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OBAMA REFUSES TO RECOGNIZE A RUSSIAN CRIMEA. BUT IS SECESSION ILLEGAL?
The Christian Science Monitor
March 9, 2014 Sunday
Crimea is set to hold a referendum on March 16 on whether to secede
from Ukraine and join Russia. President Obama says it is illegal
according to international law. Western scholars agree.
by Mark Sappenfield Staff writer
An Obama administration adviser said Sunday that the United States
will not recognize a March 16 referendum in Crimea if it leads to
the region's annexation into Russia. The comments further clarify
statements made by President Obama Thursday, which claimed that the
vote would "violate international law."
But would it?
Both sides, it would seem, have compelling arguments. Russians and
Crimeans can argue that the people of Crimea are overwhelmingly
Russian and want to be a part of Russia, and other ethnic enclaves
such as Kosovo have broken off to form independent nations in the
recent past. Western nations including the US argue that Russia has
forced the issue by intervening militarily in Ukrainian territory.
The debate boils down to a simple question: Does a region's right to
self-determination include a fundamental right to secede?
Western legal scholars suggest that the answer is "no."
International law is necessarily flexible on this point. If parts of
a nation decide mutually to break apart, international law generally
recognizes this as a fait accompli. "Under international law, a
secession is neither a right nor necessarily illegal. It is treated
as a fact: a secession either was successful, it was not, or it is
still being contested," writes Chris Borgen on the "Opinio Juris" blog.
But international law recognizes a nation's right to exist without
being involuntarily dismembered from within. In other words, Texas
can't just decide to secede from the United States. If it wishes
to secede, it must do so through negotiations with the US and the
international community.
"According to international precedent," writes University of Cambridge
law professor Marc Weller on the BBC website, Crimea "cannot simply
secede unilaterally, even if that wish is supported by the local
population in a referendum."
The preference is for regions within nations to work with their
central governments to gain more autonomy and greater rights without
seceding. "International practice generally seeks to accommodate
separatist demands within the existing territorial boundaries,"
writes Professor Weller.
In a case like Kosovo's, where the local ethnic population was subject
to significant repression from the Yugoslavian state, the path to
independence took years and remains disputed.
Though NATO intervened on humanitarian grounds, it "did not occupy the
territory in consequence of its humanitarian intervention," Weller
adds. "Instead, the UN administered Kosovo for some eight years,
creating a neutral environment in which its future could be addressed."
The fact is, nothing remotely approaching a humanitarian crisis has
ever been reported in Crimea, and Russia has repeatedly recognized
Crimea to be a part of Ukraine: in the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration that
dissolved the Soviet Union, in the 1994 Budapest nuclear weapons
memorandum, and a 1997 agreement that allows Russia to station its
Black Sea fleet in Crimean ports.
Russia's current intervention appears to be something from its
post-Soviet playbook, pitting ethnic Russian enclaves against former
Soviet states.
Russia sought to drive a wedge between the thin, Russian-majority
strip of Moldova called Transnistria, which Monitor contributor Dylan
Robertson referred to as "a Moscow-backed puppet state." The same
narrative has played out in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh (claimed
by both Armenia and Azerbaijan), as well as in the Georgian regions
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia invaded in 2008.
Crimea seems likely to be added to the list, with Crimea set to join
Russia in a move that the international community rejects.
That Russia should be arguing so strongly on behalf of Crimea's right
to secession is, in some ways, ironic.
Crimea enjoys a special status within Ukraine - one that offers it
a wide degree of autonomy. Such autonomous regions are a feature
of post-Soviet states including Russia - an acknowledgment of the
tremendous diversity within each nation. Yet independence movements
within Russian autonomous regions - such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and
Ingushetia - have been put down, at times brutally, by the Russian
military.
This apparent double-standard has some former Soviet states worried.
When Estonian authorities moved a Soviet-era war monument, ethnic
Russians - who make up a quarter of the population - were outraged,
and the country was hit by devastating cyberattacks. Estonian officials
blame Russia, though Russian officials have denied involvement.
Estonia and its Baltic neighbors "are certainly very worried that what
is happening to Ukraine today could happen to them tomorrow," Erik
Brattberg, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Atlantic.
Both Estonia and Latvia, he noted, have "significant Russian ethnic
minorities."
The Christian Science Monitor
March 9, 2014 Sunday
Crimea is set to hold a referendum on March 16 on whether to secede
from Ukraine and join Russia. President Obama says it is illegal
according to international law. Western scholars agree.
by Mark Sappenfield Staff writer
An Obama administration adviser said Sunday that the United States
will not recognize a March 16 referendum in Crimea if it leads to
the region's annexation into Russia. The comments further clarify
statements made by President Obama Thursday, which claimed that the
vote would "violate international law."
But would it?
Both sides, it would seem, have compelling arguments. Russians and
Crimeans can argue that the people of Crimea are overwhelmingly
Russian and want to be a part of Russia, and other ethnic enclaves
such as Kosovo have broken off to form independent nations in the
recent past. Western nations including the US argue that Russia has
forced the issue by intervening militarily in Ukrainian territory.
The debate boils down to a simple question: Does a region's right to
self-determination include a fundamental right to secede?
Western legal scholars suggest that the answer is "no."
International law is necessarily flexible on this point. If parts of
a nation decide mutually to break apart, international law generally
recognizes this as a fait accompli. "Under international law, a
secession is neither a right nor necessarily illegal. It is treated
as a fact: a secession either was successful, it was not, or it is
still being contested," writes Chris Borgen on the "Opinio Juris" blog.
But international law recognizes a nation's right to exist without
being involuntarily dismembered from within. In other words, Texas
can't just decide to secede from the United States. If it wishes
to secede, it must do so through negotiations with the US and the
international community.
"According to international precedent," writes University of Cambridge
law professor Marc Weller on the BBC website, Crimea "cannot simply
secede unilaterally, even if that wish is supported by the local
population in a referendum."
The preference is for regions within nations to work with their
central governments to gain more autonomy and greater rights without
seceding. "International practice generally seeks to accommodate
separatist demands within the existing territorial boundaries,"
writes Professor Weller.
In a case like Kosovo's, where the local ethnic population was subject
to significant repression from the Yugoslavian state, the path to
independence took years and remains disputed.
Though NATO intervened on humanitarian grounds, it "did not occupy the
territory in consequence of its humanitarian intervention," Weller
adds. "Instead, the UN administered Kosovo for some eight years,
creating a neutral environment in which its future could be addressed."
The fact is, nothing remotely approaching a humanitarian crisis has
ever been reported in Crimea, and Russia has repeatedly recognized
Crimea to be a part of Ukraine: in the 1991 Alma Ata Declaration that
dissolved the Soviet Union, in the 1994 Budapest nuclear weapons
memorandum, and a 1997 agreement that allows Russia to station its
Black Sea fleet in Crimean ports.
Russia's current intervention appears to be something from its
post-Soviet playbook, pitting ethnic Russian enclaves against former
Soviet states.
Russia sought to drive a wedge between the thin, Russian-majority
strip of Moldova called Transnistria, which Monitor contributor Dylan
Robertson referred to as "a Moscow-backed puppet state." The same
narrative has played out in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh (claimed
by both Armenia and Azerbaijan), as well as in the Georgian regions
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia invaded in 2008.
Crimea seems likely to be added to the list, with Crimea set to join
Russia in a move that the international community rejects.
That Russia should be arguing so strongly on behalf of Crimea's right
to secession is, in some ways, ironic.
Crimea enjoys a special status within Ukraine - one that offers it
a wide degree of autonomy. Such autonomous regions are a feature
of post-Soviet states including Russia - an acknowledgment of the
tremendous diversity within each nation. Yet independence movements
within Russian autonomous regions - such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and
Ingushetia - have been put down, at times brutally, by the Russian
military.
This apparent double-standard has some former Soviet states worried.
When Estonian authorities moved a Soviet-era war monument, ethnic
Russians - who make up a quarter of the population - were outraged,
and the country was hit by devastating cyberattacks. Estonian officials
blame Russia, though Russian officials have denied involvement.
Estonia and its Baltic neighbors "are certainly very worried that what
is happening to Ukraine today could happen to them tomorrow," Erik
Brattberg, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Atlantic.
Both Estonia and Latvia, he noted, have "significant Russian ethnic
minorities."