Legal Arguments
The Russian Federation argued that its decision to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia is based on the regulations of the United Nations Charter, a 1970 declaration on the principles of international rights relating to friendly relations between states, the Helsinki Accords and other international documents.
Some experts have taken into consideration the history of the dissolution of the Soviet Union which has led them to the conclusion that the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is entirely correct from a legal point of view. As a legal base they cite Articles 70 and 72 of the Constitution of the Soviet Union. Both Abkhazia and South Ossetia were autonomous inside of the Georgian SSR and had no right to declare their own independence from Georgia unless Georgia itself decided to abandon the Soviet Union. In that case the autonomous regions would have the right to decide their own statuses. These arguments were also used by Russian officials in the UN Security Council.
On the other hand, the unilateral declaration of independences has been considered a violation of international law by many politicians and analysts, who argue that the recognition violates resolutions previously supported by Russia in the UN Security Council. When asked about these resolutions, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin claimed that "their use of force against South Ossetia clearly dashed all of those previous resolutions and created a completely new reality." However, France's deputy UN ambassador Jean-Pierre Lacroix countered that "there is no way you can dash or cancel or ... terminate a resolution of the Security Council by force."
Read more about this topic: Controversy Over Abkhazian And South Ossetian Independence
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