Tanisha M. Fazal
The norm against territorial conquest is a pillar of the post-1945 international order, but that pillar is now crumbling. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is certainly the most egregious recent violation of this prohibition—an outlier, as an attempt to capture an entire sovereign country. Yet if Moscow gets to walk away with pieces of Ukrainian territory, and particularly if that transfer wins international recognition, other powers may be more tempted to wage wars of conquest.
States have never consistently complied with the rule, enshrined in the UN Charter in response to Nazi Germany’s swallowing other countries whole during World War II, that proscribed the forcible seizure of another state’s territory. But it was broadly observed until fairly recently. Argentina was swiftly ejected from the Falkland Islands after its invasion in 1982 by the combined force of the British military and a UN Security Council resolution. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, a U.S.-led and UN-approved coalition stepped in to restore Kuwait’s sovereignty. When Russia attacked Crimea in 2014, however, outside powers failed to fully enforce the norm. Many countries protested, but Crimea’s transfer to Russia has become a de facto reality. And this time, after Russia’s full-scale invasion, the world’s increasingly mixed reaction to such a blatant assault has clearly signaled the degrading strength of the norm.
No comments:
Post a Comment