Study Group Information Ernst M. Felberbauer, Frederic Labarre (Eds.) What Kind of Sovereignty? Examining Alternative Governance Methods in the South Caucasus 8th Workshop of the Study Group Regional Stability in the South Caucasus 3/2014 Vienna, February 2014 Imprint: Copyright, Production, Publisher: Republic of Austria / Federal Ministry of Defence and Sports Rossauer Lände 1 1090 Vienna, Austria Edited by: National Defence Academy Command Stiftgasse 2a 1070 Vienna, Austria in co-operation with: PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany Study Group Information Copyright: © Republic of Austria / Federal Ministry of Defence and Sports All rights reserved February 2014 ISBN 978-3-902944-36-8 Printing: HDruckZ-ASt Stift 853/14 Stiftgasse 2a 1070 Wien Table of Contents Foreword 7 Ernst M. Felberbauer and Frederic Labarre Keynote Address 13 Chris Kendall Opening Address 23 Nadia Alexandrova-Arbatova PART I: SOVEREIGNTY BY OTHER MEANS 31 What Kind of Sovereignty? 33 Craig Nation Joint Management: Peacemaking and Peacekeeping 43 Elena Mandalenakis Models of Sovereignty in the South Caucasus 59 Gayane Novikova Conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the Light of Georgia’s Democratization and Western Integration Process 69 Irakli Mshedlishvili PART II: SOVEREIGNTY AS PERCEIVED IN THE WESTERN PART OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS 79 Ways to Achieve Stability in the South Caucasus 81 Dalila Pilia 3 The Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict: Territorial Integrity or Reconciliation? 91 Nina Selwan Georgia’s Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity: Is It Negotiable? 107 Medea Turashvili The Russian Factor: Perspectives on Stabilizing Georgia’s Relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia 117 Elizaveta Egorova PART III: SOVEREIGNTY AS PERCEIVED IN THE EASTERN PART OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS 131 Armenian Statehood and Sovereignty Games 133 Hrachya Arzumanyan The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic-Azerbaijani Conflict: Understanding the Past and Mapping the Future 149 Masis Mayilian Re-engaging Armenia and Azerbaijan in Reconciliation Process: Prospects and Incentives for Nagorno-Karabakh Breakthrough 163 Elkhan Nuriyev Main Obstacles to Perpetual Peace 181 Hikmet Hadjy-Zadeh PART IV: ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF SOVEREIGNTY IN PRACTICE 187 Sovereignties in a Vacuum 189 Rauf Rajabov 4 Possible Initiatives for the Establishment of Stability and Peace in the South Caucasus 201 Stepan Grigorian Alternative Models of Sovereignty in Practice 207 Ofelya Sargsyan and Hans-Jürgen Zahorka Transitional Intervention Strategies for Conflict Transformation in the South Caucasus 223 Tabib Huseynov Sovereignty Issues in the Post-Soviet Conflicts of the Caucasus: The Case of Abkhazia 241 David Matsaberidze Epilogue 261 Frederic Labarre PART V: POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 265 Policy Recommendations 267 List of Authors and Editors 275 5 Foreword Ernst M. Felberbauer and Frederic Labarre The 8th Regional Stability in the South Caucasus Study Group workshop was designed to test the boundaries of conflict resolution. Under the title “What Kind of Sovereignty? Examining Alternative Models of Govern- ance in the South Caucasus”, it aimed at exploring the definition of terms and concepts surrounding governance, and to determine whether their application cannot be allocated among conflicting actors, or better yet, put in common. The keynote and opening addresses, delivered by Chris Kendall of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and Dr. Nadia Arbatova re- spectively, have made two important cases. First, sovereignty (or gov- ernance) is no longer (if it ever was) an absolute in a globalizing world. Second, there are still powerful actors and forces who insist that it is, and anachronistically, are jealous of this prerogative, and fear for its erosion if influenced by certain normative processes, such as NATO and EU enlargement. The stalemate in the South Caucasus over the status of the breakaway regions, over the monopoly of authority over resources, functions and territories by central governments, the tensions between Russia and Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and the overall dilemma about joining the European Union or the Russian Customs Union is a reflection of the tug-of-war between normative frameworks, between a “sovereign democracy” model and a “multilateral interdependence” model of international relations. This workshop is an attempt at finding a solution to those tensions at the South Caucasus level of analysis by challenging and compromising upon traditional concepts associated with statehood. Governance here is taken in its widest sense. It can be understood as administrative governance (management), or the more traditional politi- cal governance. The meaning that we imparted to this concept had to be very wide indeed to encompass the various aspects of the conflicts under study. This is why governance came to be – for the purpose of this 7 workshop – nearly synonymous with “sovereignty”, itself often confused with “self-determination” and “independence.” We are aware that painting these concepts with the same brush is seman- tically and academically risky. But it was necessary for two important reasons. The first is that the workshop organizers wanted to avoid debat- ing matches over the accuracy of the terms, which would have driven discussions away from substance. After all, it would have been difficult indeed to extract workable policy recommendations from a set of aca- demic definitions. More importantly, it was felt that leaving concepts of “governance”, “sovereignty”, or “management”, etc. to the fortunes of academic freedom would unfetter our participants’ minds and would enable the Study Group to carry the brainstorming process farther. The first panel opened discussions on joint, shared or divided concep- tions of sovereignty. Drs. Nation, Mandalenakis, and Novikova offered a variety of ideas and notions on which the Study Group to seize. Alterna- tive models of governance, such as joint sovereignty, characterised by the distribution of administrative authority along jurisdictional (instead of strictly territorial) boundaries; joint management, which applies sov- ereignty over resources and responsibilities, and a typology of sover- eignty, peculiar to the South Caucasus, and borne out of the conflict situation there. The panel gave a broad impression of the avenues available for explora- tion. It aimed at communicating existing possibilities and experiences to the participants from the region, some of whom may not have been aware of them. Panels 2 and 3 had the same objective, but in reverse. Panels 2 and 3 sought to share with the general public (through this pub- lication) and with experts from outside the region how sovereignty and governance was perceived and understood in the South Caucasus. As the reader will be able to determine from reading the contributions, the con- clusions are surprising. The representation was divided according to sub- regions (Western South Caucasus, and Eastern South Caucasus), since no two conflicts are the same, and out of fairness to the parties repre- sented. Also, this division was necessary because of the rich participa- 8 tion we enjoyed from representatives of Abkhazia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia and South Ossetia. We learn through panels 2 and 3 that governance is sometimes linked to territory, sometimes to population, and even to identity. In other words, answers to “what kind of sovereignty” encompass issues of territorial control, (either at the community or central authority levels), self- determination (meaning ethnic and cultural protection), and population control (through the application of force, reminiscent of the old-fashi- oned Weberian definition of “statehood”). South Ossetia and Abkhazia, vis-à-vis Georgia, certainly fit the model of sovereignty as self- determination/cultural and ethnic protection. For Georgia and Azerbai- jan, however, a Weberian understanding of sovereignty means that gov- ernance has to be heavily centralized. In Nagorno-Karabakh more than anywhere else, however, the choices are clear, and driven by the arms race between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Hard security concerns are at the forefront, and the security deficit there is balanced by Russia and Armenia together. In all cases, the idea of sharing sovereignty through federal or confederative measures is met with lukewarm enthusiasm. Breakaway regions insist that only full inde- pendence is a guarantee of stability and safety. Whatever the level of detail of discussions on panels 2 and 3, the aim was reached and the Study Group is able to share with you the sophisticated regional under- standing of sovereignty and governance in the South Caucasus. Panel 4 was designed to elicit practical proposals and measures on how it would be possible to contemplate joint management, shared sover- eignty and allocation of functional responsibilities across various levels of governance and government. The celebrated cases of joint manage- ment of the Inguri River hydroelectric power plant, of the Ergneti market were alluded to. But so were models of shared political governance (shared or divided sovereignty). In particular, allusions to the cases of South Tyrol, the Aland Islands were informative, but even more so were the ones from troubled regions, such as South Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Bougainville, which found workable solutions through shared sov- ereignty. This allowed the participants to tackle the issue of status in 9 new ways, and notably to propose a step-by-step