Comments on International Legal Aspects of the Crimean Question in the UN

Abstract

The article analyses three main elements of the Crimean question which are directly connected with the UN Charter as discussed and voted on in the Security Council and in the General Assembly, namely the problems of the self-determination requested by the Crimean population, the unilateral modification of the internationally recognized border between Ukraine and Russia and the veto put by Russia on the vote on a draft resolution declaring the invalidity of a referendum organized in Crimea in March 2014. Despite the fact that international law does exceptionally tolerate secession as a form of self-determination, the secession of Crimea did not satisfy the necessary international legal conditions for accepting a secession. International law does not allow a unilateral modification of an international border between two existing states, but nevertheless, that is what happened in Crimea. Finally, Russia vetoed the above-mentioned draft resolution in spite of Article 27 [3] of the Charter, which requires the parties to a dispute, when they are members of the Security Council, to abstain from voting in the Council on their dispute. The draft resolution on Crimea has to be considered as applying Chapter VI of the Charter, with Russia being a party to a dispute on the status of Crimea with Ukraine. Therefore, Russia had no right to vote on the draft,