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The precarious status of contested states both reflects and begets conflict. From Taiwan to Western Sahara and from Nagorno-Karabakh to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, contested states call into question the standard categories of international law that divide inside and outside, state and non-state, war and rebellion. They inevitably fall in-between them, while alternatively disputing and negotiating their applicability.
Bringing together perspectives from a range of disciplines, the book focuses on some of the most entrenched conflicts around the world. It reveals how different actors, including de facto governments, parent and patron states, local populations, and international courts, navigate the grey zone as they redraw, or work around, the fault lines of war and law.
Table of Content
Introduction: Contested States in War and Law – Janis Grzybowski, Giulia Prelz-Oltramonti & Agatha Verdebout
Part 1: Ambiguous Status and the (Il)legal Use of Force
1. The Ratione Personae Element of the Jus ad Bellum and Taiwan – Christian Henderson
2. The Use of Force against Taiwan as a Contested State: An Analysis of Legality and Great-Power Politics – Ming-chin Monique Chu
3. International Law and the Legitimation of State Violence in the Fourth Eelam War (2006-2009) – Megan Price
4. Russia-Manufactured ‘Secessions’ in Ukraine: The Attempted Ambiguity of Status, Kosovo and International Law – Júlia Miklasová
5. Legitimization of Violence and State Dissolution in Nagorno-Karabakh: A Critical Legal Analysis – Sheila Paylan
Part 2: Vulnerability and Agency on the Ground: People and Institutions Navigating War and Law
6. Contested Statehood, Ambiguities and Volatility: The Effects of Lawfare and Warfare in the Western Sahara Conflict – Irene Fernández-Molina
7. Hardening Ceasefire Lines in Protracted Secessionist Conflicts: From the Negotiating Table and International Law to Realities on the Ground in the Case of the Abkhaz-Georgian War – Giulia Prelz Oltramonti and Gaëlle Le Pavic
8. Sovereign Experimentation by Separatist Insurgencies: A Performative Perspective – Bart Klem
Part 3: Contesting and Constructing States at International Courts
9. Contested States Framed by the European Court of Human Rights – Anne Lagerwall
10. Agnostic and Performative Assumptions of Contested States: Kosovo and Palestine at International Courts – Janis Grzybowski
Part 4: Conclusions
11. Four Normative Positions on the Contestation of Statehood in War and Law – Bruno Coppieters
12. Speculative Legalities and the Ambiguities of Contested States – Rebecca Bryant
13. The Melancholy Statehood – Martti Koskenniemi
About the author
Agatha Verdebout is a senior researcher at the Research and Information on Peace and Security Group (GRIP) and associate member of the Center for International Law (CDI) of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium.
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