; ) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional represe ...

to enter into a treaty? Should Denmark have known that assent by the Norwegian Parliament was needed to make a treaty? The Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague awarded the disputed territory to Denmark. The Court declared that the Ihlen Declaration constituted an unconditional and definitive promise. The decision was accepted by both countries.

References

{{reflist 1919 in Greenland 1919 in international relations 1919 in Norway History of Greenland 1919 in Denmark 1919 documents 1933 in case law International law Permanent Court of International Justice cases Denmark–Norway relations