Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a proposal in June 2008 in Berlin to organize a conference on a new European security treaty. The key ideas of this initiative clearly reflected the principles that govern Russia’s position on the international stage as formulated in Russia’s National Security Concept and confirmed by the president. These principles include: commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes; the use of force as a last resort and as permitted by international law; and the commitment to bring international disputes in line with uniform legal norms.

The very idea of reviving the intergovernmental dialogue on security in Europe reflects the legal universalism of Russian politics that has been characteristic of this country throughout almost all of its history since Peter the Great and that is typical of Medvedev’s political style. Russia has long been critical of the so-called double standards in international politics. Such standards occur when, for one reason or another, a concert of great powers denies one nation the rights that are granted to others. The Russian idea of “pan-Slavism” came about in protest against such double standards; in the final period of its existence those behind this ideology in tsarist Russia considered it necessary to apply its principles to Poland, which had been divided by three empires. Also, Russia has always sought to limit the use of force by great powers; it conceived of legal foundations that would reduce arbitrary decisions motivated by the self-interests of great powers and their imposition on other states. The disarmament and peace-keeping initiatives of Nicholas II in 1899 were a graphic example of Russia’s efforts to expand legal norms in a sphere hitherto governed by pure force. Such initiatives laid the foundations for international legislation concerning the principles of modern warfare. In this context Medvedev’s proposal is a consistent attempt to restore Russia’s lead in asserting the supremacy of law in international life.

THE MOTIVES BEHIND THE INITIATIVE: EXTERNAL FACTORS

Medvedev’s initiative rests on awareness about the incompetence of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an institution founded in 1975 within the framework of the Helsinki Accords. This fundamental document was signed – along with European countries – by the Soviet Union, Canada and the U.S. and fixed the basic principles of peaceful coexistence in Europe, including the inviolability of state borders and respect for uniform human rights. It became a sort of a prototype of a hypothetical Greater Europe – “from Vancouver to Vladivostok” – that would stand above military blocs such as NATO and economic unions such as the EC, which eventually transformed into the European Union.

However, the activities of the OSCE caused clear dissatisfaction among Russian politicians for several reasons. First and foremost, the OSCE turned out to be a weak and politically ineffective organization that was deprived of any real mechanism for upholding the principles fixed in the Helsinki Accords.

Second, in Russia’s opinion, OSCE representatives were too preoccupied with the third – humanitarian – set of issues of the Helsinki Accords, to the detriment of the first two, which concerned military and economic security.

The third reason for Russia’s dissatisfaction with the OSCE came from the previous one: contrary to the letter and spirit of the Helsinki Accords, the borders of European countries continued to change, and not always as a result of an agreement by the two sides on a civilized separation, but rather due to support for the demands of separatists. The national sovereignty of states and their territorial integrity were thus no longer secured. The graphic example is Yugoslavia, where the region of Kosovo was practically sawn off by force and transformed into an independent state.

Finally, since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s leaders have openly accused the OSCE of partiality and of turning into an instrument of control for the “victors” (that is, the countries of the West) over the “losers” (Russia and its allies in Europe). Russia came to the conclusion that, instead of counterbalancing the “bloc mindset,” the OSCE in fact added to that same imbalanced construction that took shape after 1991 – a world divided into NATO, the EU and all the rest, with the OSCE virtually turning into a kind of EU agency to deal with “the rest.”

If the rationale behind Medvedev’s initiative had boiled down exclusively to Russia’s dissatisfaction with its position in Europe, then we could expect that the EU would easily ignore both Russia’s complaints and proposals. However, the point is that Medvedev’s initiative is also based on recognizing the vacuum in international law that Europe has found itself in since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The most obvious signs of this vacuum are the double standards used by Russia and Western countries alike with regards to the so-called unrecognized states. The year 2008, when Medvedev announced his initiative in Berlin, saw the recognition of an independent Kosovo by a majority of Western countries, as well as the recognition of an independent South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Russia and a few other non-European states. Meanwhile, the bases for the recognition in both cases were actually the same: genocide by the ethnic majority against the minority, acts of armed aggression, and the unwillingness of an insurgent enclave to live in a single state with the nation that had been subjecting it to mass slaughter. And yet the likelihood that the EU will recognize the independence of the two Caucasian republics is as difficult to imagine now as Russia recognizing the independence of Kosovo.

There are no clear-cut legally-binding recommendations about how international society and the OSCE should act in the event of, say, Moldova’s attempting to take control of Transdniestria by force; or in the event of an armed conflict between Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. In the absence of a solution to these fundamental issues international law hangs in mid air, for it is unclear what it protects – the current state formation, the tight ethnic community, or the rights of every single individual.

Thus Medvedev’s initiative sets a wider range of international relations issues – namely, the problem of state sovereignty and the right to use force against sovereign states. With both Russia and the West, the solution to these problems has often been affected by political considerations. Experts would fiercely defend state sovereignty whenever the threat to this sovereignty came from the opposite side. And they would fiercely assert the need to reconsider the principles of the Westphalian system when it was their country or its allies that were behind the threat. For example, the Bush administration’s decision in 2002 to intervene in Iraq quickly activated the PR activities of a group of neoconservatives, who insisted that defending all of the principles of international law worked in the interests of “dictators” opposed to “humanitarian intervention.” Earlier, during U.S. interference in the conflict in Kosovo, the concept of “liberal imperialism” became widespread in the U.S. and Europe. According to this concept, imperial intervention in the affairs of “problem” Third World countries should be an imperative for both the U.S. and an expanding Europe.

In the same way, Russia’s intervention in Georgia was used as a pretext for political conceptions that called for a revaluation of the Westphalian model of state sovereignty. Several influential experts began to say that the time of unconditional recognition of sovereignty had come to an end and that Russia should finally adopt the European approach towards national statehood and the priority of the rights of ethnic and other minorities.

These ideas, as it happens, did not gain popularity in Russian society, nor among the ruling class. In his speech on October 8, 2008 at the World Policy Conference in the French town of Evian, Medvedev proposed five principles which Russia regards as fundamental for the future security treaty. The first point that would define international security was “respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of states; respect for all other principles, which follow from the UN Charter.” In such a way, the Russian leadership defined its principal view on not only security in the Euro-Atlantic region, but also what it saw as an acceptable world order. In this world order, the territorial sovereignty of nation-states should retain the utmost importance.

It goes without saying that many Western experts saw Medvedev’s initiative as the perfect chance to expose Russia as the only guilty party to have broken the Helsinki Accords. Stephen Sestanovich, a well-known American expert on Russia, said that accepting Medvedev’s initiative would play into the hands of Washington and its policy of containment towards Russia. He wrote in the recent article What Has Moscow Done?: “It is not easy to imagine a European security conference, now or in the future, in which Russia would not be isolated due its own behavior. Would anyone but Russia oppose the principle that all states are free to join alliances of their own choosing?” (Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2008).

Yet firmly insisting on the respect of the third principle put forward by Medvedev would help avoid the conference turning into yet another tribunal aimed at condemning Russian policies. This principle suggests reducing the role of NATO and other blocs in guaranteeing European security. According to the proposals put forth by Russia, it is necessary to adhere to three “no’s”: not to seek one’s own security at the expense of that of others; not to allow actions by one or another military union or coalition that would weaken the unity of the common security space; and not to allow the expansion of military unions at the expense of the security of other participants in the Agreement. Medvedev emphasized the necessity of reiterating in the Agreement the idea that no state (including Russia) and no international organization may have the exclusive right to enforce peace and stability in Europe. In other words, according to the president of the Russian Federation, should both sides agree that the territory “from Vancouver to Vladivostok” be free of military blocs (including both NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization) capable of using force in Europe without consulting with the other participants in the proposed Agreement, Russia will not have to fear the transformation of “Helsinki II” into a trivial anti-Russian political instrument. Russia will also renounce the right to unilateral action in Europe, provided a similar renunciation comes from its European partners.

Finally, the least immediately pressing, but by no means the least important aspect of Medvedev’s initiative, is the European energy security issue. At the EU-Russia summit held in Khabarovsk in May this year, the sides – following Russia’s proposal – again addressed the question of signing the Agreement. This was necessitated by the ineffectiveness of existing international legislation in guaranteeing Europe’s energy security while taking into account the interests of both energy producers and consumers. The EU insisted – not for the first time – that Russia ratify the Energy Charter, which would guarantee energy supplies to consumer countries by producer countries. In Moscow’s opinion, European energy security should be considered in a wider context, reconciling the interests of all the participants in the deal. Russia is concerned, above all, about persistent attempts by some European countries to secure energy supplies for themselves in bypass of Russia. It is also concerned about the unreliable behavior of transit countries, which have been profiting from their geographical situation. Therefore, Russia considers it necessary to create a new document in addition to the Energy Charter. Here Russia has again succeeded in gaining certain political advantages by turning the discussion into the legal domain and by pointing out that the solution to political disputes lies not in unilateral actions, but in the confirmation of mutually acceptable norms.

INTERNAL FACTORS

After the break up of the Soviet Union and Russia’s realization of her position as the “loser” in the Cold War, two “parties” – for want of a better word – emerged in Russia’s social and political space among intellectuals. Both “parties” tried to formulate a new code of behavior for Russia in the “post-Malta world,” in which the stakes were definitely made to her disadvantage.

The first “party” insisted that Russia adapt to the existing world order in view of its pre-eminence, or considering – a more frequent and easier to justify view – Russia’s own weakness. At first, discussions would center on Russia’s acceptance of the legal standards of the existing world order, but subsequently, after Yugoslavia and Iraq, it became clear that those who considered themselves to be the victors in the Cold War did not intend to respect these standards themselves. At that point, the followers of the adaptation concept had to choose between two options: either demand – along with radical Westernizers – that Russia not only accept a certain standard of political behavior on the international stage, but also agree to recognize the right of other, more powerful players to have their own personal “double standards” (which meant that Russia agrees to accept Israel and India into the club of nuclear powers yet exclude Iran, legalize the independence of Kosovo, but refuse to recognize Transdniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh, etc.), or, alternatively, they could take a moral rigorist attitude towards their own country, and demand that it act according to its own conscience (or rather, according to the letter and spirit of international law), while ignoring the behavior of others. While such an attitude may be very commendable in private life, in state politics this rigorist moral stance looked unconvincing, to say the least.

Staunch supporters of strong national statehood had a tough response to the adaptation concept. They demanded that Russia completely disregard international norms in planning its policies and exclusively pursue its own national interest, or, more precisely, national egoism. Consequently, since it is in Russia’s interests to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it should recognize them without regard for legal considerations, all the more so that its Western partners are not acting any better themselves. The supporters of this position often condemned Russia’s foreign policy for its reactive “legitimism;” attempts to respect the norms of international law even if doing so was of no advantage to Russia. If the position of the first “party” politically disorientated Russia, the second “party” was pushing the country into an inevitable political deadlock. By demonstratively rejecting any clear foreign policy motivations and interests, Russia inadvertently facilitated a severe rebuff to her actions by a coalition of powers that were equally uninterested in strengthening Russia’s position as a revisionist power.

In some way, Medvedev’s Euro-Atlantic initiative disarmed the internal conflict between these two equally ineffective Russian foreign policy lines. It highlighted the need to work out a new legal framework to resolve disputes in Greater Europe. Russia refused to passively accept the rules that were widely used in the world, and even more so to follow others in their double standards that are essentially alien to Russia. At the same time, Russia showed that using the current legal vacuum for its own self interest is not a strategic priority. In doing so, Russia has sketched out a new field in which political battles should be held – new, adequate norms of intergovernmental interaction that agree with 21st-century realities and form the basis of the legal order in Greater Europe.