State Continuity of The Baltic States
The Baltic claim of continuity with the pre-war republics has been accepted by most Western powers. As a consequence of the policy of non-recognition of the Soviet seizure of these countries, combined with the resistance by the Baltic people to the Soviet regime, the uninterrupted functioning of rudimentary state organs in exile in combination with the fundamental legal principle of ex injuria jus non oritur, that no legal benefit can be derived from an illegal act, the seizure of the Baltic states was judged to be illegal thus sovereign title never passed to the Soviet Union and the Baltic states continued to exist as subjects of international law.
The official position of Russia, which chose in 1991 to be the legal and direct successor of the USSR, is that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined freely of their own accord in 1940, and, with the dissolution of the USSR, these countries became newly created entities in 1991. Russia's stance is based upon the desire to avoid financial liability, the view being that acknowledging the Soviet occupation would set the stage for future compensation claims from the Baltic states.
Read more about this topic: Occupation Of The Baltic States
Famous quotes containing the words state, continuity and/or states:
“Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.”
—Han Suyin (b. 1917)
“Every society consists of men in the process of developing from children into parents. To assure continuity of tradition, society must early prepare for parenthood in its children; and it must take care of the unavoidable remnants of infantility in its adults. This is a large order, especially since a society needs many beings who can follow, a few who can lead, and some who can do both, alternately or in different areas of life.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.”
—William McKinley (1843–1901)