Quid pro Quo: Dependent Relative Revocation and Quixotic Military Dis-encirclement

• Authors: Jones David A.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

International agreements and legitimate expectations must be clear, must be enforced. Unless an international agreement is enforced punctiliously, it is a sham. Agreements that the West and most of the rest of the world believed governed the boundaries of the Ukrainian Republic seem to have been ignored, at least from 2014, particularly by the Russian Federation with impunity. So also does the Sino-British Joint Declaration that governs legitimate expectations of the people of Hong Kong following its “turn over” or “return” to China seem to be in the process of becoming ignored. Changes in life at every turn must be foreseen. Each action provokes reaction. In the relations of nations, a “quid pro quo” is a legitimate expectation in the 21st century. From the Doctrine of Dependent Relative Revocation (DRR) we may justify the substitution or even the withdrawal of terms and conditions pertinent to any given agreement when parties thereto have relied to their detriment in performing their own duties without reciprocation. This argument applies to Hong Kong and Ukraine and to other locations worldwide. If it is necessary or expedient for the Russian Federation to invade and occupy the Crimean Peninsula or other regions of Eastern Ukraine, it is equally necessary and desirable to return Königsberg to Germany and Western Ukraine to Poland. If it is undesirable for China to honor in principle the legitimate expectation of the Hong Kong citizenry to universal suffrage with full and fair election of their chief executive, then Hong Kong Island and Kowloon that were ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity should be returned to the United Kingdom, especially if this is the wish of the people of Hong Kong expressed in an internationally supervised election much as the United Kingdom offered recently to Scotland but failed to provide to Hong Kong.“Quixotic Encirclement” will continue in many areas of the world, by the West and also by the Eastern Bloc. Military encirclement as well as information, economic, and trade examples of encirclement will continue to prevail. Each encircling party must understand that the more it encircles its adversaries, actual or potential, real or imaginary, it should expect to be encircled itself by those same adversaries including some that were not adversaries before they felt encircled. What once was an arms race in the 1950s and for the duration of the Cold War has become a veritable encirclement race. This is entirely evident in the reaction by the Russian Federation to NATO encirclement and to the reaction Studia Europejskie, 4/2014 by China to United States encirclement. Is encirclement worth the cost structure of both conducting the encircling and defending against counterencirclement? Encirclement is very expensive and counter-productive in many respects.

Keywords

EN

RUSSIA; CHNIA; INTERNATIONAL RELATION

• Publisher: Centre for Europe, University of Warsaw
• Journal: Studia Europejskie-Studies in European Affairs
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 4
• Pages: s.99-120

Contributors

author

Jones David A.

• United States Law Programme, University of Warsaw