Suing for sovereignty: property, territory, and the EU’s Cyprus problem (original) (raw)

This article explores the actual and potential effects of recent European legal judgments on ongoing reunification negotiations in Cyprus. In particular, we argue that the European Union's failure to formulate a policy regarding the position of Turkish Cypriots in Europe has had increasingly negative consequences both for negotiations between the island's leaders and for relations between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities. The EU has chosen to ignore the suspension of constitutional order in the Republic of Cyprus, in the process refusing to acknowledge the legal and political effects of the RoC's EU entry on Turkish Cypriots. We use a recent European Court of Justice judgment to illustrate the substantive effects of this hands-off approach, showing how the political use of transnational courts threatens to undermine what many have called the island's "last chance" at reunification. *GPoT bünyesinde yapılan çalışmalar ile bölgesel ve uluslararası güncel siyasal eğilimler analiz edilmekte ve bu konularda öneriler sunulmaktadır. *The opinions and conclusion expressed herein are those of the individual author and does not necessarily reflect the views of GPoT or Istanbul Kultur University.