Event

Towards a Federal Settlement of the Cyprus Problem

Friday, April 22, 2016 14:00to16:00
Chancellor Day Hall NCDH 202, 3644 rue Peel, Montreal, QC, H3A 1W9, CA

The Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the Peter MacKell Chair in Federalism welcome Aristoteles Constantinides, Law Department of the University of Cyprus.

Abstract

The lecture will give an overview of the Cyprus problem and the various legal and political complexities that have precluded its overdue settlement. It will discuss the various aspects of the problem (use of force, non-recognition, the rights of displaced persons) from the perspective of international law by reference to the interplay between the principle of legality and the principle of effectiveness. It will focus on the basic parameters of an eventual settlement on the basis of a bicommunal and bizonal federation that have been agreed by the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots and endorsed by the United Nations and will present the legal and other challenges of transforming the Republic of Cyprus into a federal state. 

About the speaker

Aristoteles Constantinides is an Assistant Professor of International Law and Human Rights and a founding member of the Law Department of the University of Cyprus. He has been a visiting scholar at the European Inter-University Center for Human Rights and Democratization in Venice, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Grenoble-Alpes and he is currently a visiting scholar at the Law Faculty of McGill University. He is a member of the International Law Association Committee on Recognition and Non-Recognition in International Law, the International Law Association Committee on Non-State Actors as well as various other academic and professional associations. His research interests and publications include the law of the United Nations, statehood and recognition, international law in domestic courts, socioeconomic rights and development. Since May 2014 he is a member of the team of lawyers advising the President of the Republic of Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot negotiator in the on-going negotiations for the settlement of the Cyprus problem.

 

 

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