Gibraltar is an Overseas Territory of the UK within the EU, which has for three centuries been at the centre of a dispute between Britain and Spain, a dispute based on traditional perceptions of sovereignty. Hitherto the dispute has been managed in a predominantly bilateral way, but this has prevented the people of Gibraltar having an equal say on the issue of Gibraltar's sovereignty and decolonisation. It has produced a paradox of governance and constitutionalism that encases the Gibraltar people. This book considers the effects of sovereignty and the culture of bilateralism on the dispute, and examines the resulting deficits of governance and democracy. In assessing the evolution of the themes underlying the dispute it asks how its resolution might be facilitated by the application of ideas drawn from the modern legal context of late sovereignty, pluralism and stateless nationalism, suggesting that a productive trilateral approach and recognition of the legal and societal context could enable an enduring settlement. The author marries theories from international relations, constitutional law and public international law in the context of modern literature on sovereignty and nationalism, applying these theories to the case-study of Gibraltar with emphasis on constitutionalism in its international and EU context to produce a ground-breaking addition to the literature on stateless nationalism, late sovereignty and constitutional pluralism. As such it also complements recent studies of sub-state societies, regions or nations within Europe and elsewhere, including Catalunya, the Basque Country and Scotland and Wales, and in the broader Commonwealth context, other British overseas territories. This book will be of interest to lawyers, political scientists, constitutional historians and constitutionalists.

This volume explores how Gibraltarian Britishness was constructed over the course of the twentieth century. Today most Gibraltarians are fiercely proud of their Britishness, sometimes even describing themselves as ‘more British than the British’ and Gibraltar’s Chief Minister in 2018 announced in a radio interview that “We see the world through British eyes.” Yet well beyond the mid-twentieth century the inhabitants of the Rock were overwhelmingly Spanish speaking, had a high rate of intermarriage with Spaniards, and had strong class links and shared interests with their neighbours across the border. At the same time, Gibraltarians had a very clear secondary status with respect to UK British people. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, Gibraltarians speak more English than Spanish (with increasing English monolingualism), have full British citizenship and are no longer discriminated against based on their ethnicity; they see themselves as profoundly different culturally to Spanish people across the border. Bordering on Britishness explores and interrogates these changes and examines in depth the evolving relationship Gibraltarians have with Britishness. It also reflects on the profound changes Gibraltar is likely to experience because of Brexit when its border with Spain becomes an external EU border and the relative political strengths of Spain and the UK shift accordingly. If Gibraltarian Britishness has evolved in the past it is certain to evolve in the future and this volume raises the question of how this might change if the UK’s political and economic strength – especially with respect to Gibraltar – begins to wane.

A history of Gibraltar.

While much has been written about Gibraltar from historical and political perspectives, sociolinguistic aspects have been largely overlooked. This book describes the influences which have shaped the colony’s linguistic development since the British occupation in 1704, and the relationship between the three principal means of communication: English, Spanish and the code-switching variant Yanito. The study then focuses its attentions on the communicative forms and functions of Gibraltarian English. The closing of the border between Gibraltar and Spain (1969-1982), which effectively isolated the colony, had important social and linguistic repercussions. This volume presents the first full account of the language attitudes and identity of a new generation of Gibraltarians, all of whom were born after the border was re-opened. Adopting a variationist approach, this study analyses the extent to which the language use and phonetic realisations of young Gibraltarians differ from those of previous generations and the factors conditioning language variation and change.

The surprising story of how Algeria joined and then left the postwar European Economic Community and what its past inclusion means for extracontinental membership in today’s European Union. On their face, the mid-1950s negotiations over European integration were aimed at securing unity in order to prevent violent conflict and boost economies emerging from the disaster of World War II. But French diplomats had other motives, too. From Africa to Southeast Asia, France’s empire was unraveling. France insisted that Algeria—the crown jewel of the empire and home to a nationalist movement then pleading its case to the United Nations—be included in the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community. The French hoped that Algeria’s involvement in the EEC would quell colonial unrest and confirm international agreement that Algeria was indeed French. French authorities harnessed Algeria’s legal status as an official département within the empire to claim that European trade regulations and labor rights should traverse the Mediterranean. Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany conceded in order to move forward with the treaty, and Algeria entered a rights regime that allowed free movement of labor and guaranteed security for the families of migrant workers. Even after independence in 1962, Algeria remained part of the community, although its ongoing inclusion was a matter of debate. Still, Algeria’s membership continued until 1976, when a formal treaty removed it from the European community. The Seventh Member State combats understandings of Europe’s “natural” borders by emphasizing the extracontinental contours of the early union. The unification vision was never spatially limited, suggesting that contemporary arguments for geographic boundaries excluding Turkey and areas of Eastern Europe from the European Union must be seen as ahistorical.

Forfatteren var britisk guvernør i Gibraltar 1978-1982 og har her skrevet om den berømte halvøs og dens befolknings historie fra de tidligste tider til vore dage.