From Kosovo to Crimea and Beyond: On Territorial Integrity, Unilateral Secession and Legal Neutrality in International Law
Journal: International Journal on Minority and Group Rights
Year: 2015

In the aftermath of the Ukrainian Revolution, Ukraine’s autonomous region of Crimea declared independence and filed an application to subsequently join the Russian Federation. In seeking to justify these acts, both the Crimean authorities and the Russian Federation referred to international law, including the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence. In this Advisory Opinion, the Court indeed found that the principle of territorial inte