By Catherine Kent

President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, seems to be taking a cautious approach in response  to the situation in Ukraine. Tusk and President Obama met on Monday, March 9 in Washington, D.C. to discuss the United States and the European Union’s next steps regarding Russia. As Obama urges European members to meet their NATO commitments on defense spending and take a firmer stance alongside the U.S. in countering Russian influence in Ukraine, Tusk is hesitant to tighten sanctions against Russia before he can build a consensus between the 28 democracies he oversees.

Tusk explained to Obama that he believes Russia is trying to divide EU member countries from one another as well as from the U.S. With some aggressive lobbying from groups in Britain, France, Germany and now a new left-wing government party in Greece, however, Tusk’s task of uniting the 28 democracies is now more difficult

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March 31, 2015

By Kristen E. McCannon

Last Wednesday, NATO alleged that the new treaty that seals almost full integration between Russia and South Ossetia violates international law. The Secretary-General of NATO specifically alleged that the treaty violated the territorial integrity of Georgia. Russia gained de facto control of South Ossetia after a military conflict with Georgia in 2008.

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March 31, 2015

By Catherine Kent

Reuters reported on Monday, November 17, that the EU decided to freeze the assets and issue travel bans against more  Ukrainian separatists.  However, the EU declined to impose further sanctions against Russia. With the upsurge in violence in the Ukraine, and NATO’s assertions that Russia has recently sent tanks and troops to eastern Ukraine, the EU is still crafting an appropriate response. With sanctions already in place which have cut off Russia from much of the finance, energy, and defense markets, the EU is deeply divided as to whether they should impose more economic sanctions. Many of the EU member nations fear that further sanctions would harm their own economies. The issue of imposing more sanctions may be set aside until EU leaders meet in Brussels on December 18. 

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December 03, 2014

A child at his bombed out family home in Syria. FreedomHouse. 

By Stephen Kozey

A year ago, President Obama said that if the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own people, it would cross a “red line.” That red line has been crossed, with recent reports confirming the use of sarin nerve agent and estimating between 300 and 1,300 casualties, including women and children. The U.N. Security Council has responded to the situation by adopting Resolution 2118. This resolution strongly condemns the chemical attack and requires Syria to forfeit and destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, as well as its means of production and delivery of chemical weapons.

International law prohibits the use of chemical weapons, but doesn’t permit military intervention in another country on that basis alone. Military intervention in another country is justified only in the case of self defense or when there is a U.N. Security Council Resolution authorizing the intervention. The conflict in Syria, however, has remained an internal one and has not yet posed a substantial security threat to neighboring countries. Moreover, Russia and China have consistently vetoed any resolution even hinting at the possibility of intervention. It does not appear that the use of chemical weapons has caused these veto-wielders to change their view, so there is little chance of a legally justifiable intervention as things stand today.

But is the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons the only legal argument that the pro-intervention members of the U.N. Security Council (namely France, the United Kingdom, and the United States) can use to try to sway Russia and China? What about Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as adopted in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document?

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October 16, 2013