Clipperton Island

Clipperton was documented by French merchant-explorers in 1711 and formally claimed as part of the French protectorate of Tahiti in 1858. Despite this, American guano miners began working the island in the early 1890s. As interest in the island grew, Mexico asserted a claim to the island based upon Spanish records from the 1520s that may have identified the island. Mexico established a small military colony on the island in 1905, but during the Mexican Revolution contact with the mainland became infrequent, most of the colonists died, and lighthouse keeper Victoriano Álvarez instituted a short, brutal reign as "king" of the island. Eleven survivors were rescued in 1917 and Clipperton was abandoned.


The dispute between Mexico and France over Clipperton was taken to binding international arbitration in 1909. Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, was chosen as arbitrator and decided in 1931 that the island was French territory. Despite the ruling, Clipperton remained largely uninhabited until 1944 when the U.S. Navy established a weather station on the island to support its war efforts in the Pacific. France protested and as concerns about Japanese activity in the eastern Pacific waned the U.S. abandoned the site in late 1945.


Since the end of World War II, Clipperton has primarily been the site for scientific expeditions to study the island's wildlife and marine life, including its significant masked and brown booby colonies. It has also hosted climate scientists and amateur radio DX-peditions. Plans to develop the island for trade and tourism have been considered, but none have been enacted and the island remains mostly uninhabited with periodic visits from the French navy.

Politics and government[edit]

The island is an overseas state private property of France under direct authority of the Minister of the Overseas.^[112][113] Although the island is French territory, it has no status within the European Union.^[114] Ownership of Clipperton Island was disputed in the 19th and early 20th centuries between France and Mexico, but was finally settled through arbitration in 1931; the Clipperton Island Case remains widely studied in international law textbooks.^[115][116]


In the late 1930s, as flying boats opened the Pacific to air travel, Clipperton Island was noted as a possible waypoint for a trans-Pacific route from the Americas to Asia via the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, bypassing Hawaii. However, France indicated no interest in developing commercial air traffic in the corridor.^[117]


After France ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1996,^[118][119] they reaffirmed the exclusive economic zone off Clipperton island which had been established in 1976.^[120] After changes were made to the area nations were allowed to claim under the third convention of UNCLOS^[121] France in 2018 expanded the outer limits of the territorial sea to 22 km (12 nmi) and the exclusive economic zone off Clipperton Island to 370 km (200 nmi), encompassing 431,273 square kilometres (166,515 sq mi) of ocean.^[122][123]


On 21 February 2007, administration of Clipperton was transferred from the High Commissioner of the Republic in French Polynesia to the Minister of Overseas France.^[124]: 99


In 2015, French MP Philippe Folliot set foot on Clipperton becoming the first elected official from France to do so. Folliot noted that visiting Clipperton was something he had wanted to do since he was nine years old.^{[125][126][127]} Following the visit, Folliot reported to the National Assembly on the pressing need to reaffirm French sovereignty over the atoll and its surrounding maritime claims. He also proposed establishing an international scientific research station on Clipperton and administrative reforms surrounding the oversight of the atoll.^[128]


In 2022, France passed legislation officially referring to the island as "La Passion–Clipperton".^[129]