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The resolution “Territorial Integrity of Ukraine: Defending the Principles of the Charter of the United Nations” was adopted by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on October 12, 2022, with 143 UN member states in favor, five against, thirty-five abstentions, and ten not voting. It is another important UNGA resolution on Ukraine, after the UNGA qualified as aggression Russia's invasion of Ukraine since February 24, 2022 in its resolution of 2 March 2022. That resolution had 141 states voting in favor, thus a slight increase in votes supporting Ukraine's rights under international law can be seen in the resolution at issue.

This article introduces the Baltic Yearbook of International Law volume on the Estonian tradition of international law. It interprets the comparative and translational role of the Estonian tradition of international law as a Western borderland physically close to Russia, and thematises this argument through historical examples going back several centuries. Topics discussed include the role of historical figures such as Olaus Hermelin, the 19th century legal positivists in international law, and the founders of the German Ostrecht tradition. The article also examines key Estonian positions in international law such as the role of international law in the UN, international law in cyber conflicts and other issues. One of the conclusions is that international law is an existentially important matter for small States such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

This article explores the colonialist legacy of the Russian international lawyer F.F. Martens (1845-1909) who is well known to contemporary international lawyers in particular thanks to the Martens Clause. The article highlights Martens’s activities legitimizing the Congo Free State, his publicist activity at the Revue de droit international et de legislation comparée and his quasi-legislative efforts at the Institut de Droit International, all emanating from his strong support to the distinction between civilized and uncivilized peoples in international law during the colonial era. The main argument in the article is that the colonialist part of the legacy of Martens has been downplayed for the purposes of celebratory myths of origin of international (humanitarian) law, but that this part of his legacy deserves to be remembered as well.

This Current Development Essay discusses the international legal implications of constitutional amendments adopted in the Russian Federation by an “all-Russian vote,” a quasi-referendum from June 25 to July 1, 2020. The most important of these amendments gives the Russian Constitution priority over decisions made by international courts and treaty bodies. The amendments also address Russia's state succession to the Soviet Union. Another provision protects Russia's territorial integrity. The Essay discusses the background to these amendments, their content, and their significance for international law.

This paper examines the content of Part III, Section XIV of the Versailles Peace Treaty which dealt with Russia and ‘the Russian States', i. e. States that in 1919 were in the process of secession from Russia. The obvious link between the Versailles Peace Treaty and the earlier German-Soviet Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918 is illuminated as far as sovereignty in Eastern Europe is concerned. Moreover, the often less discussed nexus between the Versailles Peace Treaty's Section XIV and the German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols of 1939 is examined. If the Versailles Peace Treaty was the anti-Brest-Litovsk Treaty, then the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the anti-Versailles Treaty in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, sovereignty in Eastern Europe as we know it after 1989 and 1991 was to an important extent shaped at Versailles in 1919 which is a continuing legacy of the Versailles Peace Treaty.

While during the Soviet period differences in Russia’s concept of international law compared to the West were explained by Marxism-Leninism, in the post-Soviet period and at least during the later Putin era, civilizational differences have been referred to as the decisive factor. This contribution explores the idea that the main feature of the concept of international law in Russia is its imperial legacy—the need to protect the territorial integrity of the largest territorial state on Earth and a certain skepticism about the impact of human rights which might have a disruptive potential for the Empire. Imperial thinking also indicates that states that have seceded from the former (Tsarist) Empire might need to have a special (legal and political) relationship with the imperial center.

The aim of this article is to explore the theory and practice of the Soviet position on the right of peoples to self-determination in 1917 and afterwards. It is a misunderstanding to mention Lenin’s (the Bolsheviks’) and Wilson’s concepts of self-determination in one breath, as ‘precursors’ in international law. The Soviet concept of the right of peoples to self-determination was adopted for tactical and propagandistic purposes, and it had little in common with the liberal democratic concept of this right that saw the right of peoples to self-determination as an end in itself. The real contribution of the Russian Bolsheviks to the history of international law has, to some extent, been overlooked. Throughout the 20th century, the West and the ussr had different regional standards and usages of the right of peoples to self-determination, thus presenting a continuous challenge to the idea of the universality of international law.

Russlands Völkerrechtsverständnis ist paradox: Die Regierung spricht viel über die Bedeutung völkerrechtlicher Normen, wird jedoch in Ländern wie der Ukraine und Georgien als Verletzter ebendieser Normen wahrgenommen. Russlands Völkerrechtsverständnis ist durch einige Besonderheiten gekennzeichnet, die einerseits auf die Geschichte des Landes als Großmacht, andererseits auf die relative Schwäche des öffentlichen Rechts als Einhegungsinstrument der Exekutive zurückzuführen sind. In diesem Beitrag werden einige Aspekte diskutiert, die Russlands heutige Einstellung zum Völkerrecht erklären könnten.

This chapter examines how international lawyers arrived in 1920 at the codification of Article 38 in the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ, later ICJ). The codification is explained as a victory of legal positivist ideas over natural law concepts. An overview of the positions defended in the late nineteenth-century literature of international law demonstrates that the codification largely reflected predominant ideas in the European tradition of international law. Here, legal positivism had undertaken a quite successful attack against natural law. Thus, when comparing the predominant views on sources of international law in the nineteenth century and in the twenty-first century, the differences in the practice of international law must be kept in mind.

In her comparative study on the use of case law in international law textbooks, Anthea Roberts demonstrates a number of structural differences between textbooks in different countries. This chapter further explores the Russian situation and asks whether Roberts’s comparative findings regarding Russian international law textbooks reflect the dominant approach in Russian international law scholarship, and whether they also reflect a distinct approach in Russian state practice. It then discusses what might explain both Russian scholarly and governmental approaches and, finally, what international lawyers can learn from this practice in the context of comparative international law. Cautiousness about case law and international courts has historically been characteristic of the Russian approach to international law. The main method used in this chapter is a historical one, because only the history of international law and its ideas can teach us how concrete legal-political circumstances in a country have come into being.

This introductory article opens the symposium which examines the legacy of the Russian international lawyer Friedrich Fromhold von (or Fyodor Fyodorovich) Martens (1845-1909). In the first section, the article critically reviews previous research and literature on Martens and discusses the importance of the Martens diaries that are preserved in a Moscow archive. In the second section, the article offers an intellectual portrait of Martens and analyses the main elements in his international legal theory as expressed in his textbook. In particular, his claim that international law was applicable only between "civilized states" is illuminated and discussed.

This chapter argues that the concept of ‘civilization’ may be a useful analytical lens to look through for making sense of international legal theory outside the West. Specifically, it focuses on international legal theory in Russia and in the Russian language, broadly sketching an international legal theory in the country from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Throughout the last few centuries, other non-Western civilizations have struggled with the predominance of the West, and have related and referred to it one way or another. Therefore, this dialogue — and often contest — of civilizations and the ways they have been constructed by political leaders and intellectuals has left its marks on international legal theory as well. For one reason or another, but perhaps also for reasons of cultures, histories, and civilizations differing from each other, scholars outside the West such as in Russia tend to put different emphases in terms of how they construct international law.

European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber judgment on gender discrimination concerning parental leave for military personnel

This chapter provides concluding observations for this book, which focuses on three different aspects of Russia's recent interaction with European human-rights law: progress, tensions, and perspectives. The book is dialogical only with respect to other authors who have written in the Russian language. The ECtHR has been quite reluctant to apply the margin-of-appreciation doctrine vis-a-vis Russia. Perhaps the margins of the margin-of-appreciation doctrine in Strasbourg are determined by the necessity not to undermine the system as such, which would happen if the understanding emerged that Strasbourg was not bold and 'tough' on a country such as Russia. European human-rights law is a striking example of regional international law. How far this regional international law reaches, geographically and mentally, is important. Keywords: European human-rights law; margin-of-appreciation doctrine; Russia

This review essay examines the main breaks and continuities in the history of international legal theory in Russia. In particular, it draws on works by leading Russian international law scholars: Peter Pavlovich Shafirov (1670-1739), Fyodor Fyodorovich Martens (1845-1909), Baron Mikhail Taube (1869-1956), Vladimir Emmanuilovich Hrabar (1865-1956), Fyodor Ivanovich Kozhevnikov (1893-1998) and Grigori Ivanovich Tunkin (1906-1993). The reception of these theoreticians’ works in today's Russia is also examined. The history of the discipline in Russia opens itself up as a civilizational dialogue with (Western) Europe. The main questions have been: Is international law universal or fragmented; what is the progressive force in international law? The Russian theory of international law has moved from proving that ‘we too are civilized/European’ in the early 18th century to an aspiration towards Western European civilization in the 18th and 19th centuries to the break with the West and an affirmation of Russia's own distinctiveness and primacy in the 20th century. Those who hurriedly celebrated Russia's reunion with Europe (and Western liberal theory of international law) following the end of the Cold War should not lose sight of the longer historical perspective and especially the experiment of the ‘civilizing’/Europeanizing/liberalizing project in 19th century Russian and Baltic German international law scholarship.

I. Introductory Themes II. The History of International Legal Scholarship in Russia III. Theory of International Law in Contemporary Russia IV. Patterns of Post-Soviet Russian State Practice in International Law