Ethiopia provoked Eritrea into invading their shared border. The lands were technically Eritrean, as the boundaries commission would later state1. Through these circumstances, Eritrea was not infringing the territorial integrity of Ethiopia. Moreover, some have hypothesised that Ethiopia actually encouraged the war to happen by murdering several Eritrean officials near Badme2. This would create an excuse to make territorial gains, namely to regain access to the Red Sea and the potential trade that accompanied it3.  1) Lauterpacht,E. ‘Sixteenth report on the work of the commission’ 24 February 2005  2) Connell,D. ‘Eritrea/Ethiopia War Looms’, 2 October 2005  3) Shah,A. ‘Conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea’, 20 December 2000