Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Sovereign Power in the Crimean Peninsula: Approaches from International Relations and Law

Marking criteria
Content	50% (50-35 An excellent discussion of an issue in an example of interdisciplinary work. Of clear interest for stakeholders or students thinking of entering the field. )

Writing	10% (10-8 Excellent writing, with few to no grammatical errors or moments of awkward phrasing.)

Research and referencing 10% (10-8 Flawless or nearly flawless referencing, with an appropriate range, number and quality of works cited.)

Contribution 30% (30-23 Regular, thoughtful, precise and relevant contributions, which play an important role in the development of the project. A courteous and professional tone throughout. )

20/11/2020 set up group chat on WhatsApp as a platform of communication
We discussed and agreed on meeting time.

24/11/2020 First Group Meeting on Teams
We discussed our ideas.

Idea 1: Examine the cause of the Industrial Revolution from Economics and History. Narrow it down to the invention of the first spinning machine. Historians and economists have disagreements on why it happened in Britain and why it happened in the 17th century. Generally speaking, economists focus on the workers' wages, economic rents and incentives, while the historians tend to focus on the impacts of Science Revolution, Enlightenment, culture and institutions. -Britishshorthairlover

Idea 2 : Examine the power of international law and international relations in the Spratly Islands dispute

Idea 3 : Examine the truths in: Paganism/Archaeology

We agreed to choose the second idea and do more research after the meeting.

25/11/2020 A change of the topic
Britishshorthairlover had concerns over the established topic because she could not be neutral on this issue and proposed to change the topic.

After communication on WhatsApp, we decided to continue to write on another geopolitical conflict, but on a separate issue

07/12/2020 Second Group Meeting on Teams
We discussed which region to focus on and decided that we were going to look at the power in Crimea from the perspectives of law and international relations. We divided the workload.

Britishshorthairlover is researching into the topic from a legal perspective.

Thetribalborrower and Pacific23 will be looking at arguments within the discipline of international relations (primarily in the realist schools of thought).

We expect the tensions between the two disciplines to primarily be in the moral/normative sense, with law being more concerned with the moral basis of the law (principles of self-determination, for example) and realist IR thought being primarily, or only, concerned with self-interest; not making a moral judgment one way or the other, it is not immoral but amoral. However, we will do more research and reading to see how our understanding and arguments develop.

We are going to meet again two days later.

09/12/2020 Third Group Meeting on Teams
We discussed whether to change our title, which was proposed by Britishshorthairlover,and agreed that we changed our title into "The sovereign power in the Crimean peninsula: approaches from IR and Law"

We reconvened to review and comment on each other's contributions - paragraphs on law and IR.

Comments made included:

- The concept of self-determination brought up by Britishshorthairlover (especially about 'external self-determination') in the paragraph on law must be kept in mind and engaged with in the paragraph on IR. - A short explanation that the realist school of thought in IR is one of the dominant schools of thought - Reminder to keep in mind how the concept of 'power' plays into it - Word count may be an issue. We will first continue to write and see if we have to cut down on words later.

We decided to continue working on a synthesis, and maybe an introduction and conclusion, tomorrow. We will be using Google Docs to work together since not all of us are in London.

11/12/2020 Fourth Group Meeting on Teams
-We reviewed what was written so far, and charted the outline for the rest of our wikibooks chapter -We noted to take caution on word count as we were reaching close to the 1200 word limit -We split the rest of the work into 1) Britishshorthairlover : Tension between law and IR 2) Pacific23: provide criticism of the realist view of IR and discuss how being guided by purely self interest is not practical 3) Thetribalborrower: Analyzing Russia's justifications of its annexations of Crimea through a constructivist approach and examining Russia's claims that its actions are legal

13/12/2020 Fifth Group Meeting on Teams
-We discussed whether we needed to narrow down our topic, which was proposed by Britishshorthairlover in the General Discussion Page, and we reached an agreement that there was no need.

-We put our synthesis paragraphs together and made adjustments: Pacific23and Britishshorthairlover merged their paragraphs. The team felt that the paragraph initially tasked to Thetribalborrower was a standalone point and felt out of place in the synthesis. We hence decided that he should adjust his work and reframe it to the conclusion where it can be better discussed and sync with the rest of the essay.

-We went through the whole chapter and made it more concise to meet the word limit. We decided which content to remove.

-We arranged the rest of the work needed to be done.

-We discussed the citation.

14/12/20 Final Touches
After we each worked on our individual parts over Sunday and Monday morning, we put it all together in Wikibooks. With everything put together, Pacific23 and Thetribalborrower then made some final edits to improve the clarity of language and argumentation, formatting, and referencing.

Chapter done!

Structure
100-200 words: brief background of the issue and what we are going to explore 300-400 words: realist IR theories in the crimea context 300: international law 500-600: synthesis & conclusion

1. Realist school of IR: shows how russia acts as a result of its self-interest 2. Why international law is against the annexation (focus on moral basis behind laws, eg principles of self-determination) 3. Synthesis (provide criticism of the realist view of IR, how pure self interest is not really a useful basis by which to craft policy/practical standpoint; yet moralizing about ineffectual, unenforceable law is not useful either) 4. Russia using norm based constructivist theory of ir to justify how russia’s annexation of crimea abides by international law (demonstrates how even the law can be viewed from different perspectives and is not as clear as we think)

First Draft
Done by: Thetribalborrower The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014 after a referendum was conducted in Crimea. Crimea was then formally incorporated as two federal subjects of the Russian Federation. However, Ukraine and the majority of the international community still recognize Crimea as part of Ukraine and do not consider the annexation as legitimate.

We will be examining Russia’s actions in annexing Crimea from an international relations (IR) perspective, specifically using the realist school of thought in international relations. This will be contrasted against the perspective of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from the context of international law to highlight the tensions between these two disciplines.

Second Draft
Edited by Britishshorthairlover The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014 after a referendum was conducted in Crimea. Crimea was then formally incorporated as two federal subjects of the Russian Federation. However, Ukraine and the majority of the international community still recognize Crimea as part of Ukraine and do not consider the annexation as legitimate. (Citation)

There have been controversies over this case in academia, especially in the academia of Law and International Relations. The status of Crimea and the debates around it concern governments, professionals and the public. This chapter will examine Russia’s actions in annexing Crimea from an International Relations perspective, specifically using the realist school of thought in international relations. This will be contrasted against the perspective of Law to highlight the tensions between these two disciplines.

Notes from the legal perspective
Done by Britishshorthairlover

Summary
The legal academia and professionals are generally studying the issue with a normative approach. They study various articles and treaties from different authorities and institutions. They interpret them in different ways as a result of the ambiguity and complexity of law and their own stances. Their main interest and concern are evaluating the legality and legitimacy of Russia's annexation, studying how to make law more independent of politics and estimating how this case will influence the legal world as the principle of precedent (Stare decisis) is important in law.

First Draft
The legal academia and professionals examine the Crimea case in terms of its legality and legitimacy. This case is compounded because both international law and national law need to be considered. Similar to other inter-state cases, the law can be invoked in favor of and against the secession of Crimea by the parties in the conflict. Those features make the case debatable. The main debates are around the topics of self-determination. The majority of the professionals except the pro-Russia ones share a consensus that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is illegal, judging from the principle of self-determination.

The principle of self-determination is controversial on its own. There have been disagreements among the international lawyers on whether the right of self-determination of people includes a right of secession, and if so, in what situations. Public international law does not recognize a specific form to satisfy the eligibility of the application of the right to self-determination. Judging from the previous practice of self-determination in the Tatarstan and Quebec cases, the premises of secession are that firstly, a group identified as people had been excluded by a state from the exercise of self-determination and secondly, there is no other way of securing their human rights than seceding from the state. However, according to the professionals, both of the premises did not exist in Crimea. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, Crimea was an autonomous entity that possessed some administrative power but non-legislative powers. This indicated that the Crimean population was not excluded by the Ukrainian government from participating in the politics of the state and prevented from the exercise of internal self-determination. Therefore, the first premise was proved false in the Crimea case. In February 2014, Russia claimed that the ethnic Russian inhabitants in Crimea was in peril. However, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who had visited Crimea in April 2014, the alleged violations of the rights of ethnic Russians appeared to be "neither widespread nor systemic. It can be argued that the anti-Russian sentiment among the Ukrainian prevalent in 2014 could have made possible a violation of human rights in Crimea. However, the exercise of pre-emptive self-determination is neither known nor acceptable in international law. Hence, both of the premises were refuted.

Notes from the International Relations perspective
Done by: Thetribalborrower Pacific23

First Draft

Intro

The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014 after a referendum was conducted in Crimea. Crimea was then formally incorporated as two federal subjects of the Russian Federation. However, Ukraine and the majority of the international community still recognize Crimea as part of Ukraine and do not consider the annexation as legitimate.

We will be examining Russia’s actions in annexing Crimea from an international relations (IR) perspective, specifically using the realist school of thought in international relations. This will be contrasted against the perspective of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from the context of international law to highlight the tensions between these two disciplines.

Explanation of what realist schools of thought in IR theory are

Realism in the context of IR theory can refer to a wide spectrum of theories, but with the overarching view that states prioritise their own power and survival over all other interests, including morality (cite).

A moral standard of realism is that a state’s primary interest is survival of itself as an institution of and for its people. Survival requires power over those other states that may pose a threat. Therefore, the ultimate moral obligation of the state is to maintain power relative to those that would threaten the state’s existence and its citizens.

Crimea & IR

Russia’s annexation of Crimea is in line with John Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism. As Mearsheimer wrote, great powers “look for opportunities to alter the balance of power by acquiring additional increments of power at the expense of potential rivals". Russia saw Crimea as an opportunity to expand its power. Thus, despite being fully aware of the international backlash and negative economic impacts of foreign retaliation the annexation would cause, Russia still decided to annex Crimea as it saw the benefits outweighing the cost. The annexation would give Russia more territory and thus more power in the region, along with the strategic benefits of Crimea’s location which allows Russia’s navy to have direct access to the Black Sea and maintain their presence in Eurasia.

As Mearsheimer wrote, “great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power”. Russia is threatened by the increasing US influence in Ukraine due to the expansion of NATO, still continuing today, and the Ukrainian bid to become a member state. From a realist strategic standpoint, Russia saw one of its greatest rivals extending power and influence right into its backyard, which was a major security threat. Russia thus decided to take action to curb this perceived encroachment of its security by seizing power in Crimea. The annexation also helped Russia signal its position as a great power to the international community and deter any rivals from going against them. In this way, the realist idea of states pursuing security at all costs can be a useful way to understand Russia’s actions.

A classical realist theorist would also point out that Russia’s actions showed blatant disregard for the people of Ukraine and their self-determined government. Russia, a more powerful country, acted upon its power as it liked, knowing that the weaker Ukraine could not do anything. This is in line with Machiavelli’s idea that international relations is unconcerned with morality, especially when there is an imbalance of power. Second Draft Realism in the context of IR theory can refer to a wide spectrum of theories, but with the overarching view that states prioritise their own power and survival over all other interests, including morality.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea is in line with John Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism that great powers “look for opportunities to alter the balance of power by acquiring additional increments of power at the expense of potential rivals". Russia saw the annexation of Crimea as an opportunity to expand its power despite the international backlash and negative economic impacts it would cause. The annexation would give Russia more territory in the region, along with strategic military benefits of Crimea’s location.

As Mearsheimer wrote, “great powers recognize that the best way to ensure their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any possibility of a challenge by another great power”. Russia is threatened by the increasing US influence in Ukraine due to the expansion of NATO and the Ukrainian bid to become a member state. From a realist strategic standpoint, Russia saw one of its greatest rivals extending power and influence right into its backyard, which was a major security threat. Russia thus decided to take action to curb this perceived encroachment of its security by seizing power in Crimea. The annexation also helped Russia signal its position as a great power to the international community. In this way, the realist idea of states pursuing security at all costs can be a useful way to understand Russia’s actions.

A classical realist theorist would also point out that Russia’s actions showed blatant disregard for the people of Ukraine and their self-determined government. Russia, a more powerful country, acted upon its power as it liked, knowing that the weaker Ukraine could not do anything. This is in line with Machiavelli’s idea that IR is unconcerned with morality, especially when there is an imbalance of power.

First draft
The professionals from International Relations and Law focused on completely different elements and aspects of the case of Russia’s de facto sovereign power in Crimea. The realistic school of International Relations emphasizes on the motivations of Russia and the imbalances of the power, while the legal academia argues about the legality of the case by comparing the actions in the case against the rules and regulations. The law realizes the role of politics in the practice of the legal rules and is trying to reduce politics’ power in the exercise of law. The realistic school recognizes the existence of the international law, but simply sees it as an ineffective tool of argument and justification. This is a common phenomenon in the International Law, especially in the realistic and constructivism school. Politics appears to be supreme and placed as the question that matters in the analysis of the International law and politics of international law. The function of law is little more than a tool to be deployed in a more important political game. (173 words) ---Britishshorthairlover

Second Draft
The professionals from International Relations and Law focused on completely different elements and aspects of the case of Russia’s de facto sovereign power in Crimea. The realistic school of International Relations emphasizes on the motivations of Russia and the imbalances of the power, while the legal academia argues about the legality of the case by comparing the actions in the case against the rules and regulations. The legal academia realizes the role of politics in the practice of the legal rules and the vulnerability of the principle of self-determination to politicalisation. It is argued by the legal professionals that the international law aims to improve objective legal thresholds of applicability and criteria to leave smaller spaces for subjective political motives to manipulate law. This is why the professionals argue about setting the boundaries of the exercise of external self-determination. The realistic school recognizes the existence of the international law, but simply sees it as an ineffective tool of argument and justification. This is a common phenomenon in the International Law, especially in the realistic and constructivism school. Politics appears to be supreme and placed as the question that matters in the analysis of the International law and politics of international law. The function of law is little more than a tool to be deployed in a more important political game. (220 words) ---Britishshorthairlover

Notes of Russia's use of constructivist IR
Thetribalborrower First Draft To justify itself to the international community, Russia seems to adopt the constructivist school of thought in IR. Russia’s explanation for its annexation of Crimea is the strong Russian identity in Crimea, as well as Crimea’s shared history, pride, cultures, and traditions with Russia. Russia claims to be correcting a historical injustice and that Crimea has always been a part of Russia in the eyes of the Russian people. Russia thus seems to use history, culture, and identity to justify its annexation. Russia hence uses this, along with the referendum, to claim that the annexation of Crimea adheres to international law. However, this might just be an excuse used by Russia to conceal their actual reasons behind the annexation. Under the principle of self-determination, Russia believes its actions do not breach international law. Russia cites Kosovo as an example to argue that Crimea’s separation should be deemed legitimate, just as Kosovo’s separation was. It is interesting to note how even the law, which is seemingly black and white, could be viewed from different perspectives. Second Draft

While IR seeks only to explain the motivations behind a country’s actions without judgement, international law serves to balance the power of states and maintain peace through normative judgements. The tension between IR and Law exists for this very reason. Russia, in its attempt to circumvent this tension, chose to use constructivism in IR to legitimize the annexation instead. Russia speaks of the strong Russian identity in Crimea and Crimea’s shared history, pride, and culture with Russia to justify the annexation. Russia uses this, along with the referendum, to claim that the annexation of Crimea adheres to international law. Russia is thus attempting to exploit the grey areas in the discipline of law by presenting their justification behind the annexation using constructivism in IR. However, this argument is still rejected by the majority of the international community which shows the inevitability of the tension between IR and Law.

General Discussion
Hi, I appreciate the Structure section and the Intro you added on!The synthesis part is particularly interesting and inspiring. I have some further questions regarding some contents. 1. Shall we analyse the tensions between the two disciplines in the beginning of the synthesis section? 2. For the realistic school of IR, is it a prominent and current school in IR? If it is, I think it can be good to mention it. 3. What are the arguments from different schools of IR? Is it possible to summarise the essential features/items IR is looking at when approaching an issue? I know it is very hard considering that there are so many schools. I'll also research into IR to have more understanding of it. 4. I suggest that Introduction + Conclusion constitute less than 300-400 words and the rest part 800-900, which we can divide into IR, Law, Tension+Synthesis. 5. If the word limit allows, I suggest we should include an argument for our choice of the topic by briefly stating that this is controversial and of concern to professionals, governments and the public. Those are just some questions and suggestions. You are welcome to comment below. ---Britishshorthairlover

1. Yes definitely 2. Yes it's one of the main schools of thought of IR, and makes the most sense in the explanation of Russia's annexation of Crimea 3. We will be touching on some of the other schools of thought in IR in our synthesis/conclusion when we weigh the arguments 4. Yes, refer to above ---Thetribalborrower

Hi, I think we can build another section to share our resource. Shall we all share the resource that we find might be useful for our program (not necessarily cited by yourself) there? If you would like to, share the web address/the name of the book/chapter with a brief description of the topic of the resource. ---Britishshorthairlover Yes let's use the google document for this Thetribalborrower

Also, I do not know whether we should make proper citations in the Discussion page. Just in case, could you add the citations to your notes? Another benefit of it is we can all see how much academic resource each of us is using and examine each other's work. ---Britishshorthairlover Yes let's use the google document for this Thetribalborrower

I think our title needs specifying. I am considering "The sovereign power of The Crimean peninsula: approaches from International Relations and Law", "The power in Russia's annexation of The Crimean Peninsular: approaches from International Relations and Law" or "To what extent can Russia's de facto sovereign power of the Crimean peninsula justified by International Relations and Law". What do you think? What titles would you suggest? ---Britishshorthairlover The first one is good Thetribalborrower

Hi, I have posted my first draft of the legal perspective part there. There are 375 words. I'll cut it down and make it more concise. I focus on self-determination only. I tried to include other topics, like the referendum and the deployment of the army. However, due to the word limit, I cannot make convincing arguments on all of them. Have a look at it, and we can talk about it in our group meeting today.---Britishshorthairlover

Hi, I have posted my draft for my part in the synthesis section. There are only 173 words. I only used one piece of resource. I found we could write a lot on the relationship between International law and relations. I can always add more to it. Let's see what you have got in your part and count the words before making further decisions. ---Britishshorthairlover

Hi, I have a feeling that our topic is still too big. We can write 10000 words from legal and IR perspectives respectively. So, I think we need to narrow it down. For example, we can focus on the power of self-determination in the Crimea case. ---Britishshorthairlover I personally think our scope now is rather focused and not too vague. We can tie it together nicely in the synthesis/conclusion. We are already focusing only on the realist school of thought in IR and only on international law and examining the tension between these two disciplines in the context of the Crimean problem. I feel like this is specific enough. Thetribalborrower

Resource sharing
https://www-cambridge-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/A58315CD55C97B0F189CC548683FD9CF/9780511760600c1_p7-36_CBO.pdf/theoretical_foundations_of_constructivism_and_its_treatment_of_law.pdf https://www-cambridge-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5453144C904E26D1E408620742542522/9780511760600con_p170-175_CBO.pdf/conclusion.pdf Hi, this is a chapter introducing how the constructivism (an IR school) understand law, which overlaps with the part you are writing. ---Britishshorthairlover

Here are some interesting resources on the Crimean conflict from an international and national law perspective you might find helpful:

https://www.mpil.de/files/pdf4/Marxsen_2014_-_The_crimea_crisis_-_an_international_law_perspective.pdf

(PDF) Crimean conflict – from the perspectives of Russia, Ukraine, and public international law (researchgate.net)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322704964_Crimean_conflict_-_from_the_perspectives_of_Russia_Ukraine_and_public_international_law ---Thetribalborrower