점령과 병합의 국제법적 효과 - 우크라이나 전쟁과 가자 전쟁을 중심으로 -

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claiming the right to self-defense. On October 7, 2023, Hamas in the Gaza Strip launched a surprise attack on Israel, and Israel, claiming self-defense, conducted military operations in the Gaza Strip. The war between Russia and Ukraine is being dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as an issue of violation of individual human rights and public order of Europe. Recently, the ECtHR ruled that legislative and administrative acts taken by Russia in the occupied Crimea and Donbas regions violate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). With respect to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Human Rights Committee (HRC) ruled that certain measures taken by Russia under the illegal occupation violated human rights protected by the ICCPR. The ICJ already issued an advisory opinion in 2004 regarding the issue of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), determining that Israel, as an occupying power, violated the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. In its advisory opinion in 2024, the ICJ determined that the measures Israel took in the OPT were taken to annex these territories. The ECtHR ruled that Ukrainian law, not the law of Russia as the occupying power, should be applied in the occupied territories. The ICJ declared various measures taken by Israel invalid, stating that Israel, as an occupying power, should not violate the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people in the OPT. The use of force by a sovereign state against an area not belonging to it for the purpose of territorial expansion or a series of measures that violate the right to self-determination of the population residing in a territorial unit are currently prohibited under international law. The use of force against foreign territory and subsequent annexation after occupation are generally recognized as a result of violation of the prohibition of aggression, and violate the UN Charter prohibiting the use or threat of force and customary international law. In its Advisory Opinion on the OPT of 2024, the ICJ ruled that the various measures Israel had taken in the West Bank over the past 57 years to entrench Israeli authority were in violation of international law as measures taken with the intent to annex areas other than Israeli territory in order to permanently control them. This advisory opinion is noteworthy in that it provided an opportunity to discuss the illegality of forced annexation, as distinct from the illegality of the use of force.