TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 
Acknowledgements
Introduction 

CHAPTER ONE: HISTORY OF THE CONFLICTS IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH, ABKHAZIA AND SOUTH OSSETIA
Nagorno-Karabakh 
Abkhazia 
South Ossetia 
Final Remarks 

CHAPTER TWO: SELF-DETERMINATION
The history of self-determination 
Self-determination in the UN Charter 
The Declaration on Colonial Countries and Peoples 
The UN covenants 
Declaration on Principles of International Law 
Peoples and people 
Internal/external self-determination 
External self-determination 
The rights of sub-republics 
The future 

CHAPTER THREE: AUTONOMY: THEORY AND PRACTICE
The search for a definition (again) 
Territorial autonomy 
The Aland Islands 
Personal autonomy: functional/cultural 
The Sami 
Autonomy and the League of Nations 
Autonomy 'revisited': a 'right' to autonomy? 
A right to participation (merely)? 
Autonomy's potential 
Autonomy's future 

CHAPTER FOUR: 'MINORITY' RIGHTS IN AUTONOMIES
Definition of a 'minority' 
Regionally non-dominant titular peoples, autonomies and customary law 
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 
Concluding remark 

CHAPTER FIVE: NAGORNO-KARABAKH
The Minsk Group
Constitutional status
Other issues
Occupied lands
The Lachin Corridor
Security guarantees
Internally displaced persons (IDPs)
IDPs and Shusha
International peacekeepers
The Lisbon summit
Direct talks
Postscript to the 'latest talks'
Countdown to the 'velvet coup'
Refugees/displaced persons

CHAPTER SIX: ABKHAZIA
Tbilisi
Sukhumi 
False dawns 
Outside forces 
Gali district 
Peacekeeping and monitoring 
Refugees/displaced persons 

CHAPTER SEVEN: SOUTH OSSETIA
Tbilisi 
Tskhinvali 
The OSCE 
Moscow 
Talks 
Peacekeeping forces 
Refugees/displaced persons 

CHAPTER EIGHT: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL SETTLEMENT IN AZERBAIJAN AND GEORGIA
Nagorno-Karabakh
Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia)

CHAPTER NINE: REFLECTIONS ON RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
A 'right' of secession?
Self-governing status for Karabakh
Karabakh and international status
Constitutional status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
International status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Future status of Georgia
Regions 'A' and 'B'
Flags and emblems
'Titularisation'
Language
Electoral process
Right of free movement
Monetary policy
Representation in sporting competitions
Refugees/displaced persons
Military arrangements
Law enforcement
Lachin and the Corridor
Territorial adjustment and Gali district
A High Representative?
National monuments and public corporations
Beyond Dayton and Ghali
The Aland Islands
Andorra
San Marino
Association
Discrimination

CHAPTER TEN: THE POST-DAYTON ENVIRONMENT
Commonality of purpose
Failure to establish joint institutions
The problem of 'refugees'
The permanence of peacekeepers
The failure of law-enforcement
Brcko - the need for corridors
Eastern Slavonia and the 'Sarajevo' effect

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE POST-SOVIET ENVIRONMENT
Peace, not war, in Tatarstan
Gagauz-Eri: constitutional settlement in Moldova
The Karakalpak model?
Cultural autonomy in Estonia
Leasing arrangements: Baykonur
North Ossetian national guard
Chechnya

CHAPTER TWELVE: PEACE IN THE CAUCASUS
Previous attempts to construct a Caucasian home
For a Peaceful Caucasus
My own recommendations
Comment
The Community of Transcaucasian States
Conclusion

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TRANSFRONTIER COOPERATION IN THE CAUCASUS
The European Outline Convention on Transfrontier Cooperation
The Additional Protocol
Transfrontier cooperation in the context of the 'three'
Prospects and possibilities
Conclusion

Since submission
Bibliography
Maps
Index

KLUWER LAW INTERNATIONAL
THE HAGUE / LONDON / BOSTON

ISBN 90-411-1_4
©2001
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Limited.

Note: This book is published on Internet only for educational use. No part of this publication may be used for commercial purposes without prior permission of the publisher.

Preface
This book completed its first incarnation as the submitted manuscript of my Doctor of Philosophy degree at the Law Department of the University of Keele, with the title: The Constitutional Development of Three Post-Soviet Transcaucasian Autonomies: A Comparative Analysis'. Now, a little over 18 months later, I am submitting it once again, only this time for publication.
The Introduction, Chapters 1-13 and the Conclusion are virtually identical to the originally submitted manuscript, only electing, where I feel necessary, to improve its syntax/grammar. All that has been added is the 'Update' chapter.
Thousands of hours of thought went into the submitted thesis. Such long reflection, 1 believe, was ultimately rewarded at my Viva, being awarded my PhD without the need for any corrections. Since submission I have had the opportunity to reflect still further and have concluded that my original thoughts and impressions were sound. I appreciate that some sections of this book contain difficult conclusions for all the sides, but what is the point in discussing things that, sincerely, I feel have no prospect of realisation?
I would ask that this book not be read by piece/section, but from beginning to end. Only by doing this will the reader regard the truly dispassionate account that I have presented. May 1 also add that this book contains only material that has been circulated in the public domain. I see no utility in reading between the lines.
Finally, on a personal level, may I take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Professor Patrick Thornberry (now of the Department of International Relations at Keele) for his successive words of wisdom uttered since I was a very humble LLM student. He will probably never fully appreciate just how often those countless utterances have been retraced in my mind and how useful they continue to be. If I have never said it before, thank you.

Tim Potier

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the BBC Monitoring Service for their kind permission in allowing me to reproduce the map of the Security Zone and Restricted Weapons Zone of Abkhazia and Zugdidi District (in Georgia), originally published in their (hard copy) Summary of World Broadcasts, Daily Political Report (Part 1, Former Soviet Union) of 15 June 1994 (SU/2022).

Introduction to the Work

During the nearly five years I have spent working on this book, a of people have asked why I undertook a research on certain rep the Former Soviet Union. In reply, I have always told then fascination that was 'born', as a teenager, during those excit: months of the 1980s. During that time, I felt compelled, privateh out more about these mysterious peoples of which I had never pr heard. 1 had, like so many in the West, only ever associated th with Russia and Russians. [ had never heard of Uzbeks, Tajiks, ] or Armenians. Besides, Georgia was in the United States, The was only a region and The Crimea had been the scene of a fam during the 19th century, but I had absolutely no idea where it wa were the forgotten peoples, living in the forgotten world. Ho^ anyone not be fascinated by them?
My keen interest on Eastern Europe had been electrified, dui LLM year, by Dr (at that time) Patrick Thornberry's work Council of Europe in the Baltic States. T had come to greatly Patrick Thornberry and I saw him as one of only a very few s working on minority rights law/self-determination who had conception and understanding of the subject. This is a view I st today.
The first year of my work was interrupted by the amount of lect did at the Universities of Keele and Staffordshire. It is eas; hindsight, to conclude that 1 did too much, but then I did need the to finance the first couple of years. The second year was spent col vast arrays of materials and reading, extensively, around the subje third year, I travelled.
I knew, very early on, that one thing that would be expected of r to have travelled to the region. Thus, in 1994 I started the Ion sometimes frustrating, process of establishing contacts with th multitude of diplomats and scholars who would be able to mal visits worthwhile. One problem 1 was aware of, however, was the i side. I could not afford to go, but I realised that unless/until I d work would appear rather 'unworldly'. I knew that the only way I gain a realistic picture of the problems/difficulties the countries experiencing was to actually experience life as they lived it. It w; easy to comment from afar.
In October 1995 I paid my first visit ever to a part of the former USSR, to Azerbaijan - perhaps not the most obvious place to start. During the succeeding 18 month period, other than Russia, I proceeded to travel to Armenia (three times), Azerbaijan (twice), Georgia (twice), Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakstan and the Kyrghyz Republic (all once). Among these, I was privileged to have the opportunity to travel to the breakaway regions of Nagorno-Karabakh (for a week, in April 1996), South Ossetia, Gagauzia and Transdniestria (both in Moldova).
Unable to condense the 'Law of Minorities, and their Protection, in the Former Soviet Union' into a manageable work, I decided to concentrate on the future, constitutional, status of three regions in the Transcaucasus: Nagorno-Karabakh (in Azerbaijan), and Abkhazia and South Ossetia (both in Georgia). The Caucasus had been the region I had spent most time in during my travels and was also the region where I had most contacts. My broader travels, however, greatly assisted this work. I think it gave me a considerably better understanding of, not just the Caucasus but, the former Soviet Union as a whole. I was in Narva (north-eastern Estonia) on May Day 1996. I saw countless babushkas carrying busts of their hero Stalin. I, therefore, appreciate the nostalgia that, literally, millions of (usually elderly) people (but also national minorities) have for the Soviet Union and, even, some of its less 'charismatic' leaders. I was in Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) during a very tense period in March 1996.1 will never forget being driven around the city in a car with a Georgian registration: at any moment we could have been fired on (but then the South Ossetian Foreign Minister was sitting in the passenger seat). It took me 3 hours to 'traverse' the 9-kilometre Lachin Corridor ('in' Nagorno-Karabakh). The cratered road and the lights of the car shining through burnt-out buildings was haunting. I experienced the real cold and despair of aTbilisi (Georgia) winter. Suddenly I understood what a truly wretched life consists of: after it got dark, all I would want to do was sleep. I experienced the real terror of someone trying, forcibly, to break into my flat one night in Riga (Latvia): I had to stay there, alone, on that floor for another week - mercifully, though, they never returned. 1 saw the wasteland that is southern Azerbaijan, and had tea in the railway cars/tents that have become the, very, makeshift homes of thousands of despairing displaced persons. I experienced the unease of being watched in a bar in Bishkek (Kyrghyz Republic). I'd only ordered a rather sorry-looking pizza, but they could probably tell that I was a 'tourist'. These and many other hundred images from my travels to the region have left an indelible mark on me, and have made the work many times better for it.
One of the obvious 'dilemmas' one faces in undertaking a work such as this, is the danger of partiality or over-emphasis on the needs of one/more of the relevant groups. This book considers highly sensitive, 'political', matters, which should, therefore, be addressed soberly and dispassionately by the author. As with all situations of this type, there is right and wrong on all sides, a fervent belief in the truth and 'justice' of the argument and, too often, an unwillingness to compromise. To an outsider such as myself, one is always susceptible to the charge that one is either ignorant of the 'true' facts or, at the very least, interfering in the affairs of other States. I have pondered long over this quandery and, perhaps, have not even justified, for my own purposes, a satisfactory answer. Yet, somehow, scholarship should not become municipalised.
A work such as this can appear over-determinative, over-confident, it is very easy to, accidentally, over-simplify the prospects for settlement. What I hope I have at least achieved, however, is to input an additional, legal, aspect to the debate. I don't expect any of the sides concerned to agree with all of my argument; indeed, I would be extremely worried if they did (this is unlikely); but merely recognise the points I am making. If this can provoke alternative ones/accentuate the debate, this can only be good.
In writing this book, I have been constantly aware of my responsibility towards the issues and the subject. Tnternetisation' (high productivity, low quality) of debate, has given rise to new dangers. Antipathy and conflict can now be 'engendered' without individuals having ever come into contact with each other. While, one could argue, this state of affairs need not have been any different during the 'age of paper', the unim-mediacy of its response was not as amenable to the frantic and indigestible 'search' for information, if not understanding and 'reason', that all of us have been compelled into. This new reaction has many potential pitfalls for all. Consequently, it is the duty of the scholar, in this increasingly 'fast world', to, at all times, separate his construction from the keyboard for fear of error.
A book should not merely regurgitate that which has already been written. Sadly, too much academic writing today (under the pressure of departmental rankings and the funding of productivity) is unoriginal and brief.
I have become increasingly conscious of the virgin nature of this research. When I undertook the work in September 1993 (the final hours of the pre-ITagc), I was aware of the lack of a (Western) bibliography on many of the countries I was going to cover. An over-concentration on Sovietism and Sovietisation had effectively nationalised (in a strangely Leninist manner) the independent and individual dynamics that prevailed within and among the various regions and republics of what had been this vast continent, the Soviet Union. Those few writers that had written on the ethnic aspect of the Union and its multitude of nationalities had done so from a largely linguistic, ethnographic or geographical perspective. In undertaking the work I was, therefore, faced with a paucity of 'relevant' documentation. This state has continued to the book's completion.
It would appear that international lawyers have not been attracted towards the more practical and, thereby, less theoretical application of notions such as self-determination or minority rights. I regard this as a weakness in modern international law jurisprudence. It attempts merely to react to a debate rather than identify possible future courses of conduct. Regrettably, when it does suggest, it tends to do so in a rather 'knee-jerk' fashion. 'Micro' international Law, with its comparative and, as in the case of this work, sometimes, constitutional law flavour, can have an enormous bearing on the development of 'macro' international law.
Self-determination is a fundamental concept, but its meaning and extent has become obfuscated to such a degree that, I believe, there is a very read danger that its function will be lost altogether. Assistance prevails in international law's micro aspect. Constitutional recommendations, solutions/settlements, in regions such as the South Caucasus, help to clarify the relationship between minority rights, autonomy and self-determination, and their respective uses, but I don't see them being handled in this way. The consequent absence of practical guidance, on a juridicial level, that I have experienced, in respect of the absence of documentation, while not frustrating the possibilities of this book have, undoubtedly, exposed me to far greater criticism (for my inability to 'verify1, cross-reference) than if I had chosen a more abstract consideration. I hope that the bravery of this work will, therefore, be recognised and appreciated.

POSTSCRIPT
The information contained in this work, excluding the chapter 'Since submission', is complete up to and including the 31 August 1998.
The work contains extensive references from the BBC Monitoring Service's Summary of World Broadcasts Daily Report on the Former Soviet Union (Part 1) (SU/ ... ) and the US Government's Foreign Broadcasting Information Service report on Central Eurasia (FBIS-SOV ...).