Dr David Turns, Senior Lecturer in International Law in the Centre for Defence Management and Leadership at 星空体育官网, comments on the international legal framework of current tensions between Russia, Ukraine and NATO:
“Amid all the current media interest in the massing of Russian military forces near the frontiers of Ukraine, there has been next to no discussion of the international law relevant to the situation. To some extent this may be because the attention has been heavily focused on the question of whether Russian military forces massing on the land borders of Ukraine with Belarus and Russia itself, and Russian naval units on the Black Sea, are going to be used in an invasion of Ukraine. This would ostensibly implicate the international law relating to the use of armed force by states.
However, if what is being contemplated is a Russian use of force against Ukraine, then this is not the correct legal framework for the situation. Although there has been relatively little ‘hot’ warfighting between the parties for some time, Ru