International Law and the Post-Soviet Space I

The region that once comprised the Soviet Union has been the scene of crises with serious implications for international law. Some of these, like the separatist conflict in Chechnya, date to the time of the dissolution of the USSR. Others, like Russia’s forcible annexation of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine’s Donbas, erupted years later. The seizure of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which took place long before, would trouble Soviet-western relations for the Cold War’s duration and gained new relevance when the Baltic States re-emerged in the 1990s. The fate of Ukraine notwithstanding, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 complicates future efforts at nuclear non-proliferation. Legal proceedings in connection with events in the post-Soviet space brought before the International Court of Justice and under investment treaties or the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea may be steps toward the resolution of recent crises—or tests of the resiliency of modern international law.



Dr Thomas D. Grant studied history and law at Harvard, Yale, and Cambridge. He has been an academic visitor at Heidelberg and Stanford and was a junior research fellow at Oxford. Since 2002, Grant has been a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of, among other books, Aggression against Ukraine (Palgrave Macmillan 2015). Grant has published in a range of academic journals, including the American Journal of International Law, German Yearbook of International Law, and Polish Yearbook of International Law; is a contributing author of the Max-Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, and a founding editor of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement. He is the editor for recognition of states and state succession, among other topics, in the forthcoming 10th edition of Oppenheim’s International Law (Oxford University Press). He acts as counsel, expert, and advisor before the International Court of Justice, investment tribunals, and national courts.



The author of the foreword:



Stephen M. Schwebel was, from 1997 to 2000, the President of the International Court of Justice at The Hague.