Ukraine: Legal dilemmas and regional insecurity in the shared EU-Russia neighbourhood

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.2520
Keywords: Ukraine, Russia, European Union, International Law, NATO, post-Soviet Space

Abstract

There are several objectives set out in this article, which attempts to analyse the causes, consequences and the role played by the various actors in a regional scenario that has concluded with the ongoing aggression by Russia against the territorial integrity of Ukraine, already begun in the year 2014. The theorical framework of the debate, and the construction of a story that confronts interests with principles, is methodologically analysed from various paradigmatic prisms. Ukraine represents the clear model of external interference that undermines state sovereignty and independence and violates the freedom to choose its future. What questions, ultimately, its existence as an independence state regardless of tutelage. In addition, it is the interposed actor in complex long-standing relations between Russia and EU, which represent antagonistic regional integration models between which Ukraine has been forced to choose, with NATO as an omnipresent actor. The ongoing armed aggression still presents notable uncertainties. However, it is displaying the full range of instruments that have characterized Russian interventionism in its near abroad and common neighbourhood shared with the EU. In particular, a creative interpretation of the international legal order in numerous regulatory frameworks with the purpose of justifying the impossible: an extremely serious military intervention that presents significant challenges to regional security and to the international community as a whole.

Received: 16 May 2022
Accepted: 23 May 2022

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Author Biography

José Ángel López Jiménez, Pontificia University of Comillas (ICADE), Spain

Degree in Political Science and Sociology (International Studies) and in Geography and History (Contemporary History) from the Complutense University. Doctor in Public International Law and International Relations since 1998. Diploma in Constitutional Law and Political Science from the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies, and International Studies from the Society for International Studies. Professor of Public International Law and International Relations since 1999, first at Universidad Carlos III, and since 2013 at Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE). Specialized in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet space, his research has resulted in numerous publications on topics such as the role of the OSCE, conflicts on the common EU-Russia neighborhood, the role of the ICC in Ukraine and Georgia, and Russia´s foreign policy and conflicts in its near abroad; available in https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5787-5532 y en https://web.comillas.edu/profesor/jalopez The last two in the current year 2022 are: Belarus, the last Soviet republic (Baltic Essay ed.) and Russia, EU and Human Rights: Thirty years of complex fit (Tirant lo Blanch ed.), with the introduction of the volume and the chapter «Normative diplomacy versus geopolitical assertiveness: Thirty years of disagreements between the European Union and Russia», pp. 21-98.

Published
2022-09-27
How to Cite
López Jiménez, José Ángel. 2022. “Ukraine: Legal Dilemmas and Regional Insecurity in the Shared EU-Russia Neighbourhood”. Deusto Journal of European Studies, no. 67 (September), 29-60. https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.2520.
Issue
No. 67 (2022)
Section
Articles

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