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I. GIVIASVILI, INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASSESSMENT OF THE RECENT STEPTS TAKEN BY THE RUSSIAN...
sian Federation is a permanent member of the
Council, and thus, its affirmative vote is also
required for taking a decision, reaching the
tengable result is unrealistic.
3.5 The Internaitonal Court of
Justice (ICJ)
Georgia may apply to the International
Court of Justice claiming the violation of the
Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and
request the Russian Federation to be a respondent
party to a case. However, the Russian
Federation does not belong to the group
of States, which have recognized automatic
jurisdiction of the ICY under Art. 36 of the ICY
Statute. Based on this there is a need that the
Russian Federation recognizes the jurisdiction
of the ICY in relation to any given case in order
for the ICY to exercise its jurisdiction.
It must be mentioned that the Advisory
Opinion of the ICY, which can be requested
by the General Assembly or the Security Council,
may be sought. A written request shall be
submitted to the ICY to that end. Hawever The
Advisory Opinion does not have a legally binding
force.
3.6 International Criminal Court (ICC)
The 1998 Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court 17 represents an international
legal mechanism, which the international community
shall employ for bringing to justice perpetrators
of the crimes. Georgia, after signing
the Statute, ratified it and thus is a State-
Party to it. According to the Article 12 of the
Statute, a State which becomes a Party to the
Statute thereby accepts the jurisdiction of the
Court with respect to the following most serious
crimes: a) Genocide, b) Crimes against
humanity, c) War crimes, d) the crime of aggression.
The Russian Federation has also
signed the Statute, however it has not ratified
the document yet. In accordance with the Article
18 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the
Law of Treaties, a State is obliged to refrain
from acts which would defeat the object and
purpose of a treaty when it has signed the
treaty, but not ratified it.
Georgia may claim that the Russian Federation
violated Article 18 of the Vienna Convention.
4. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL CONSEQUENCES
DERIVING FROM THE RECOGNITION OF
KOSOVO FOR GEORGIA
A number of international commentators
have lately evaluated the recognition of Kosovo
as a creation of the precedent establishing the
superiority of the principle of self-determination
over the principle of the territorial integrity
of a State. It was also suggested that the
recognition of Kosovo would have involved the
same approach with regard to other unrecognized
subjects throughout the world and a new
reality would have emerged resulting in the
devaluing the principle of territorial integrity.
Respectively, in order to assess the validity
of such opinions, international legal assessment
shall be made with regard to the threats
for Georgia stemming from the recognition of
Kosovo.
Kosovo has for years been a topic of political
confrontation between the Government
of Serbia and ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo.
In 1999 the United Nations Security Council
adopted the Resolution 1244. 18 The Resolution
establishes the temporary presence of
the United Nations and regulates the administration
by the international civil and security
presence. Starting from 1999, based on the
mentioned Resolution, Kosovo is administered
by the interim UN Administration in Kosovo
(hereinafter – UNMIK).
In 2001, based on the Resolution 1244
the UNMIK created Constitutional Framework
for Kosovo, based on which the provisional
institutes of self-government (PISG), including
the elective assembly, as well as the posts
of the President and the Prime Minister, established.
Based on the very same Resolution,
the United Nations assisted in interim administration
of Kosovo by the peace-keeping so
called Kosovo Forces (KFOR) operating under
the NATO aegis. It must be underlined that
the Resolution 1244 recognizes the territorial
integrity and sovereignty of then still Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (whose successor state
is considered to be Serbia). Despite the fact
that the Resolution 1244 does not recognize
independence of Kosovo, it does not grant any
role to Serbia in Kosovo administration. Imprimis
it must be stated that declaring that the
very recognition of Kosovo will bring about the
new reality and this will confirm the fact that
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