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The paper deals with activities aimed at the implementation of the EU Global Strategy tied to the effort to further integrate research and development of defence technologies through European Defence Action Plan adopted in November 2016. The author analyses the combined effect of multi‐faceted security challenges that the European Union faces and the perception of a decreased and inadequate defence spending in the previous years. The part of the analysis focuses on the political aspect of security challenges and how Brussels’ administration responds to those challenges. The author maintains that new European Union Global Strategy is based on the drive for the more rational development of defence industry, which is clearly manifested in setting up a new European Defence Fund as an instrument of the European Defence Action Plan. The recently designed institutional framework followed by adequate financial support may serve as a nudge to the EU Member States to make concrete steps towards the integration of their respective national defence capacities.

Abstract ▼

The paper analyses the characteristics and evolution of cooperation between NATO and the countries which are neither situated in the Euro‐Atlantic area nor are they involved in the Alliance’s multilateral programmes. The author focuses on the contribution of Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, and how this operation has gradually built their cooperation with the NATO. Those countries had initially been defined in NATO’s official documents as the contact countries, only to be subsequently named in 2008 as they are known today – the partners across the globe, or simply global partners. Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq now are the global partners of NATO as well. The departing point of discussion in this paper is the thesis that the ISAF mission may be considered as the cradle of the Alliance’s new concept of global partnership. The author sorts all NATO’s global partners in two main categories: the “real” and “fictitious”. The real global partners are countries that really contribute to the NATO’s missions, such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Mongolia. The fictitious global partners are those states that are actually the test area for NATO missions – Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Pakistan, which has acquired the status of a partner due to its vital strategic position to the realisation of the Alliance’s mission in Afghanistan. The author concludes that the “real” global partners are not viable for membership to NATO at this moment, but in the case of the strained relations between the United States and China the option of full membership cannot be excluded.

Abstract ▼

The NATO area covers more water than land. The Atlantic ocean, the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the Black Sea geographically and strategically unite the allies. NATO is a maritime alliance because almost all Member States have a maritime orientation and are highly dependent on maritime trade. To protect its interests on the seas and oceans NATO countries built up and maintained strong naval forces. Twenty of the 28 Member States of the Alliance has its own Navy – naval forces. Also, the Alliance has developed a highly‐trained naval capacity for immediate response – Standing NATO naval forces consisting of naval ships of Member States. The use of naval power is more frequent, while more than 80 percent of local interventions and wars were conducted from the sea and over the sea. After the Cold War, NATO has dominated in the global maritime domain with robust naval forces and conducted several key naval operations to project the power and influence events on the ground. NATO naval operations have been conducted from the Balkans to the South Asia and North Africa. In the post‐Cold War security environment, the Mediterranean is an area of central geopolitical and geostrategic interest to NATO. Also, NATO has a strong economic and energy interests in the Mediterranean. In that region, the naval component of the Alliance is extremely active. NATO maritime activities began during the early 1990\'s. NATO conducted out of area operation – Operation Sharp Guard, a naval blockade of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Significant naval forces, including attacks from the distance from the sea, participated in Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia. After the terrorist attacks on the United States, NATO has increased the capacity of naval forces in the Mediterranean and established Operation Active Endeavour. This naval operation today transformed in Operation Sea Guardian and NATO with naval forces exercised full control and supervision of all maritime activities around the Mediterranean. Today, NATO has the Standing NATO Maritime Groups 1 (SNMG 1) and Standing NATO Maritime Groups 2 (SNMG 2), Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group (SNMCG 1) and Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group (SNMCG 2). NATO\'s Standing Naval Forces are no longer associated with a single area, but they must be ready for use anywhere. At present, NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean conduct maritime security operations and provides assistance in dealing with refugees and the migration crisis in the Aegean Sea. Today, NATO is a maritime alliance in action, actively preparing for the maritime century.

Abstract ▼

The jurisdiction of the permanent International Criminal Court for the crime of aggression is due to activate during 2017. As the voting of the members of the Court’s Statute gets closer, critiques to its competence to prosecute aggression grow stronger, which is at the same time confusing and counterproductive. Those not at all negligible voices state that only Security Council can properly decide if an act of aggression was committed, that the aggression is a non‐justiciable political crime, that the two‐step procedure of ICC in its deliberations on aggression is contrary to a rule of consent of the state to judicial proceedings, that the possible overflow of proceedings will initiate national prosecutions toward third states and its officials which would endanger international legal rules on states and officials immunity from foreign jurisdiction. The author argues that all these critiques are either wrong in their views or overlook the fact that their views can easily be put against other international crimes which do not, however, suffer from their attacks. It is obvious that historical landmark of future criminal prosecutions for the development of international law and the stability of the international community is downgraded. The author concludes that, notwithstanding numerous problems that accompany it, the conception of aggression from the Statute of International Criminal Court will benefit the general prevention of unlawful uses of force in international relations and will diminish impunity for the “crime of all crimes”.

Abstract ▼

The paper deals with the issue of environmental protection in armed conflicts. The article starts from the solutions contained in the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD Convention) and the Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which, for the first time, explicitly contained provisions on the protection of environment in armed conflicts. Then the author focuses on the content of Article 8 of the Rome Statute and gives a brief overview of theoretical statements of prominent authors. Comparing the solutions of Protocol I and Rome Statute, the author starts from the hypothesis that the solution of the Rome Statute represent a step backwards in the protection of the environment in armed conflicts in relation to the solutions of Protocol I. In addition to critical consideration of the aforementioned provisions of the Rome Statute, the author points out the differences in the standardization of ecological war crimes in the Rome Statute and the Serbian Criminal Code. After reviewing the normative solutions, the author presents the selected examples of environmental protection in armed conflicts in practice. The results of the research, by application of the legal dogmatic method, shows that there are many problems that hinder the implementation of relevant provisions of the instruments of environmental protection in armed conflicts in practice. Therefore, the aim of the author is, starting from the problems in this area, to offer de lege ferenda proposals for the amendment of existing solutions.

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The paper examines the limits of the European Union policy making towards the Eastern Neighbours, as well as towards the Russian Federation. In‐depth analyses of the existing contractual relations proved that the EU neighborhood policy is a non‐ functional mixture of foreign policy interventionism, enlargement policy and conditionality instruments. The article has found that high economic interests, security and peace intentions and fight against the global threats in the Eastern Neighborhood are not subject to the typical EU conditionality, since proven instruments work only under the umbrella of the enlargement policy and membership prospect. The author has concluded that the EU will have to look old/new form of partnerships for the neighborhood countries in order to keep stability, peace and security around its borders. Current relations with the Eastern Partnership countries are neither developed, neither confident, despite the hybrid legal frameworks with some of them. A vital strategic partner in the East remains the Russian Federation, and it is expected that relations in the Eastern Neighborhood will be adjusted to the current position of Russia in this region. This can not be dependent, even of the membership prospect for Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia, which seems to be inadequate offer at the moment, like it was at all the previous historical moments and developments. New agreements signed with these three countries did not help prevent conflicts, tensions, or the huge pro‐Russian opposition in these countries. Implementation of comprehensive Association Agreements/Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements are yet to come, and these countries still lack democratic and efficient governance, and implementation of the number of paragraphs from the previous Partnership and Cooperation Agreements. PCAs are still in force with the rest of the countries of the Eastern Partnership (except Belarus). DCFTA Agreement with Ukraine is not yet ratified by all EU member states (Netherlands).