Study dispute resolution in Cyprus

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Anna Spain, who contributes this guest post)

I am pleased to announce a new program on international dispute resolution that I’ll be helping to teach this summer. It will take place in Cyprus, a venue that provides a unique and important context for the study of international dispute resolution.
In 1960, Cyprus became an independent nation after being under British colonial rule, thus aggravating the ongoing dispute between Turkey and Britain over the territory. Hostilities in 1963 and 1974 ultimately resulted in Turkish Cypriots declaring their independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus from the Republic of Cyprus. (This history is the subject of a post yesterday as well as many prior IntLawGrrls posts.)
Today, the island nation is divided de facto into these two communities by an UN-administered buffer zone. The UN Peacekeeping Mission (logo below left) has served to maintain the ceasefire on the island since 1964 under the mandate of UN Security Council Resolution 186. Issues pertaining to property, territory, governance and the Turkish vs. Greek cultural identities remain, although economic development has led to increased cooperation in recent years.
In 2002, efforts to resolve the dispute began under the Annan Plan, which was formally presented to the parties by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on March 31, 2004. Although the Plan, which proposed terms to adjust the territory and address outstanding property disputes, was not accepted by the parties at that time, future efforts are being considered.
Our innovative study abroad program is inspired by this history.
It’ll be taught by Cesare Romano, Professor of Law at Loyola Law School and Director of the Cyprus Program and me. We will strive to understand the complex factors contributing to this and other international disputes around the world. As detailed here, we will spend one week at the University of Nicosia in the southern part of the island of Cyprus, and two weeks at Eastern Mediterranean University in the north. Participants will also visit the UN Peacekeeping Mission.
The program is designed to offer a comprehensive study of
► International dispute resolution mechanisms; and
► How those mechanisms are used to manage international conflict and to resolve international legal disputes.
The three-week, four-credit course will cover a broad spectrum of topics, including international law, the use of adjudication in international courts and tribunals, negotiation, mediation and other peacebuilding approaches.
I am delighted to be involved in this initiative, both professionally and personally.
The situation in Cyprus offers me an opportunity to expand my research and scholarship about how process, through international dispute resolution, can contribute to resolving conflict and influencing state-behavior. Identity-based conflicts and intra-state conflicts, like the one in Cyprus, are on the rise, expanding international disputes beyond the traditional inter-state context. As a result, new approaches are required. (See my recent article discussing this, Integration Matters: Rethinking the Architecture of International Dispute Resolution.) This initiative will also draw upon my prior experiences as an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Department of State – working with the UN Compensation Commission and the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal – in considering ways to approach the property disputes that are a contributing factor to the situation on Cyprus.
On a more personal note, I began my work in this field 17 years ago when, as a high school student, I helped mediate racial tensions between black and white members of my community. I understand first-hand how sensitive and challenging addressing identity-disputes can be. I also believe that progress is possible, and I look forward to sharing this optimism with those who join us in Cyprus this summer.
This program is open to law students as well as members of the general public. Applications are due April 8, 2011. For more information or to apply, visit here.

On February 16

On this day in ...
... 1961 (50 years ago today), by a margin of 41 to 9, the House of Representatives of Cyprus voted to move toward membership in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The vote authorized the country's President, Archbishop Makarios, to seek a 5-year trial membership. Cyprus had won independence the previous August from Britain, which had administered the island in 1878 and annexed it in 1914. Cyprus remains a Commonwealth member to this day. (map credit)

(Prior February 16 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On September 20

On this day in ...
... 1960 (50 years ago today), the United Nations admitted 14 newly independent States -- Cyprus plus 13 African countries, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Dahomey (today, Benin), Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malagasy Republic (Madagascar), Niger, Republic of the Congo-Brazzaville, Republic of Congo-Leopoldville (Democratic Republic of Congo), Somalia, Togo, and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). As a result of this admission, predicted The New York Times, "The voting balance will have shifted decisively from the big 'cold war' superpowers to the smaller nations." At the end of the month, flags of the new members were raised (right) at U.N. headquarters in New York. (photo credit)


(Prior September 20 posts are here, here, and here.)

On July 21

On this day in ...
... 1974, a day after Turkish troops invaded the island of Cyprus and a week after "a Greek-sponsored coup in the capital, Nicosia," the "Cyprus conflict spill[ed] into London." Marching through London's city center were more than 10,000 protesters, identified as "Greek-Cypriots and British left-wing activists" by the BBC. On Cyprus, the dispute would render 200,000 refugees, as Turkey's hold on the northern part of the island persisted. Efforts at full reconciliation continue to this day.

(Prior July 21 posts are here, here, and here.)

On April 23

On this day in ...
... 1999 (10 years ago today), NATO defended the overnight bombing of Serbia's state television station, asserting that the building was a legitimate target and a "'ministry of lies.'" (photo credit) The Belgrade bombardment, reported to have caused 10 deaths and 18 injuries, was said to have been appropriate for the reason that the station gave propaganda support to the militaristic endeavors of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Banković and Others v. Belgium and 16 Other Contracting States (1999), an application for relief filed by victims' survivors, was ruled inadmissible by the European Court of Human Rights. I've written about that decision in my article entitled Guantánamo.
... 2003, Cypriots were permitted to cross the "Green Line" that had separated the northern and southern portions of the island of Cyprus for nearly 3 decades. "The Turkish Cypriots announced ... that they were easing the restrictions to build confidence between the divided communities," the BBC reported. (map credit)

(Prior April 23 posts are here and here.)

On November 15

On this day in ...
... 1978 (30 years ago today), in New York City, Dr. Margaret Mead died from cancer. She'd been born 76 years earlier in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a father who was a finance professor and a mother who was a sociologist. While a graduate student at Columbia, Mead was mentored by the anthropologist Franz Boas. At age 23 she traveled to the South Pacific for field research on her dissertation (center left), eventually published as the perennial bestseller Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). She worked with New York's American Museum of Natural History, wrote a column for Redbook magazine, and spoke out on U.S. social issues. Having had the opportunity to hear a Mead lecture shortly before she died, this IntLawGrrl can attest that she was a powerful speaker.
... 1983 (25 years ago today), inhabitants in the north of an Aegean Sea island broke with inhabitants of Greek ancestry to the south, and declared the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to be an independent state. Ever since, as a de facto matter, the U.N.-controlled buffer zone in blue on the map at right has marked the division of Cyprus. As a de jure matter, however, no country other than Turkey recognizes the breakaway territory as a state. On May 1, 2004, "the Republic of Cyprus became a full member" of the European Union. But Community law is "suspended in the area administered by Turkish Cypriots."

Budding Reconciliation in Cyprus

Friday, the recently elected president of Cyprus, Dimitris Christofias, sat down with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat to discuss ways to end the 30-year division of the island. Cyprus is a former British colony that became a Commonwealth country in 1961. In 1974, violence broke out between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, and the Greek military junta in power at the time sponsored an attempt to bring the island under Greek control. The Turkish military stepped in, displacing thousands of Cypriots (see the European Court of Human Rights case Loizidou, for example) and occupying an area recognized only by Turkey as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Since then, the island has been tensely divided into a southern section controlled by Cyprus, a smaller northern section controlled by Turkey (or the TRNC), and about 5% split between British sovereign bases and the UN Green line area between the Cypriot and Turkish areas. The dividing line runs through Cyprus’s capitol city, Nicosia, where Christofias and Talat met with UN special representative to Cyprus, Michael Moller. Christofias was elected just a month ago, and announced within hours that he would meet with Talat to find a way to resolve differences in the interests of the Cypriot people. Christofias and Talat (photo, credit) are on friendly terms and prefer to emphasize agreement rather than disagreement (such as on whether or not to pursue the UN peace plan rejected by Greek voters in 2004). Moving amazing quickly, they’ll be taking concrete (pun intended) steps as of tomorrow, when work will begin on blocking access to the numerous abandoned and dilapidated buildings in the green zone and tearing down the aluminum and plastic wall that divides the pedestrian shopping street running through both halves of Nicosia. Cypriots should be able to cross from north to south and vice versa along this road within a week. Shades of trade brings peace?

On July 30, ...

... 1974, negotiators from Greece, Turkey, and Britain announced that they had reached an agreement ending weeks of fighting in Cyprus. Further talks would fail, however, and by August Turkish troops would seize 40% of the island. The Republic of Cyprus (flag at right) became a member state of the European Union in 2004 notwithstanding continued disputes over that part of the island.
... 1980, Vanuatu (flag below), a South Pacific island state about the size of Connecticut, became an independent of the British-French New Hebrides "condominium" that had ruled it since 1906. It became a member state of the United Nations a year later.