welcome back from the break I turn now to the fundamental rights of States these Exist by virtue of the international legal order which is able as in the case of other legal orders to define the characteristics of its subjects perhaps the outstanding characteristic of a state is its independence or sovereignty this was defined in the draft Declaration on the rights and duties of States prepared in 1949 by the international law commission as the capacity of a state to provide for its own well-being and development free from the domination of other states providing it does not
impair or violate their legitimate rights by Independence one is referring to a legal concept and it is no deviation from Independence to be subject to the rules of international law any political or economic dependence that may in reality exist does not affect the legal Independence of the state unless that state is formally compelled to submit to the demands of a Superior State in which case depending status is concerned a discussion on the meaning and nature of Independence took place in the Ostro German Customs Union case before the permanent Court of international Justice in 1931 it
concerned a proposal to create a free trade Customs Union between the two german-speaking states and whether this was incompatible with the 199 peace treaties coupled with a subsequent protocol of 1922 pledging Austria to take no action to compromise its independence in the event and in the circumstances of the case the Court held that the proposed Union would adversely affect Austria's sovereignty judge an salotti noted that restrictions upon a state's Liberty whether arising out of customary law or treaty obligations do not ass such affect its independence as long as it as as long as such restrictions
do not place the state under the legal authority of another state the former maintains its status as an independent country the permanent Court emphasized in the Lotus case in 1927 that restrictions upon the independence of States cannot therefore be presumed similar point in rather different circumstances was made by the international court of justice in the n kaga case of 1986 where it was stated that in international law there are no rules other than such rules as may be accepted by the state concerned by treaty or otherwise were by the level of armaments of a sovereign
state can be limited and this principle is valid for all states without exception the starting point for the consideration of the rights and obligations of States within the international legal system system remains that international law permits freedom of action for States unless there is a rule constraining this however such Freedom exists within and not outside the international legal system and it is therefore international law W which dictates the scope and content of the independence of states and not the states themselves individually and unilaterally the notion of Independence in international law implies a number of Rights
and duties for example the right of a state to exercise jurisdiction over its territory in permanent population or the right to engage upon the act of self-defense in certain situations it implies also the duty not to intervene in the internal affairs of other sovereign states precisely what constitutes the internal affairs of a state is open to dispute is it and is it in any event a constantly changing standard it was maintained by the Western powers for many years that any discussion or action by the UN with regard to their colonial possessions was contrary to international
law however this argument by the European Colonial Powers did not succeed and the United Nations examined many Colonial situations in addition issues related to Human Rights and racial oppression do not now fall within the closed category of domestic jurisdiction this Duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any state was included in the Declaration on principles of international law concerning friendly relations adopted in October 1970 by the UN General Assembly it was emphasized that no state or group of states has the right to intervene directly or indirectly for any reason whatever in
the internal or external Affairs of any other state consequently armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the state or against its political economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law the prohibition also covers any assistance or Aid to subversive elements aiming at the the violent overthrow of the government of a state in particular the use of force to deprive peoples of the national identity amounts to a violation of the principle of non-intervention the principles surrounding sovereignty such as non-intervention are essential in the maintenance of a
reasonably stable system of competing states setting limits on the powers of States Visa other states contributes to some extent to a degree of stability within the legal order as the international court of justice pointed out in the coru channel case in 1949 between independent states respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential Foundation of international relations by a similar token a state cannot purport to enforce its laws in the territory of another state without the consent of the state concerned however international law would seem to permit in some circumstances the state to continue to exercise its
jurisdiction not withstanding the ille illegality of the apprehension an example being here the akman trial in Israel following his cesia in Argentina in 1960 it also follows that the presence of forign troops on the territory of a sovereign state requires the clear consent of that state one other crucial principle is the legal equality of states that is equality of legal rights and duties States irrespective of size or power have the same juridical capacities and functions and are likewise entitled for example to one vote in the US General Assembly the doctrine of the legal equality of
States is an umbrella category for it includes within its scope the recognized rights and obligations which fall upon all states this was recognized in the 1970 Declaration on principles of international law this provides that all states enjoy Sovereign equality they have equal rights and duties and are equal members of the International Community not withstanding differences of an economic social political or other nature in particular Sovereign equality includes the following elements states are juridically equal each state enjoys the rights inherent in full sovereignty each state has the duty to respect the personality of other states the
territorial integrity and political Independence of the state are inviable each state has the right freely to choose and develop its political social economic and cultural systems each state has the duty to comply fully and in good faith with its International obligations and to live in peace with other states in many respects this doctrine of the equality of States owes its or to natural law thinking just as equality was regarded as the essence of the human being and thus contributed philosophically to the foundation of the state so naturalist Scholars treated equality as the natural condition of
states with the rise in positivism the emphasis altered and rather than postulating a general rule applicable to all and from which a series of Rights and duties may be be deduced International lawyers concentrated rather upon the sovereignty of each and every state and the necessity that international law be founded upon the consent of states the notion of equality before the law is accepted by states in the sense of equality of legal personality and capacity however it would not be strictly accurate to talk in terms of the equality of states in creating law the major States
will always have an influence commensurate with their status if only because their concerns are much wider their interests much deeper their power more effective within the general assembly of the UN the doctrine of equality is main maintained by the rule of one state one vote however one should not Overlook the existence of the V veto possessed by the five permanent members of the security Council the US the UK Russia China and France there exist a number of territorial entities whose status as States is controversial and cannot be seen at the moment as internationally accepted I
shall briefly look at some of these Taiwan was seeded by China to Japan in 1895 by the Treaty of shimonoseki and remained in the latter's hands until 1945 Japan undertook on surrender not to retain sovereignty over the island of Taiwan and this was reaffirmed under the peace treaty of 1951 between the Allied powers and Japan but not the USSR and China under which All rights to the island were renounced without without specifying any recipient after the Chinese Civil War the Communist forces took over the mainland while the Nationalist regime installed itself on Taiwan known then
as Formosa and the pescadors a series of violence both the US and the UK took the view at that stage that sovereignty over Taiwan was uncertain or undetermined the key Point affecting status has been that both governments claim to represent the whole of China no claim of separate statehood for Taiwan has been made and in such a case it is difficult to maintain that such an unsort status actually exists total lack of recognition of Taiwan as a separate independent state merely reinforces this point in 197 9 the US recognized the People's Republic of China as
the sole and legitimate government of China accordingly Taiwan would appear to be a non-state territorial entity which is capable of acting independently on the international scene in 1974 following a coup in Cyprus backed by the military r regime in Greece Turkish forces invaded the island the security Council in resolution 353 of 1974 called upon all states to respect the sovereignty Independence and territorial Integrity of C Cyprus and demanded an immediate end to foreign military intervention on the 15th of November 1983 the Turkish cypriots proclaimed their Independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus this was
declared illegal by the security Council in resolution 541 of 1983 and its withdrawal called for all states were requested not to recognize the purported state or assist it in any way this was re reiterated in Security Council resolution 550 the following year the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided that it continued to regard the government of the Republic of Cyprus as the sole legitimate government of Cyprus and called for respect for the independence and territorial Integrity of Cyprus this was underlined by the European Court of human rights in its Judgment of the
10th of May 2001 in Cyprus V turkey in the like of this and the very heavy dependence of the territory upon turkey it cannot be regarded as a sovereign state it remains as a de facto administered entity within the recognized confines of the Republic of Cyprus and wholly dependent upon Turkish assistance following a period of un Administration authorized by Security Council resolution 1244 of 1999 the Yugoslav lat up Serbian province of Kosovo declared its independence on the 17th of February 2008 this had been preceded by the comprehensive proposal for the Kosovo status settlement formulated by
Mar arari which had in March 2007 called her independence for Kosovo with IND with International supervision this was rejected by Serbia the International Community was divided as to the question of recognition of kosovo's Independence it was recognized swiftly by the US the UK Germany and the majority of EU States Japan and others Russia and Serbia on the other hand May declare that they opposed recognition as did Spain and Greece accordingly in the current circumstances while many countries do recognize Kosovo many do not and entry into the UN is not possible until for example Russia is
prepared to lift its opposition in view of its feto power the international court of justice in its advisory opinion on the accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of Independence in respect of Kosovo although faced with wide ranging arguments as to that entity and the criteria of statehood confined itself to a very narrow interpretation of the issue and found that the Declaration of Independence is itself and as such was not contrary to international law at the moment Kosovo is as of spring 2022 recognized as a state by 109 States however this excludes some key
members of the International Community thus the question as to the status of Kosovo as a sovereign state is still for the moment to some extent open the Palestine Liberation Organization the PLO was permitted by the security Council from 1972 to participate in its debates with the same rights of participation as conferred upon a member State not a member of the council th although this was highly controversial in 1974 the general assembly invited the PLO to participate as an observer in December 1988 the generally the general assembly decided that the designation Palestine should be used in
place of the designation Palestine Liberation Organization in the UN system this followed a declaration of statehood made by the PLO the position of the PLO however began to evolve considerably with the Israel PLO Declaration of principles on interim self-government Arrangements signed in Washington on the 13th of September 1993 by virtue of this declaration the Poo was accepted as representing the Palestinian people and an elected Council for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza occupied by Israel since 1967 was established for a transitional period for up to 5 years leading to a permanent solution
its jurisdiction was to cover the territory of the West Bank and Gaza say for issues to be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations upon the entry into force of the Declaration a transfer of authority was to commence from the Israeli military government and its civil Administration the Cairo agreement of the 4th of May 1994 provided for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Jericho and the Gaza Strip and the transfer of authority to a separately established Palestinian auth Authority this Authority distinct from the PLO it should be emphasized was to have certain specified legislative executive
and judicial powers this process continued with a transfer of further powers and responsibilities in a protocol of the 27th of August 1995 and with the interim agreement on the West Bank of Gaza on 28th of September 1985 under which an additional range of powers and responsibilities was transferred to the Palestinian Authority pending the election of the council and Arrangements were made for Israeli withdrawal for a number of cities and villages on the West Bank an accord concerning Hebron followed in 1997 and the W River agreement in 1998 both making further Israeli redeployments while the Shamel
Shake memorandum and a later protocol of 1999 concerned safe passage ARR Arrangements between the Palestinian Authority areas uh of Gaza and the West Bank the increase in the Territorial and jurisdictional competence of the Palestinian Authority established as a consequence of these Arrangements raises the question of legal personality while Palestinian statehood was clearly not a accepted by the International Community the Palestinian Authority could be regarded as as possessing some form of limited International personality such personality however derived from the agreements between Israel and the PLO and existed separately from the personality of the PLO as a
National Liberation movement which had relied upon the recognition of third parties since neither side has to date denounced the Oslo Accords and succeeding instruments they remain in force however on the 22nd of January 2009 the Palestinian Authority purported to accept the jurisdiction of the international criminal court such jurisdiction being limited under the Court's statute to States after extensive argument the prosecutor of the Court made a decision on the 3rd of April 2012 refusing the request on the basis essentially the Palestine was not a state in the eyes of the UN on the 23rd of September
2011 the Palestinian Authority applied to become a member of the UN but this did not succeed due to deep divisions and the existence of the veto power in the security Council whose approval is required for membership in November 19 in November 2012 the general assembly voted to Accord Palestine the status of non-member Observer State Palestine became a party to the Rome statute on the 1st of April 2015 on the 16th of January 2016 the prosecutor opened a preliminary examination of the situation in Palestine and on the 22nd of May 2018 Palestine further referred the situation
to the prosecutor the prosecutor concluded that there was a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation but in view of the complexity of the situation sought an opinion from the pre-trial chamber as to whether the Court's territorial jurisdiction includ included the occupied Palestinian territory that is the West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza the chamber concluded that it did accordingly the investigation proceeded a number of states recognized Palestine as an independent state and Palestine has joined a number of international organizations and become a party to a number of international treaties however the matter remains controversial due
to the divisions within the International Community and the continuing application of the Oslo Accords as well as the efforts to seek a peace agreement are founded upon the acceptance of two states Israel and Palestine within the boundaries of the former mandated Palestine there remain a number of other entities unrecognized as States but into the effective control of local forces such as parts of nagoro kabak abazia and South Atia transnistria and Western Sahara to which one can add Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine thank you
