And screw the people who actually live there, right?

A better way to think about this is to consider the case of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, which are two islands off the coast of Canada -- literally 19 km away, and so much closer than the Falklands are to Argentina. They are French territory, inhabited by French citizens. And (aside from occasional disagreements about who gets to explore for undersea resources in the vicinity of the islands) Canada really doesn't seem to have a problem with this, because (in this area, at least) Canada is a more mature nation than Argentina.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon

There's no such right and even if there was, it would lead to perverse situations such as Britain getting to claim Calais which is closer to London than Paris (94 miles versus 147!).

A British claim to Calais even has some historical precedent, doesn't it?

It was the last British territory in France, holding out until 1558.

https://tudorhistory.org/glossaries/c/calais.html

There are the Channel Islands, but perhaps you could claim that the Channel Islands were the ones to occupy England and not vice versa since they were part of Normandy!

Do you have any more info on this right of proximity? It’s nearer to me so it’s mine is that about it?

Sorry, I was trying to satirise the argument for why it should be Argentinian, where the fundamental (but generally unsaid) reason is "because it's close to us".

Would that work recursively?

Maybe we should observe China for the next 100 years to find out!

> they should belong to Argentina by right of proximity.

How does that work? Is it some kind of algorithm? Does the USA have the right to own Canada?

France is closer to the UK than the Falklands are to Argentina (35km vs almost 500km). Should France belong to the UK?

It's not even clear that all of the UK should belong to the UK

Both countries fought a lengthy war over that very question. I guess we can agree that question is settled for quite a while now so.

And as we all know, national borders are decided by plotting capitals on a map and running a mathematical process to minimise distance from capital, right?

Would be interesting to see such a map based on current capitals.

Here ya go:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/coxtsv/countries_i...

Of course, there's some hand waving here - micronations are dropped, Mercator projection, etc

I feel like the current residents of the Channel Islands might have an issue with your definition of "right of proximity".

And where does it end? New Zealand belongs to Australia? Hawaii belongs to Mexico?

In short "proximity" is not how island ownership works.

Couldn't you say the same about Alaska being closer to Canada or Russia even? Shouldn't they have control of Alaska?

There is no such right.