All "treaties and agreements" entered into during the Vietnamese occupation must be cancelled, he said, new borders delineated between Cambodia and Vietnam, and special SNC committees set up to control the Phnom Penh adminstration and the police.

As Somalia had no independent government before 1 July 1960, this clause applied only to treaties entered into by the independent State of Somaliland, yet, time and time again, this simple fact is unknown to many Africans and is deliberately overlooked by Somalians opposed to Somaliland independence.

Primarily in reaction to the ambitions of other European countries, the United Kingdom and the Trucial Sheikhdoms established closer bonds in an 1892 treaty, similar to treaties entered into by the UK with other Persian Gulf principalities.

Simultaneously, the author examines in detail the various treaties and agreements entered by European nations resulting from their scramble for territory in Africa.