International Law and the Revolutionary State. A Case Study of the Soviet Union and Customary International Law

1974 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-116
Author(s):  
Michael Akehurst
1994 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-137
Author(s):  
Bart Driessen

AbstractThis study argues that customary international law obliges the Baltic states to accept the Slav populations as an integral part of the Baltic peoples. The history and collapse of the Soviet Union has produced large groups of Slav immigrants to remain in the Baltic states. They are not automatically granted citizenship rights in Estonia and Latvia, as they have to prove to qualify for naturalisation. People descending from the inter-War citizenry do ipso facto qualify for citizenship. First the nature of the coming-to-independence of the Baltic states is analysed, after which the law on self-determination is investigated. The de facto recognition of the Soviet annexation by most of the international community is seen as the watershed as far as the status of the Baltic states is concerned; from then on they were for all practical purposes part of the Soviet Union. Following an analysis of the applicable norms of customary international law, a scrutiny of relevant Baltic legislation is presented.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-413
Author(s):  
Rizal Abdul Kadir

After twenty-two years of negotiations, in Aktau on August 12, 2018, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. The preamble of the Convention stipulates, among other things, that the Convention, made up of twenty-four articles, was agreed on by the five states based on principles and norms of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law. The enclosed Caspian Sea is bordered by Iran, Russia, and three states that were established following dissolution of the Soviet Union, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.


Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Izabela Kozłowska ◽  
Eryk Krasucki

Central and Eastern European countries were subjugated to the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century. In this new political environment, defined as the period of dependency, the concept of space gained a new denotation as a space of dependence, in both social and physical terms. The political changes that took place after 1989 enabled these spaces to be emancipated. In this work, we aim to delineate the complex relationship between architecture and politics from the perspective of spaces of dependence and their emancipation. Through a case study of two squares, plac Żołnierza Polskiego (the Square of the Polish Soldier) and plac Solidarności (Solidarity Square) in Szczecin, we gained insights into the processes and strategies that promoted their evolution into spaces of emancipation within architectural and urban narratives. Szczecin’s space of dependence was created by an authoritarian state that had a monopoly on defining architecture and urban planning in the country and the state as a whole. In a process orchestrated by economic factors, as well as the scale of architectural and urban degradation, the squares under discussion have transitioned from spaces of dependency to spaces of emancipation. As a result, an architectural-urban structure characterized by new cultural and identity values has been created.


1963 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-230

The Security Council discussed this question at its 1022nd–1025th meetings, on October 23–25, 1962. It had before it a letter dated October 22, 1962, from the permanent representative of the United States, in which it was stated that the establishment of missile bases in Cuba constituted a grave threat to the peace and security of the world; a letter of the same date from the permanent representative of Cuba, claiming that the United States naval blockade of Cuba constituted an act of war; and a letter also dated October 22 from the deputy permanent representative of the Soviet Union, emphasizing that Soviet assistance to Cuba was exclusively designed to improve Cuba's defensive capacity and that the United States government had committed a provocative act and an unprecedented violation of international law in its blockade.


Author(s):  
Juliane Fürst

Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland does what the title promises. It takes readers on a journey into a world few knew existed: the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies, who in the face of disapproval and repression created a version of Western counterculture, skilfully adapting, manipulating, and shaping it to their late socialist environment. This book is a quasi-guide into the underground hippieland, situating the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and offering an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study in the power of transnational youth cultures. It tells the almost forgotten story of how in the late sixties hippie communities sprang up across the Soviet Union, often under the tutelage of a few rebellious youngsters coming from privileged households at the heart of the Soviet establishment. Flowers through Concrete recounts not only a compelling story of survival against the odds—hippies were harassed by police, shorn of their hair by civilian guards, and confined in psychiatric hospitals by doctors who believed nonconformism was a symptom of schizophrenia. It also advances a surprising argument: despite obvious antagonism the land of Soviet hippies and the world of late socialism were not incompatible. Indeed, Soviet hippies and late socialist reality meshed so well that the hostile, yet stable, relationship that emerged was in many ways symbiotic. Ultimately, it was not the KGB but the arrival of capitalism in the 1990s that ended the Soviet hippie sistema.


1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Paul Marantz

AbstractThere has been a great deal of controversy among Western scholars concerning the direction of Soviet foreign policy in the final years and months of Stalin's rule.1 One of the crucial questions at issue is whether or not there were significant divisions of opinion within the Politburo over foreign policy matters. This article attempts to explore this particular question through an examination of a doctrinal controversy that surfaced during Stalin's last years. In one of his most famous works, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, Lenin argued that war was an inevitable concomitant of the capitalist system. He contended that the unending struggle for markets meant that periodic wars among the capitalist powers were unavoidable and inevitable.2 Stalin adhered to this view throughout his long reign, and it was not until three years after Stalin's death, in Khruschchev's speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, that it was finally revised. Yet despite Stalin's strict adherence to the Leninist analysis of imperialism, and despite the harsh discipline that characterized his rule, there is evidence that the official interpretation was being publicly questioned even while Stalin was still alive. Given the nature of esoteric communication in the Soviet Union,and the close connection between doctrinal and policy debates, an examination of the controversy concerning the inevitability of war can provide important evidence having a direct bearing upon our understanding of this period.3


Author(s):  
Jason García Portilla

AbstractThe anti-clerical elements of the Revolution helped Cuba succeed in various indicators (e.g. education quality and coverage, equality, health). The Cuban regime seized, dismantled, and limited the institutional influence of Roman Catholicism on these areas of public life. However, a strong cultural influence of a highly syncretised Roman Catholicism persists in Cuba even if its institutional influence has been curbed. Also, the Communist regime, by adopting Marxism, “threw the baby out with the bathwater” through persecuting all types of religion, including Protestant liberals. Finally, the Cuban regime conveniently turned to Rome to legitimise itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union and to silence Protestantism with a corporatist strategy. The socialist legal tradition had an effect opposite to its claims (e.g. lack of freedom, corruption), even if its anti-clerical element was an advantage. Comparing the Cuban experience to other Latin American countries with leftist dictatorships (e.g. Venezuela) helps understand their failure to achieve the Cuban indicators (e.g. education). The crucial factor in this regard is whether or not the power and influence of the Roman Church-State are reduced.


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