The Crimea in the European International Domain

1. A territorial dispute concerning the borders of the sovereign state is an outmost sensitive and political matter, which never should be ultimately decided in a court. Only a political discourse should lead to the solution, always with due respect to the sovereignty of the state, whose borders the dispute concerns [South Sudan, 2011].

2. It is worthwhile to mention that the European nations share quite some values, whenever the state sovereignty, the state territory, the right of people for self-determination, the secession of territory, the accession of territory to the other state or the creation of a new state is at issue. The disputes of European scale should be decided according to the European traditions and within the European legal framework, as in the world there is much less coherence in understanding of those life-important, security-related issues.

3. May I warn against too general and too superficial interpretation of territorial disputes, which might be encountered in media and even in diplomatic circuits. When considering the territorial dispute, relating the problem to the time and space as well as assessing the necessity and proportionality of the measures contemplated or taken is of the decisive meaning.

4. Here, I will consider the case of the Crimea, a Ukrainian semi-island, which was annexed by the Russian Federation in the year 2014, with the use of armed forces and under the protest of the State of Ukraine.