Legal norms or ad hoc fixes? International legal aspects of Russian military involvement in conflict settlements in the Caucasus

Caucasus Survey. 2020. Vol. 8. No. 2. P. 163–178.

Nikitin A.

This article provides a comparative analysis of the legal grounds for the deployment of the Russian Armed Forces in a series of conflicts in the Caucasus, namely in the disengagement between North Ossetia and Ingushetia (1992–1994), South Ossetia and Georgia (1992–2008), Abkhazia and Georgia (1994–2008), and the Russian-Georgian War of 2008. The difficulties of justifying certain actions from the point of view of international law are detailed. Cases where Russia’s actions have been legitimized by securing mandate from a regional intergovernmental organization are differentiated from cases where it has acted on the basis of intergovernmental agreements on military assistance, as well as from the application in certain cases of Article 51 (“the right of individual or collective self-defense”) of the UN Charter. The legitimacy or illegitimacy of the deployment of the Russian Armed Forces abroad is considered in the context of a series of cases where force has been used in conflicts by coalitions under a UN mandate, as well as by NATO and some Western powers. 

Keywords: CIS, UN Charter, peacekeeping, humanitarian interventions