A “recent”
TERRITORIAL DISPUTE is the case of Crimea. “Crimea
is Russian” some argue (Burke-White 2014). “[T]he United States and its
European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis”, others
maintain (Mearsheimer 2014). Yet some go even further and announce
apocalyptically a new Cold War (Roskin 2014).
Leaving aside these and other
opinions, the fact is that in early 2014 Crimea became the centre of a crisis
with Russia and Ukraine as leading actors in the conflict. President Yanukovych
was driven from power, Russia seized control of Crimea, and a referendum
followed. Ukraine and most of the Western world considered the measures invalid
(Barry 2014).
In addition to the Crimean “local” crisis in which we may
recognise three agents, that is Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia, it is also a
reality that this dispute has larger repercussions geographically, politically,
and culturally speaking not only for the region but potentially with regards to
the globe (Molchanov 2004).
While it is true that there is a crisis in
the Crimean Peninsula, and tension is evident between Russia and Ukraine, there
is also a fair share of rhetorical argumentation adding unnecessary
considerations within legal and political sciences that do not seem to offer
any tangible way out. The following posts will cover different views from
people at large, politicians and academics in several disciplines such as law,
political science, and international relations. We finish this post by
including a very succinct background account, a couple of questions to the
reader and sources.
Brief background account
· Crimea lies on a peninsula
stretching out from the south of Ukraine between the Black Sea and the Sea of
Azov. It is separated from Russia to the east by the narrow Kerch Strait.
· For centuries under Greek and Roman influence, Crimea
became the center of a Tatar Khanate in 1443, which later became an Ottoman
vassal state.
· Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire during the
reign of Catherine the Great (1783).
· Rival imperial ambitions in the mid-19th century
led to the Crimean War (1853-56) when Britain and France, suspicious of Russian
ambitions in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire declined sent troops.
· Given autonomous republic status within Russia
after the Bolshevik revolution, Crimea was occupied by the Nazis in the early
1940s.
· Crimea remained part of Russia until 1954 when it
was transferred to Ukraine under the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
· Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty
on the ‘Restitution of Crimea and Sevastopol inside the Russian Federation’ on
18 March 2014, Russia became the first state in continental Europe to have
annexed part of another state’s territory since the 1940s.
To the
reader, following two of our previous posts of this series about TERRITORIAL
DISPUTES:
a) What are the issues at stakes in this a
territorial dispute?
b) Which remedy could be used to solve
this particular territorial dispute?
For
reference to these questions see:
NOTE:
This post is based on Núñez, Jorge Emilio. 2017. A Solution to the Crimean Crisis: Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty Applied to
Russia, Ukraine and Crimea. Europe-Asia Studies.
Sources
Barry,
M. (2014) ‘The Loss of Crimea, How Much Does Ukraine Lose, and How Much Does
Russia Gain, a Computable General Equilibrium Model’, Journal of Global
Peace and Conflict, 2.
Burke-White,
W. (2014) ‘Crimea and the International Legal Order’, Survival: Global
Politics and Strategy, 56.
Mearsheimer,
J. (2014) ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault’, Foreign Affairs,
93.
Molchanov,
M. (2004) ‘Ukraine and the European Union: a Perennial Neighbour?’, Journal
of European Integration, 26.
Roskin,
M. (2014) ‘The New Cold War’, Parameters, 44.
History
of the Republic of Crimea, Ukraine (Valdosta State University)
The
Legitimacy of Russia’s Actions in Ukraine (London School of Economics)
Jorge
Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
28th May 2018
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