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Home Archive for category "States and Statehood"

Differentiated Statehood? ‘Pre-States’? Palestine@the UN

Published on April 3, 2013        Author: 

Nothing is ever simple in the Middle East in general, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular. The rather tired parable of the frog and the scorpion as applied to this arena (‘This is the Mid East, not the Mid West’, says the scorpion to the frog as they both drown) would be funny if it were not so sad; it can be applied to any number of protagonists in the conflict. Yet, in the case of the UNGA vote to ‘upgrade’ Palestine to non-member observer state status, the politics are, strangely perhaps, somewhat less knotty than the law.

Only the US, Canada, the Czech Republic and a few small Rent-a-States voted against the resolution. A good number of states, among them some undoubted Israel friends, abstained, and a large majority, including some other undoubted Israel friends, voted to accept Palestine to this new status.

The EU was all over the place, with member states in all three camps, including key member states such as Germany, the UK, Poland and the Netherlands among the abstentions, and others such as France, Italy and Spain, voting in favour. So much for the Common Foreign Policy.

Politically this was said to be a resounding defeat for Israeli diplomacy. That it was; but even the most brilliant diplomacy would probably have been of no avail here. The vote was a universal repudiation of Israel’s settlement policy which practically the whole world, including the United States, regards as an obstacle to peace and as illegal under international law. Indeed, it is illegal. The recent attempt by the Israeli-appointed Edmond Levy Committee to ‘kosher the pig’ by resurrecting arguments from the 1970s, which have today even less bite than they had then, has been largely met with derision. Interestingly the Levy Report remains ‘under study’ by the Israeli government, which has wisely avoided any official endorsement. Legally destabilizing the 1967 boundary, as the Report does, would be welcome, paradoxically yet understandably, not only to Israeli annexationists but also to Hamas. The UNGA vote was, indeed, intended by many as an expression of support for the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas in the intra-Palestinian struggles.

It was also, rightly or wrongly, an indication that in the blame-game, many in the international community ascribe more blame to Israel for failed movement in the peace process than to the Palestinians, the uncompromising and scary ‘negationist’ statements and policies of Hamas notwithstanding. If I am right in this last assessment it may also have an interesting, even profound, legal implication. Israel’s duty under the still-controlling UNSC Resolution 242 is to return Territories (and let’s not get into the stale discussion on the omission of ‘The’ in the resolution) in the context of a peace agreement, one objective of which would be to ensure peace within recognized and secure boundaries (the word ‘secure’ is the one which opens the possibility to mutually agreed border adjustments). Israel remains a lawful belligerent occupant pending such a peace treaty. Can that last forever? Surely this must be subject to some ‘good faith’ negotiation requirement if the legal formula does not become a recipe for permanent belligerent occupation. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: Editorials, EJIL Analysis, Israel, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

EU–UK–Scotland: How Two Referenda Created a Complicated Love Triangle

Published on February 18, 2013        Author: 

Jure Vidmar is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Oxford Law Faculty, and Research Fellow, St Johns College, University of Oxford. His book Democratic Statehood in International Law: The Emergence of New States in Post-Cold War Practice will be published in March 2013.

As has already been noted on this blog (here and here) Professors Alan Boyle and James Crawford recently drafted an opinion on the international legal consequences of the Scottish referendum on independence. The Boyle/Crawford argumentation is very straightforward and, in my view, a conventional and uncontroversial account of the applicable international legal framework. However, I see one potential problem which was not (or could not) be considered in the Opinion drafted in December last year. In January 2013, Prime Minister Cameron announced another referendum; this one would be on the UK exiting the EU. Which UK would exit – the one with or the one without Scotland?

It is true that this referendum is not a legal reality at this stage and is merely a political pledge to be fulfilled should the Conservatives win at general elections. But with this possibility on the table, it is not entirely possible to separate the two referenda. Given the special nature of the EU, it is arguable that Scots now no longer know for what kind of an arrangement they are voting if they choose to stay in the UK. Or to put it differently, Scots do not know whether a vote for the UK is also vote to stay in the EU. And this may well be problematic under international law which requires that terms of a referendum on independence should be clear and unambiguous.

What if you are a Scottish voter who does not care about the UK but would vote against independence mainly (or only) because you do not want Scotland to be out of the EU and you do not want to lose your EU citizenship? How do you vote? If you support the UK, you might be out of the EU in the very near future anyway – because of the other referendum. What is more, if the UK eventually leaves the EU, it is quite likely that a vote for Scottish independence would have been a vote for the EU. Indeed, it is more likely that Scotland would join in due course than that the UK, if it left, would re-enter any time soon. So, if you are a Scottish voter and motivated by Scotland staying in the EU; how should you vote in 2014? Assuming you are not a fortune teller and cannot predict what would happen in 2017, you do not know. In 2014, Scots might be asked to go off the deep end without being assured that there is water in the pool. This is precisely what the clarity standards regarding independence referenda try to prevent. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: Self-Determination, States and Statehood
 
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Scottish Independence: Political Rhetoric and Legal Realities

Published on February 16, 2013        Author: 

The recent publication of Professors Crawford and Boyle’s opinion on the international law aspects of Scottish independence is an event not because it says anything new – most commentators (including the present writer) come to the same conclusions – but because it puts the imprimatur of two highly distinguished international lawyers on the matter. On Scottish independence, Scotland would emerge as a new State, with the rump UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) continuing the legal personality of the UK. As regards membership of the European Union, this would mean that the rump UK would retain the UK’s membership, whilst Scotland would have to be admitted as a new member.

Nonetheless, although the opinion adds weight to the arguments advanced, it might be thought unlikely to end the controversy, given the political sensitivities involved. Already, nationalist voices have dismissed it as simply the views of two among many commentators, whom of both, moreover, were paid by the British government to provide the advice.

This would be, however, to privilege form over substance. In practice, the two sides have converged in agreeing that negotiations would be required for Scotland to become a Member of the European Union. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: States and Statehood
 
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Boyle and Crawford on Scottish Independence

Published on February 12, 2013        Author: 

Last month, Joseph Weiler’s post on Catalonian independence and the European Union triggered a lively discussion here on EJIL!Talk (including Nico Krisch’s reply). Yesterday’s publication by the British government of a legal opinion by Alan Boyle of the University of Edinburgh and James Crawford of the University of Cambridge, entitled ‘Referendum on the Independence of Scotland: International Law Aspects’ has already received extensive news coverage (eg BBC, New York Times, Guardian, FT) and was labelled as ‘incredibly arrogant’ by the Scottish deputy first minister.  In a riposte, the Scottish government accelerated publication of a report on the macroeconomic framework in case of Scotland’s independence. A committee composed of economists, including Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Sir James Mirrlees of the University of Cambridge, suggested that if the Scottish people voted for independence in 2014, a formal currency union between UK and Scotland, with a 10 percent Scottish stake in the Bank of England, would be the most likely outcome.  The currency that Scotland would use in the event of independence and Scottish membership in international organisations, most importantly the European Union, have been focal points of the discussion in the lead-up to the referendum.

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Filed under: EJIL Reports, European Union, Self-Determination, State Succession, States and Statehood
 

Philippines Initiates Arbitration Against China over South China Seas Dispute

Published on January 22, 2013        Author: 

Today, the Philippines has initiated arbitral proceedings against China with regard to China’s claims over much of the South China seas. Those Chinese claims have led to serious disputes between China and several of its neighbours in East Asia with those disputes intensifying recently. Both the Philippines and China are parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Part XV of that treaty provides for compulsory arbitral/judicial jurisdiction over disputes arising under that Convention. As is well known, UNCLOS Part XV provides for a choice of procedure and States parties may choose either the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS); the International Court of Justice (ICJ); or an arbitral tribunal as their preferred means for compulsory settlement. In the absence of a choice, arbitration is the default mode of settlement. Also, where the disputing parties have not chosen the same means, the dispute shall be referred to arbitration under annex VII of the Convention (See Art. 287, paras. 1, 3 & 5). As neither the Philippines nor China has made a choice of tribunal, the Philippines has referred this dispute to arbitration. The Philippines notification of the proceedings and its statement of claim can be found here.

Although UNCLOS provides for compulsory jurisdiction over most matters arising under the Convention,  Art. 298 provides that a State may at any time declare that it does not accept compulsory jurisdiction over certain specified categories of disputes. In particular, a State may exclude compulsory jurisdiction with respect to “disputes concerning the interpretation or application of  articles 15, 74 and 83 relating to sea boundary delimitations, or those  involving historic bays or titles”.  China did precisely this in 2006. So, the first thing the Philippines would need to do would be to persuade the arbitral tribunal that it has jurisdiction over the case. To do that it would need to show that the dispute it has submitted to the arbitral tribunal falls outside China’s exclusion of jurisdiction under Art. 298(1)(a). This may not be so easy.

Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Inter-State Arbitration, International Tribunals, Law of the Sea, Maritime Delimitation, Territorial Disputes
 
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Catalonia’s Independence: A Reply to Joseph Weiler

Published on January 18, 2013        Author: 

Nico Krisch (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin & IBEI, Barcelona)

Joseph Weiler’s polemic on Catalan independence has certainly stirred up debate (see the comments on the piece), which is always helpful. But as much as I admire much of Weiler’s academic work, I find this intervention heavily misguided in substance, in part because of a misunderstanding of the reasons behind the Catalan drive, in part because of a misreading of the nature of independence claims in general. I write this having spent a significant part of the last decade in Barcelona, with a growing appreciation for the concerns of Catalans and of sub-state nationalism in general, which has certainly toned down my earlier, perhaps rather naïve cosmopolitanism that had little time for nations and borders.

Weiler laments a return of Catalans to ‘an early 20th-century post-World War I mentality, when the notion that a single state could encompass more than one nationality seemed impossible’, and he finds it ‘laughable and impossible to take seriously Catalan arguments for independence’ when they have a statute of autonomy. He thinks that all Catalans could possibly complain about dates back to the Franco period and before, and that today they should leave this behind, drop talk of independence and work out their differences with the rest of Spain. But the latter is precisely what they have tried for several decades, and with limited success. Spain’s 1978 constitution is an awkward compromise, born out of a transition from dictatorship. It stops well short of establishing a federal state and, despite Spain’s enormous cultural diversity, has many centralist elements. Catalans are a structural minority in that setting – and less protected than the Basques who achieved a more favourable position in and after the constitution. While it is true that they don’t face persecution or any kind of grave human rights violations, discrimination can also take more subtle forms and result in systematic disadvantages when it comes to appointments to public office, investment in infrastructure or the distribution of resources in general. And even achievements in linguistic rights are called into question when the Spanish government can declare – as it has recently done – that it intends to ‘hispanicise’ Catalan school children.

All this does not reach the threshold for remedial secession under international law. But is international law, state-centric and state-made as it is, a good guide for our normative approach here? Probably not. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, European Union, Self-Determination, States and Statehood
 

Palestine, When is Your Birthday?

Published on December 5, 2012        Author: 

lironpic

 Col. (Retired) Liron A. Libman, LL.M, is a former Head of the International Law Department of the Israeli Defense Forces.

On 29 November, in what some reports described as a historic vote, the UN General Assembly accorded to “Palestine” the status of a “non-member observer state” in the organization. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has enjoyed an observer status in the UN since 1974. Since 1988 the PLO mission to the UN was designated “Palestine”. Therefore, the supposed novelty is the UN recognition of Palestine as a state.

I do not want to discuss here the question of Palestinian statehood itself: whether “Palestine” has the objective qualification of a state under international law. Rather, I want to concentrate on the Palestinian official view as to the date when the Palestinian state was established. Many states celebrate their national day on that date, so in simple words, I ask when will the Palestinians celebrate their Independence Day?

I start my inquiry with the epilogue of Dr. Abbas, chairperson of the PLO, in his speech to the General Assembly:

“Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth certificate for Israel.

The United Nations General Assembly is called upon today to issue the birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.”

Dr. Abbas asked the General Assembly to grant a “birth certificate” to the state of Palestine. Taking this metaphor seriously, this implies that the Palestinian state already exists. To the best of my knowledge (as a father, if I may add), first, a child is born and only afterwards can the happy parents receive a birth certificate. The certificate is an official acknowledgement of a fait accompli.

However, Dr. Abbas paralleled the resolution he asks for with General Assembly resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947, which he views as the birth certificate of the state of Israel. The problem is that clearly resolution 181(II) did not recognize an existing state of Israel, but rather recommended the future establishment of a Jewish state (alongside an Arab state) upon the termination of the British Mandate. The resolution even set a timetable for the coming into existence of the two future states.  Israel was established only about six months later, on 14 May 1948, when the Jewish People’s Council approved the Declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel. Clearly, resolution 181(II) was not the birth certificate of the state of Israel.

Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Israel, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

Does General Assembly Resolution 67/19 Have Any Implications for the Legal Status of Palestine?

Published on December 4, 2012        Author: 

Jure Vidmar is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law, and Research Fellow at St Johns College, University of Oxford. He has written widely on the process of State creation (see SSRN page here), including: ‘Explaining the Legal Effects of Recognition’ (2012) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 361.

On 29 November 2012, with 138 votes in favour, nine against and forty-one abstentions, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 67/19, which, inter alia, “accord[ed] to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations…” This post considers whether the vote in the General Assembly objectively confirms that Palestine is a state and/or whether the General Assembly on 29 November 2012, in fact, created a new state (a matter considered briefly by Dapo at the end of his post on the Resolution). In essence, did the Resolution change anything in terms of legal status and did Palestine on 29 November become more of a state than it was on 28 November? The post thus narrowly focuses on the implications of Resolution 67/19; it does not intend to clarify Palestine’s legal status in general.

In this instance, Palestine’s legal status could be implicitly clarified in two ways. One way would be if the Resolution meant admission to the international organisation, which prescribes statehood as a prerequisite for membership. The other possibility is that by voting for the Resolution which accords “to Palestine non-member observer State status” [emphasis added], those states voting in favour implicitly recognised Palestine as a state. Indeed, the Resolution here says that Palestine is a state. What is the legal significance of this phrasing and of the fact that 138 states are happy with it? Did the 138 states voting in favour thus create a state by (implicit) recognition or at least confirm Palestine’s legal status?This post will argue that the General Assembly resolution itself and the voting behaviour of states neither altered nor clarified the legal status of Palestine. On 29 November 2012, Palestine did not become more or less of a state than it was before. The Resolution may well be a significant step in an internationalised political process which could ultimately clarify and settle Palestine’s legal status. But the Resolution of 29 November 2012 does not have any direct legal implications for Palestine’s statehood.  Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

Palestine as a UN Observer State: Does this Make Palestine a State?

Published on December 3, 2012        Author: 

Last week, the UN General Assembly voted by 138 to 9 (with 41 abstaining) “to accord to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations”. Thus, Palestine which has been an observer at the UN since 1974 has had its status within the UN upgraded to being an observer State. There has been much euphoria on one side as a result of this decision, and dismay on the other side. However, what are the implications, if any, of this decision. It is thought that one reason why Israel opposed the change, though it asserts that the decision achieves nothing, is that characterising the Palestinian as an observer State would give Palestine access to legal, particularly judicial, remedies that it otherwise would not have (see BBC Q & A report here). It was reported that the United Kingdom, which in the end abstained from voting, was prepared to vote in favour of the resolution, if Palestine had been prepared to pledge not to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC or to seek to utilise the International Court of Justice. So though the granting of observer Status does not change “the facts on the ground”, it is thought that it would change the legal position of Palestine under international law. But does it? Are there new legal options open to Palestine as a result of the resolution and does the resolution constitute Palestine as a State?

Any student of international law will be familiar with the debate between the declaratory theory of recognition of States and the constitutive theory. Theory, practice and judicial decisions favour the declaratory theory and assert that recognition does not create Statehood. Although last week’s decision does not grant Palestine membership of the UN (which would require Security Council approval), the decision to grant observer State status to Palestine is an act of collective recognition of the statehood of Palestine. If that decision is capable of effecting the legal changes hoped for (by proponents) or feared (by those oppose the decision), this will provide strong support to the view that collective recognition is capable of creating Statehood. Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Law, International Tribunals, Palestine, State Responsibility, States and Statehood
 

A Reply to Vahagn Avedian – State Identity, Continuity, and Responsibility: The Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide

Published on November 13, 2012        Author: 

Pulat Tacar has been Co-Chairperson of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO (1995–2006), Ambassador of Turkey to UNESCO (1989–1995), Ambassador of Turkey to the European Communities (1984–1987) and to Jakarta (1981–1984). Maxime Gauin is a researcher at the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK, Ankara) and a PhD candidate at the Middle East Technical University. In this post, which summarises their article published in (2012) 23 EJIL 821-835, they respond to the piece by Vahagn Avedian.

The Armenian question is especially sensitive, not least because of the long accumulation of prejudices against Turks, Armenian terrorism in 1973–1991, the Armenian invasion and occupation of western Azerbaijan since 1992, and more recently the virulent anti-Turkish stance of Anders Breivik in his manifesto and the various campaigns or attacks by Armenian nationalists. So, it is better to ease the tensions instead to fuel them.

In this response to Vahagn Avedian’s EJIL article and post, we would like to raise two issues: Is genocide a pertinent concept to define the fate of the Ottoman Armenians during WWI?; and has the Republic of Turkey legal responsibilities for this fate?

The Terms of the Dispute

The term ‘genocide’ is a legal term; it describes a crime specifically defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention and must be addressed accordingly. The existence of the crime of genocide can be legally determined only by the judges of a competent tribunal on the basis of the prescribed legal criteria and after a fair and impartial trial. The Genocide Convention does not allow for convictions on the grounds of genocide by legislatures, scholars, pamphleteers, politicians, or others.

Read the rest of this entry…

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Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Genocide, State Succession, States and Statehood