Abstract
Crimea is Russia’s. The March 2014 referendum and Russia’s subsequent  annexation of Crimea are now events of history, even while the territorial borders and political future of the rest of Ukraine remain contested. Yet, as international attention has moved from Sevastopol to Kiev and more recent crises elsewhere, a key balance between two of the most fundamental principles of the post-Second World War international legal and political order remains at stake. In Crimea, Russia has cleverly embraced international law and, in so doing, exploited the tension between a fundamental principle that prohibits the acquisition of territory through the use of force and an equally fundamental right of self-determination to take Crimea as its own. Russian President Vladimir Putin has advanced a quite different balance between these principles than that which prevailed for most of the past 70 years. Russia’s reinterpretation of these two principles could well destabilise the tenuous balance between the protection of individual rights and the preservation of states’ territorial integrity that undergirds the post-Second World War order. This interpretation sets potentially dangerous precedents for troubled regions, from Iraq to Syria, destabilising the international legal system at the very moment that it is adapting to a multipolar world.
 
PDF