Republic of Materials on International Law 2015

Edited by Kristaps Tamužs*

[Editorial Notes:

1. Republic of Latvia Materials on International Law 2015 (RLMIL 2015) have been classified according to the Recommendation (97)11 of 12 June 1997 of the Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe, as applied by the British Yearbook of International Law from the year 1997, with certain minor amendments.

2. The RLMIL mostly concern the opinions made by the institutions and officials of Latvia. Often, different officials expressed views on same is- sues. In order to prevent unnecessary repetition, the editor has selected materials from the highest possible level. The statements of the officials and in particular the decisions of the courts have been occasionally ed- ited in order to ensure brevity, focus and consistency.

3. There were several recurring topics in the speeches given and state- ments made by officials, for example, the conflict in Ukraine and the Lat- vian officials’ strong endorsement of the Minsk agreement. A concern was raised on several occasions about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria. The President as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs also con- tinued to express Latvia’s continued support for a reform of the Security Council.

The work of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as other state institutions primarily focused on the Latvian presidency of the European Union during the first half of 2015. Within this framework Latvia also hosted the summit meeting of the Eastern Partnership on 21 and 22 May

* LL.M.; Legal Advisor, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia; Visiting Lec- turer, Graduate School of Law and Riga Stradiņš University. The case-law of the Supreme Court of Latvia cited in the Republic of Latvia Materials on International Law 2015 have been kindly selected and edited by Ms. Anita Zikmane, head of the Division of Case-law and Research of the Supreme Court.

Baltic Yearbook of International Law, volume 16, 2016. © 2018 Koninklijke Brill nv. isbn 978-90-04-35977-2. pp. 143-258. 144 Tamužs (ed.)

2015. Latvia’s presidency focused on a united, active and principled im- plementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Euro- pean Union.

4. On 21 October 2014 Latvia was elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council and its two-year mandate commenced in 2015.

5. In 2015 the European Court of Human Rights communicated 18 cases to the Latvian Government, handed down seven judgments and declared eight cases inadmissible by a decision of a seven-judge Chamber. Further 11 cases were declared inadmissible by decisions of three-judge commit- tees and 387 cases were declared inadmissible by unpublished decisions of either a single-judge formation or a three-judge committee.]

Part One: I. B. International Law in general – Nature, basis, purpose – History

1/1 On 23 July, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Sumner , Professor Paulis Lazda presented a lecture at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs entitled “Latvia’s Uninterrupted de iure Inde- pendence: Sumner Welles’ Policy of Denying the Legitimacy of the Soviet Russian Occupation”. During the event the State Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Mr. An- drejs Pildegovičs, highlighted that

already on 23 July 1940 the Acting Secretary of State of the United States of America, Sumner Welles, denounced the USSR’s use of military force against the Baltic States and put forward an impor- tant foreign policy doctrine on the non-recognition of the legiti- macy and legality of their occupation – neither de iure nor de facto.

The occupation by the was condemned as illegitimate, predatory and “contrary to the rule of reason, of justice and of law, which are the basis of modern civilisation itself”.

This Declaration became the foundation for a long-term policy of democratic nations that to a great extent determined and influ- enced relations with the USSR for five decades. The Truman Doc-