Latvia–Lithuania border

A Scottish arbiter

After the First World War the two new states disagreed over where their border should run, especially at the coast. They agreed to international arbitration by a commission of equal Lithuanian and Latvian delegations under an independent chairman, James Young Simpson, a zoologist from the University of Edinburgh who had advised British intelligence on the former Russian Empire. The commission met from December 1920 to March 1921, and Simpson visited Palanga in January 1921.^[1]

Latvia argued that Palanga needed its link to Liepāja; Lithuania’s Antanas Smetona argued the town would be choked in Latvia. Simpson cast the deciding vote for Lithuania, giving it Palanga and about 20 km of coast up to the Šventoji River, even though Latvians lived there. Mažeikiai also went to Lithuania on ethnic grounds, and the mixed Alukšta district to Latvia.^[1]

Latvia’s new foreign minister accused Simpson of bowing to Lithuanian pressure, but backed down when Simpson threatened to move the commission to Kaunas. The border treaty was signed on 30 March 1921, Latvian forces left Palanga, and the treaty was reaffirmed in 1993 after both countries regained independence.^[1]

“the economic interests of these sister States are not contrary but supplemental”^[1]

The sea boundary

In 1999 the two countries signed a treaty on their maritime border in the Baltic, but only Lithuania’s parliament ratified it; Latvia wanted first an economic agreement allowing it to exploit possible oil reserves under the sea. In October 2019 Presidents Egils Levits and Gitanas Nausėda pledged to settle the issue within their terms, with Levits saying each side should end up “50-percent satisfied”.^[2]