Resolved: The West should recognize Crimea as under Russian Sovereignty

A note to everyone reading this debate: I forfeited the penultimate round, as I thought I had enough time to submit it. My mistake! You may award conduct points to Pro for this, and I will hope to catch up to him through the other points. Anyway, BraxtonC has kindly allowed me to copy-paste my Round 4 text into the last round. We will have to skip the final/summation round. See comments for further information.Let's start with Pro's constructive case.Justification 1: DemographicsIn Round 2 my opponent put forward the idea that due to the fact that Crimea's population is mostly Russian, that makes the recognition of Crimea as a territory of Russia justified.In Round 3 I rebutted this claim, showing that demographics should not decide which country a region should belong to. I gave the example of an Estonian country of Ida-Viru with a majority Russian population, and I tried to think of a hypothetical scenario where Russia would annex that region, induce a secessionist movement and claim sovereignty over it. I showed that giving this region to Russia would be hardly justified due to the breach of International Law, even if Estonia was not part of NATO.In Round 4 Pro explains that Justification 1 argues that representative democracy should be the force for border change, not demographics. However, there is no mention of the Crimean Parliament or any democratic action in Justification 1, such as voting. The Justification rests solely on demographics, i.e. the ratio of Russians to non-Russians. Thus, my Round 3 example is relevant and my opponent failed to answer it.Justification 2: Representative democracyIn Round 2 my opponent brought up a 2014 Gallup poll, which found that 82.8% of Crimeans supported succession and annexation by Russia. Moreover, he claimed that the Crimean parliament, elected by Crimeans, supported the succession.In Round 3 I showed why this Justification was inadequate. I showed that the poll involved only 500 Crimeans, which is not nearly enough to make generalizations about the whole Crimean population. I told my opponent that only a full-scale referendum would show the true opinion. Furthermore, I rebutted my opponent's claim about the Crimean Parliament. While he said that it was a legal, elected form of government, I showed that this is not the case. The Crimean Parliament was instated by the Russian Government after the annexation of Crimea. It is not legitimate, for it was not elected. Thus, it cannot be an example of representative democracy.In Round 4 my opponent says that there were many other polls with similar conclusions. However, he did not provide any concrete examples for me to analyse. Therefore, this statement can be ignored. He also mentioned that a referendum did take place, and that it was conducted by the Crimean Parliament, not Russia. I must once again reiterate the fact that the Crimean Parliament was instated by Russia after the annexation of Crimea. It was not by the will of the Crimeans, nor Ukraine to instate such a Parliament. The Crimean Parliament consisted of many people that were put there by the Russian Government, and thus fully and unconditionally supported it. [1] The resulting referendum was thus illegitimate, but even if it were a legitimately initiated referendum, its poor wording would render it useless and void. [2] The bottom line is, all actions following the annexation of Crimea were illegitimate, forced by Russia's Government through military action, and did not contain even the slightest grain of democracy or legitimacy. [3]Justification 3: Regional ConflictIn Round 2 my opponent claimed that there were no egregious human rights abuses within Crimea, committed by the Russian government, that would warrant a military or diplomatic intervention.In Round 3 I gave an example of human rights violations within Crimea, conducted by the Russian military. I argued that these atrocities justify the Western skepticism regarding Russia, and Russia is in no way a country that should be given Ukrainian territory.In Round 4 my opponent claims that Crimea was a legitimate, independent state, recognized by several nations globally. This is a completely misleading statement. As I have shown during this debate, Russian actions within Crimea was the force that initiated and conducted the secessionist movement. It was not a democratic action by any definition of the word. Moreover, this "international recognition" that my opponent mentions involves Russian non-UN puppet states or countries with pro-Russian interests, such as Cuba, North Korea or Syria. [4] Moreover, my opponent ignored the fact that the absolute majority of UN members do not recognize Crimea as a Russian territory. [5] Thus, Crimean annexation remains a breach of International Law.Justification 4: Human LifePro asserts in Round 2 that by not recognizing Crimea as a Russian territory, the West allows the atrocities in Ukraine to continue.In Round 3 I showed that this is not the case, because we have no reason to believe that these atrocities would stop. I showed that Russia is a malignant country that ignores any territorial rights of Ukraine and that there is no reason to reward such behaviour.In Round 4 my opponent says that human right violations are not sufficient, and that the West such nevertheless support Crimea recognition as part of Russia. He thus dropped most of my points and even brought up red herrings and tu quoque fallacies about war crimes conducted by NATO and the U.S. I see no reason to respond to these, as these are not the scope of the debate.My own caseIn round 2 I brought up 3 main arguments why Crimea should remain part of Ukraine.Argument A discussed International Law, and the necessity for bilateral agreements, Argument B discussed Russian breaches of various agreements and International Law, and Argument C discussed Russia's aggressive and expansionist behaviour.In Round 3 my opponent dropped most of my concerns regarding International Law and Bilateral agreements. He discussed the supposedly democratic Crimean Parliament and voting, which I have shown to be utterly false, as it is illegitimate.My opponent's insistence that the Ukrainian-Russian conflict should be treated separately from the Crimean conflict is unsubstantiated, because both of these involve the same aggressor - Russia. The fact that Russia breaks multiple laws makes Russia untrustable and it should not be rewarded. My opponent also failed to discuss my important points, such as the 1994 memorandum.My opponent says that my third argument is not good enough, since NATO is already balanced with Russia. But he completely ignores that Crimea is an important strategic region, giving military access to the Black Sea region. This is thus invalid point, as giving Crimea to Russia would harm the NATO-Russia military balance.This concludes the debate. I'd like to thank my opponent for instigating this - it's definitely a very interesting topic. Thanks for reading!Sources:[1] http://edition.cnn.com...[2] http://www.aljazeera.com...[3] https://www.gov.uk...[4] https://en.wikipedia.org...[5] https://www.scribd.com...