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Questions and Answers: Russia, Ukraine, and International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law
Questions and Answers: Russia, Ukraine, and International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law
Since late February 2014, armed personnel in uniforms without insignia but increasingly identified as members of the Russian Federation’s security forces have been asserting their authority in Ukraine’s Crimea region. As of 2013, approximately 13,000 Russian naval personnel were based in Crimea under the 1997 Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet....Additional units transported from Russia have taken part in security operations on behalf of Crimea’s local authorities. Russian armed personnel and pro-Russian militias in Crimea have prevented Ukrainian armed forces from leaving their bases, taken control over strategic facilities such as a natural gas terminal in Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, and taken steps to secure Crimea’s administrative borders with the rest of Ukraine.
On March 16, Crimea’s local authorities held a referendum on whether Crimea should secede from Ukraine to join the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian government opposed the referendum, saying it was illegal. After local authorities announced on March 17 that 97 percent of the population had voted to join Russia, President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state. On March 18, Putin and Crimea’s leadership signed agreements making Crimea and the city of Sevastopol part of the Russian Federation. Putin asked Russia’s parliament to adopt a law accepting the new regions as parts of the Russian Federation.
Human Rights Watch is of the view that the international law of occupation applies to Russian forces in Crimea. Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power has an obligation to restore and ensure public order and safety as far as possible while respecting, unless absolutely prevented from doing so, the occupied country’s laws in force. International human rights law also remains applicable to situations amounting to occupation. The occupying party is ultimately responsible for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by local authorities or proxy forces.
<...>
The specific standards for determining when an occupation begins are not set out in the Geneva Conventions, but certain criteria have been recognizedby international humanitarian law experts. These include:
1. Presence of foreign forces;
2. Exercise of authority (“effective control”) over the territory considered occupied;
3. Nonconsensual nature of belligerent occupation from the state whose territory is occupied;
4. Indirect control enforced through de facto control over local authoritiesor other controlling group.
These criteria have been met. Since late February, so-called Crimean self-defense forces accompanied by fully armed and well-equipped security force personnel without insignia have taken over and controlled administrative buildings and military bases across Crimea. While both Crimean and Russian authorities denied that these forces were Russian, at least some of these units Human Rights Watch saw in Crimea were clearly identified as Russian. Many journalists as well as Human Rights Watch have seen, in plain sight, military trucks with Russian (Moscow region) license plates and military vehicles and other equipment that Ukrainian forces are not known to have, such as the advanced, all-terraininfantry mobility vehicle“Tigr” (tiger).
- more -
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/21/questions-and-answers-russia-ukraine-and-international-humanitarian-and-human-righ-0
Since late February 2014, armed personnel in uniforms without insignia but increasingly identified as members of the Russian Federation’s security forces have been asserting their authority in Ukraine’s Crimea region. As of 2013, approximately 13,000 Russian naval personnel were based in Crimea under the 1997 Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet....Additional units transported from Russia have taken part in security operations on behalf of Crimea’s local authorities. Russian armed personnel and pro-Russian militias in Crimea have prevented Ukrainian armed forces from leaving their bases, taken control over strategic facilities such as a natural gas terminal in Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, and taken steps to secure Crimea’s administrative borders with the rest of Ukraine.
On March 16, Crimea’s local authorities held a referendum on whether Crimea should secede from Ukraine to join the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian government opposed the referendum, saying it was illegal. After local authorities announced on March 17 that 97 percent of the population had voted to join Russia, President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state. On March 18, Putin and Crimea’s leadership signed agreements making Crimea and the city of Sevastopol part of the Russian Federation. Putin asked Russia’s parliament to adopt a law accepting the new regions as parts of the Russian Federation.
Human Rights Watch is of the view that the international law of occupation applies to Russian forces in Crimea. Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power has an obligation to restore and ensure public order and safety as far as possible while respecting, unless absolutely prevented from doing so, the occupied country’s laws in force. International human rights law also remains applicable to situations amounting to occupation. The occupying party is ultimately responsible for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed by local authorities or proxy forces.
<...>
The specific standards for determining when an occupation begins are not set out in the Geneva Conventions, but certain criteria have been recognizedby international humanitarian law experts. These include:
1. Presence of foreign forces;
2. Exercise of authority (“effective control”) over the territory considered occupied;
3. Nonconsensual nature of belligerent occupation from the state whose territory is occupied;
4. Indirect control enforced through de facto control over local authoritiesor other controlling group.
These criteria have been met. Since late February, so-called Crimean self-defense forces accompanied by fully armed and well-equipped security force personnel without insignia have taken over and controlled administrative buildings and military bases across Crimea. While both Crimean and Russian authorities denied that these forces were Russian, at least some of these units Human Rights Watch saw in Crimea were clearly identified as Russian. Many journalists as well as Human Rights Watch have seen, in plain sight, military trucks with Russian (Moscow region) license plates and military vehicles and other equipment that Ukrainian forces are not known to have, such as the advanced, all-terraininfantry mobility vehicle“Tigr” (tiger).
- more -
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/21/questions-and-answers-russia-ukraine-and-international-humanitarian-and-human-righ-0
Putin's Own Historical Injustice
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024697593
8 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
