Russia’s new dual citizenship – a concern for the West? (II)

Under international law, a state does have the right to protect its citizens abroad. But international practice puts definite limits on this practice. Granting citizenship en masse to citizens of another state without the latter’s consent certainly betrays the underlining motives of the state liberally handing out citizenship like Russia has and intends to again.

Thus the conferring of citizenship to residents of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a blatant violation of normal neighbourly behaviour. Georgia did not agree to this issuing of citizenship and protested this activity numerous times.

Taking action to protect its citizens in foreign lands is not an automatic right under international law, even though Russia itself has claimed to have this prerogative. It’s the wider community of states that under certain conditions has the right to exercise ‘humanitarian intervention’, known as R2P – international responsibility – the protection of human life and dignity.

The subject state must be unable or unwilling to protect people on its territory from activities such as ethnic cleaning or mass murder. With provable evidence of violations, the intervention must be restricted to protecting human life and any use of force must stay within the means needed to gain these goals.

Russia clearly abused the principle of humanitarian intervention in attacking Georgia. Attacking its neighbouring state, Russia’s motivation was not what it had said to be its justification. It grossly abused the application of R2P. It was a punitive, not humanitarian, intervention that has led to ethnic cleansing in the Russian-occupied areas.

One may legitimately ask whether Estonia has to consider the possibility of similar action by Russia against it for a contrived situation in Narva, for instance? At least not for the time being. But vigilance would be appropriate.

Take for instance the reaction of some of Europe after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. The European Union Presidency was suitably sympathetic and understanding of Russia’s assertions of necessity and urgency at that time. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was absolutely silent at a joint press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when he claimed that Russia had intervened by adhering to the rules of international law in defending its citizens from serious harm and will do so again in the future.

Medvedev made it clear that Russia was the guarantor of peace and stability in the region and that any “aggression against Russian people will be met with a crushing response”. Was that a signal to other neighbours of Russia’s neighbours? If not a message to the the Baltic states, then surely Ukraine?

After invading and annexing Crimea, Russia accelerated all efforts in the distribution of passports to residents of Russian origin. With the new legislation, ethnic Russians in East Ukraine are the intended recipients.

This incursion by Russia into Ukraine, ostensibly protecting the Russians of Crimea and East Ukraine, is Moscow’s time-worn deception tactic. What it didn’t reckon on was the re-invigoration and reengagement of the Ukrainian diaspora in the West. Many in the West, of the second and third generation diaspora, had become distant to their relatives in Ukraine.

But Moscow was not mindful of the unintended consequences of their assault on the diaspora’s homeland that has been ‘reborn’ – putting their formidable global presence to stand up for their country of heritage. This is something that Estonians abroad could adopt if needed.

Albeit expat Estonians would not represent the considerable political leverage that Ukrainians in the West have at their disposal, but it would give the community a jolt of purpose and unity that we seem to be lacking as we grow more comfortable and complacent with Estonia’s enduring security, at least for the current period.

LAAS LEIVAT