Understanding the International and National Legal Instruments in the Management of Eswatini Irredentism in the Post-Colony

This article examines how international and domestic legal instruments, particularly the 1964 Cairo Declaration and Eswatini’s 1968 independence Constitution, have shaped the management of Eswatini’s irredentist project in the postcolonial period. It argues that, rather than pursuing territorial revision through overt confrontation, the Eswatini monarchy has strategically navigated the normative frameworks of international law and domestic constitutional order to advance claims to territories lost under colonial rule. During the apartheid era, this strategy took the form of negotiated engagement with South Africa, leveraging diplomatic and legal channels to secure agreements oriented toward territorial recovery. However, in the post-apartheid period, African National Congress-led governments have rejected Eswatini’s position, maintaining that unilateral border revision contravenes the principle of territorial integrity embedded in the postcolonial international order. In response, Eswatini has recalibrated its approach through a dual register: invoking the Sobhuza testament as an ancestral and historical mandate, while simultaneously considering recourse to the International Court of Justice. The article thus foregrounds the tension between the constraints and possibilities of this legal landscape on the one hand, and competing logics of legitimacy, international legal normativity and historically grounded claims to territory on the other.