Russia’s diplomatic recognition of Georgia’s secessionist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia at the end of August 2008 was a momentous event. It breached Russia’s (and the USSR’s) longstanding embrace of the international legal principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which was reaffirmed in the founding documents of the Commonwealth of Independent States. It also jeopardised Europe’s post-World War II territorial settlement based on those principles. In these respects, it appeared to present a fundamental challenge to the European and international legal and political order.

It was also a curious event. In justifying their actions in legal terms, Russian spokespersons cited the right of defence against aggression, the right to national self-determination, and the responsibility to protect, the right to protect Russian citizens outside the country, and to protect Russian peacekeepers stationed in South Ossetia. This scattershot (spaghetti on the wall) approach suggested a certain amount of confusion and “grasping at straws” in the Russian legal approach.

Ambiguity prevailed also in Russian political reasoning for the decision. Was it a response to the April 2008 NATO Bucharest Declaration and the prospect of eventual Georgian membership in the alliance, given Russia’s claim to a zone of “privileged interest” in the former Soviet space? Was it payback for NATO intervention in Kosovo and the subsequent recognition of that territory by many Western states? Was it an opportunity to demonstrate Russia’s return to great power status? Was it a manifestation of Putin’s antipathy towards colour revolutions and concern over possible demonstration effects in Russia itself? Or was it a manifestation of personal animus, given that Putin and Saakashvili despised each other?

When viewed comparatively, one notes that recognition has not been repeated in other similar situations in, for example, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and eastern Ukraine. Why just Georgia?

Russian experts themselves had no clear understanding of the reasons for recognition, as I discovered in long conversations in Moscow in 2009.

This book constitutes an able and well-informed effort to sort out the confusion. It begins with a careful unpicking of relevant international law on self-determination, secession, and recognition. It continues through a close examination of the historical and political background to the conflicts in Abkhazia. Finally, it turns to Russia, discussing Soviet/Russian historical behaviour on recognition, establishing the deviant quality of the recognition decisions regarding Georgia’s breakaway territories. The analysis then turns to the evolution of Georgian-Russian relations, and the war and recognition. This leads to an illuminating discussion of Russian reasons for recognition.

In short, Dr. Samkharadze’s book is a worthy addition to the literature on these events and their broader implications. It is well worth reading in the academic and policy analysis communities.

Prof. Neil MacFarlane

1. Introduction

The principle of territorial integrity of a state is an established, fundamental, sacrosanct principle of international law and a baseline for international relations. This principle however, was neglected twice in the short, six-month period running from February to August 2008 by four out of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. On the one hand, the USA, the UK and France recognised Kosovo’s secession from Serbia and on the other hand, Russia recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s secession from Georgia. The recognition of new entities without the consent of the parent state and the subsequent erosion of the territorial integrity principle has turned into one of the most pressing topics of international relations. It is an important bone of contention in current Russia-West discourse too. The recognition of tiny entities in the South Caucasus resonated as far as Latin America and Oceania, thus outgrowing the Georgia-Russian context and becoming a global issue.

The Russian Federation has been the most important stakeholder in all negotiations on protracted and frozen conflicts on the former Soviet territory, as the latter represents a zone of “privileged interests” for Russia. Hence, it is logical that Russia assumed the role of mediator in these conflicts in the early 1990s and was the only country to provide peacekeeping forces in Georgia, emphasising the significance this region bears for Russian national interests. Despite Russian covert and overt financial or political support to Georgia’s breakaway entities and despite those entities’ appeals to have their statehood recognised by the mighty northern neighbour, for almost two decades the Russian Federation adhered to the principle of territorial integrity and ruled out recognition of the independence of Georgia’s rebel provinces. The principle of inviolability of Soviet administrative borders was enshrined in the Charter establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was created in order to keep the former Soviet states together after the fall of the Soviet Union. The charter explicitly stated that “member states of the CIS will build their relations on the basis of the inviolability of state borders,

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