Abstract:

The end of the Cold War has fundamentally changed the landscape of the international system. The contest between the principles of territorial integrity and self-determination has been recast in response to the collapse and implosion of established states and the successful secession of sub-national peoples, both as recognised states the former constituent republics of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and as de facto states which have established an unchallenged writ on the ground Chechnya, Northern Somaliland . The Cyprus Question can be usefully revisited against this backdrop of changing international norms and prevailing orthodoxies. Prior to the Cold War, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus TRNC stood alone as a pariah state subject to international shunning but nonetheless defiant, popularly supported and effective in its authority on the ground. Now the TRNC is one of nearly a dozen de facto unrecognised states that by their stubborn existence are gradually undermining the rigidities of the territorial integrity principle and the doctrines and practices of international recognition policy

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