Strategies and Plans for De-occupying Crimea: Maritime Policy’s Legal Aspects

• Pages: 31-46

LEX PORTUS VOL 10 ISS 6 2024

ISSN 2524-101X

eISSN 2617-541X

DOI 10.62821/lp10603

Strategies and Plans for De-occupying Crimea:

Maritime Policy’s Legal Aspects

Borys Babin*, Anna Prykhodko**, Andrii Chvaliuk***

*Dr.Hab in Law, Prof. Professor of International and Comparative Law Department of National Aviation University (1, Liubomyra Huzara ave.,

Kyiv, Ukraine) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9317-3845

**PhD in Law, expert of Association of Reintegration of Crimea (56, Kharkivske highroad, Kyiv, Ukraine) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4895-8520

***PhD in Law, expert of Association of Reintegration of Crimea (56 Kharkivske highroad, Kyiv, Ukraine) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9795-2734

ABSTRACT

This article researches the issues involved in the current and evolving situation in Crimea that

aect the maritime economy, ecology, security and safety, including the international maritime

legal issues arising from the organisational and legal mechanisms drafted, adopted and realised

by Ukrainian authorities regarding the de-occupation and reintegration of the Autonomous

Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol (hereinafter “Crimea”) over the last decade. The

authors determine the vectors and mechanisms of relevant regulation, including the military,

safety, economic and humanitarian frameworks for the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. They identify

their correspondence with relevant international legal standards and proceedings, including

the demands of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and pending arbitrary cases, along

with other pieces of Ukrainian legislation and relevant judicial practices. The authors prove,

with examples derived from the Association for the Reintegration of Crimea and the Ukrainian

Independent Maritime Trade Union, that civil society activities regarding those issues concentrate

on aspects of informing international bodies on the current situation; they also identify the

challenges, connected to Russia’s maritime aggression, of creating systematic proposals to the

governing bodies, and of participating in academic activities and judicial procedures.

CITATION

Babin, B., Prykhodko, A., &

Chvaliuk, A. (2024). Strategies and

Plans for De-occupying Crimea:

Maritime Policy’s Legal Aspects.

Lex Portus, 10(6), 37–52.

https://doi.org/10.62821/lp10603

KEYWORDS

Black Sea, Crimea, legal strategies,

maritime safety, maritime

activity, maritime activity, Russian

aggression, Sea of Azov, marine

environment, environmental risks,

cultural heritage

The journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Introduction

Resolution 76/70, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 2021 and

entitled “Problem of the militarisation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of

Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov,” noted the fact that

security concerns related to the unprovoked build-up of forces in and around Ukraine and the

holding of Russian military exercises in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov regions, accompanied

by closures and restrictions of the lawful exercise of navigational rights and freedoms, further

destabilised the economy and social services in the coastal regions of Ukraine in particular.

Similar concerns were raised in the UN General Assembly’s previous resolutions 73/194 of

17December 2018, 74/17 of 9 December 2019 and 75/29 of 7 December 2020.

International legal reactions to Russia’s brutal violations were quite limited:

Resolution 76/70 recalls the order of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea

of 25 May 2019 on provisional measures in the Case concerning the detention of three

Ukrainian naval vessels (Ukraine v Russian) and Procedural Order No. 1 of the Arbitral

Tribunal Constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

between Ukraine and Russia in respect of a Dispute concerning the Detention of Ukrainian

Naval Vessels and Servicemen of 22 November 2019. However, this dispute was still

pending when Russian aggression against Ukraine escalated to open war in February 2022

38 LEX PORTUS VOL 10 ISS 6 2024

andtriggered Russia’s total occupation ofthe Sea of Azov and general naval warfare in the

Black Sea (Kormych & Malyarenko, 2023; Blank,2024).

As Russia used the occupied Crimean Peninsula, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea

and the city of Sevastopol (hereinafter “Crimea”) as a springboard for maritime aggression

against Ukraine (Kollakowski, 2023; Vorotnyuk, 2024), the reaction of Ukrainian authorities

on a national level must be analysed. This includes assessing the framework of organisational

and legal mechanisms drafted, adopted and realised by Ukrainian authorities on the

issues of de-occupying and reintegrating Crimea in the decade before 2022 (Aydin, 2024;

Sviezhentsev& Kisly, 2023).

Methodology

Methodologically, this article will explore the legal aspects of the Ukrainian strategies and

plans devoted to de-occupying and reintegrating Crimea and their realisation, including

their eects on the maritime economy, ecology, security and safety, and also including the

international maritime legal issues that arise therefrom. The article researches and reveals

the relevant legal implications of such strategies and plans and the mechanisms of their

implementation.

The article goes on to compare the options available to the national Ukrainian authorities

to modify relevant legislation, to intensify the mechanisms of their implementation and to

enact control over their realisation. It will argue that those strategies and plans have common

features that are not in full compliance with program management standards, and that some

of their revisions failed to demonstrate their full potential to answer the relevant challenges of

Russia’s maritime aggression.

It foresees a duty to analyse the relevant impact of those strategies and plans for

de-occupying and reintegrating Crimea (in their maritime aspect) on the current norms of

humanitarian, criminal, maritime, ecological and human rights law as they apply to the reality

faced by Ukraine in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

This article must therefore describe the relevant evolution of those strategies and plans and

make proposals and prognoses for their subsequent amendments, using comparative, formal

legal, statistical and historical methods. The article also considers civil society’s activities on

those issues, including an evaluation of the relevant program documents and cooperation with

relevant international structures.

1. Development of Ukraine’s Ocial Crimea-Related Plans and Maritime Issues

In the rst few years following the illegal occupation of Crimea, the reaction of Ukrainian

authorities in the area, in terms of planning relevant counteractions, was relatively limited.

On May 18, 2015, the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (hereinafter “the VRU”)

on State Construction, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government held hearings regarding

issues aecting the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea. Its Recommendation, approved

by the Committee on June 3, 2015, did not mention the maritime aspects of the occupation,

but demanded that Parliament develop a strategy for Crimea’s reintegration

On September 22, 2016, the VRU adopted the Recommendations (hereinafter “the 2016

Recommendations”) of the hearings on the strategy for reintegrating the temporarily occupied

territory of Crimea into Ukraine in Resolution No. 1602-VIII.

The 2016 Recommendations stated that after the occupation of Crimea and “the illegal

nationalisation of the National Joint Stock Company ‘Chornomornaftogaz’ in March 2014,”

the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine led a lawsuit against Russia in the European Court of

Human Rights regarding the recognition of the illegal occupation of the Crimean peninsula,