Vistulange wrote:Dtn wrote:note that Ukraine itself simply succeeded a defunct state.
I am being a little nitpicky here, but Ukraine did not quite succeed a defunct state. It is a continuation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was a constituent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It voted to secede from the USSR on 1 December 1991, with the Belavezha Accords—where the Soviet Union/Russia declaring the dissolution of the USSR—being signed a week later.
Basically, when Ukraine declared independence, the Soviet Union was a legal entity that existed, though obviously highly dysfunctional, or even existing solely in name.
I'll be even more nitpicky and say that all the former Soviet republics are successor states to the USSR, except the Baltic states who've attempted to implement a theory of restitutio ad integrum that's been mostly successful. Exactly when they became independent doesn't matter.
Russia is both successor and the continuance of the USSR. Ukraine is a successor of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and the continuance of the Ukrainian SSR, which I suppose is more accurately described as a quasi-state although it's certainly defunct.
Since succession and continuance are largely matters of customary law, thirty years of consistent and unanimous recognition of Russia as the continuance of the USSR trump most of the fairly silly arguments in this thread.
Ultimately these arguments are meaningless, because if there was sufficient political will the UNSC could simply eject Russia extralegally - there would be no practical difference between this and some uncertain legal justification. Who's going to stop them? International law professors?
But they have other considerations besides Ukraine and the costs of such an act are easily imagined and quite high.
