Originally Posted by
IlPrincipeBrutto
hello,
Short answer: it depends on whether Baja California was a recognised autonomous republic within Mexico; and maybe, if they held a referendum to become part of the USA, again as an autonomous republic. Reference is to the 1991, 1994 and 2014 Crimea referendums.
Longer answer, in two parts, none of them decisive (because this stuff, as I said, it's not black and white).
Crimea recognised itself as an autonomous republic within the state of Ukraine. Now, the question is, what happened in 2014? If Maidan was a revolution, then by definition what emerged from it was a different state entity, different from the old one. As such, any allegiance Crimea gave to the old state could be considered void, and Crimea had the right to decide whether to give allegiance to the new state entity, or not. If Maidan was instead simply a coup, Crimea's case would be weaker; on the other hand, anyone who supported the coup (i.e. the whole whole West), instead of working for reinstating the legitimate government, would find themsleves in a very precarious moral position.
Crimea was not annexed; it used its power as autonomous Republic to ask, via a referendum, to become part of Russia, again as an autonomous Republic. I have no idea how legal this is; it seems to me that it must be at least as legal as what happened in Kosovo (actually, more; Kosovo never held a referendum, although its result would have been a foregone conclusion). So, my answer to your question would be that if you consider what happened in Kosovo legal/ok/fair, then you would have to give Crimea a pass. Note: the similarity between Kosovo and Crimea is not the annexation part, but the carving out; once detached, each is free to pursue its own destiny. Crimea decided to return to Russia, Kosovo might well decide to ask for annexation to Albania at some point in the future)
Bottom line; what happened in Crimea could be considered a violent, possibly illegal reaction to a violent, and certainly illegal action. I don't think you can judge one but not the other, I don't think you can consider the incident apart from the precedent. I think it's certainly possible to argue that a coup/revolution changes the nature of a State, and in particular makes void all the agreements and conventions that existed between the various parts and bodies of the State before the revolution/coup took place. Hence, it would be logical for some of those agreements/conventions to be renegotiated, or reneged.
All of the above imho opinion of course.
IPB