INTERNATIONAL LAW AND DIPLOMACY ON THE CYPRUS QUESTION

V FOREWORD (2007 Edition) A perhaps-apocryphal story has it that a US law school used to frame the whole of its under- graduate course on public international law around the Lotus case, so rich and varied are the issues it throws up. The same could be done with Cyprus. The tutorial problems nearly write themselves. Sources of International Law: Can a state agree by treaty to a derogation from jus cogens against itself? Statehood and Recognition: What is the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus? The Law of Treaties: Applying articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention, what is the most convincing interpretation of article IV(2) of the Treaty of Guarantee of the Republic of Cyprus? State Responsibility: What role can the principle of restitutio in integrum play as regards long-term illegal occupation of territory? Use of Force: Is a treaty-based right of military intervention valid in the age of the UN Charter? Nor need one limit oneself to un- dergraduates. Many a Master’s course could focus on what has become known as the ‘Cyprus question’. The extraterritorial application of international human rights obligations cannot be explained without reference to Loizidou v. Turkey . The laws of belligerent occupation find ample illustration in northern Cyprus. A variety of methods of international dispute resolution have been brought to bear on ending the island’s division. But Cyprus is also testament to international law’s limitations. Resolutions of the UN Security Council and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights proliferate, yet more than thirty years after Turkey’s intervention the situation remains unresolved. Until relatively recently one could have blamed this in part on the inertia of the international community. This all changed with the UN Secretary-General’s Mission of Good Offices in Cyprus from 1999 to 2004, a com- mitment by the UN of unprecedented resources to situation-specific peace-building. And still it failed, with the rejection by the Greek Cypriots of the UN settlement plan in the referendum of April 2004. Some of the reasons for this failure are evident from Iacovos Kareklas’s scholarly book. The international legal issues raised by the Cyprus question are highly complex. Many are on the frontiers of international law and practice. The starting point is clear enough: fewmaintain that the Turkish invasion was legally justified. At the same time, as with many legal maxims, it is not always true that ex turpi causa non oritur jus . While Turkey’s alteration of the demographic composition of northern Cyprus is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the individuals brought in have produced children and sometimes grandchildren, born on the island. The houses of the displaced have been home to other families for three decades. New places of worship have sprung up. How might a settlement do justice to all concerned? How might a peaceful, stable future be secured? And how might all this be done with due regard