This isn't quite accurate, as McMeekin points out; the original plan had included tsarist claims to Turkey and Kurdistan, and in any case Sykes-Picot was superseded by other, more consequential arrangements, among them the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised the Jews a national home.
The assumption, if sound, would apply to any other problem arising from transactions that cross state lines and is tantamount to a declaration excusing this Court from any future consequential role in the clarification and application of international law.
But Ginsberg was Zionism's Emerson, an essayist, editor, and counsellor to the movement's most consequential leaders: he mentored Chaim Weizmann, who secured the Balfour Declaration and inspired A. D. Gordon, the champion of the Labor Zionist pioneers, including David Ben-Gurion, who built and then steered the country.
On the other hand, the relevant Singaporean provision is Order 15, rule 16, of the Rules of Court, which reads: "No action or other proceedings shall be open to objection on the ground that a merely declaratory judgment or order is sought thereby, and the Court may make binding declarations of right whether or not any consequential relief is or could be claimed".
Yet these declarations – which will subsequently be tallied at regional and national level – will be much more consequential than the constituency outcomes of last year's general election, for two reasons.
In a year in which two racing phenomena, champion jump jockey A P McCoy and his Flat counterpart Richard Hughes, have clocked out of their winner-factories for the final time, Hayley Turner's declaration of her own planned permanent dismount from the saddle, announced this week, could have been considered rather less consequential.
America, in fact, made an empire of it; along with the Declaration of Independence and the framing of the Constitution, the Louisiana Purchase proved to be one of the most consequential events in the nation's history.
Reagan was consequential.
Traditional authority is consequential.
