I have been mulling over the EU-sponsored Report on the Georgia/Russia conflict which, being a very European document, spreads blame around with great punctilitude. An interesting yarn.

This remarkable passage caught my eye:

… international law does not recognise a right to unilaterally create a new state based on the principle of self-determination outside the colonial context and apartheid. An extraordinary acceptance to secede under extreme conditions such as genocide has so far not found general acceptance.

As will be shown later, in the case of the conflict in August 2008 and the ensuing recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Mission has found that genocide did not take place. Furthermore, much of international state practice and the explicit views of major powers such as Russia in the Kosovo case stand against it.

This applies also to a process of dismemberment of a state, as might be discussed with regard to Georgia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. According to the overwhelmingly accepted uti possidetis principle, only former constituent republics such as Georgia but not territorial sub-units such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia are granted independence in case of dismemberment of a larger entity such as the former Soviet Union.

Hence, South Ossetia did not have a right to secede from Georgia, and the same holds true for Abkhazia for much of the same reasons. Recognition of breakaway entities such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia by a third country is consequently contrary to international law in terms of an unlawful interference in the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the affected country, which is Georgia.

This robust proposition would appear to put a huge dent in the recognition by most EU countries of Kosovo.

There is an argument that within former Yugoslavia Kosovo was not a ‘territorial sub-unit’ of Serbia but instead a full constituent element as (for example) the Kosovo President was part of the eight-man collective Presidency. But the fact remains that we did all treat Kosovo as ‘part of Serbia’ and not something separate from it – that was the core of the problem!

That’s the deep trouble with all these vexed international issues. No-one agrees what exactly they are all about.