Wilson arbitral award on Armenia
Woodrow Wilson’s 22 November 1920 arbitral award under Article 89 of Sèvres, delimiting an Armenia-Turkey frontier that granted Armenia large parts of Van, Bitlis, Erzurum and Trabzon vilayets. It was never enforced but remains central to Armenian legal memory.
Account
Background
Article 89 of the Treaty of Sèvres submitted the Armenia-Turkey boundary to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The award was meant to give legal precision to Allied recognition of an enlarged Armenian state after the genocide.
The award and failure
Issued on 22 November 1920, Wilson's decision granted Armenia substantial territory in eastern Anatolia and access to the Black Sea. On paper, it was binding arbitration under the treaty framework. In reality, the U.S. Senate had rejected an Armenian mandate, Turkish nationalist forces were advancing, and Soviet power was approaching Yerevan.
Afterlife
The award survives in Armenian legal and diaspora politics as evidence that territorial restitution was once an international legal act. Critics answer that Sèvres itself was superseded by Lausanne and never implemented contested. The key point is that the international system drafted a remedy after genocide and then failed to enforce it editorial.
Legal rulings about this event
| Date | Ruling | Bindingness | Compliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1920-08-10 | Treaty of Sèvres | binding | ignored |
Further reading
- Richard G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia (4 vols.), 1996
- Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, 1980
- Gerard J. Libaridian, Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State, 2004
- Woodrow Wilson, Decision of the President of the United States of America respecting the Frontier between Turkey and Armenia, 1920
- Allied Powers; Ottoman Empire, Treaty of Sèvres, 1920