Forcible Protection of Nationals Abroad: The Doctrine’s Hegemonic Use

During the last few years Russia has repeatedly evoked the doctrine of the protection of nationals abroad in all cases when it has resorted to the use of force. Russia’s invocation of this doctrine has been harshly criticized, mainly because it has been deemed as a neo-hegemonic interpretation thereof. That is, several deprecating remarks over Russia’s policy have been made, given that it has treated the doctrine as a tool to achieve its neo-imperialistic goals, in essence repudiating all the legal developments that had taken place from 1945 onwards. The invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 further resulting in Crimea’s illegal annexation, as well as the 2022 ongoing war against it, all relied more or less on the alleged danger to Russian nationals in the invaded areas. This paper will explore Russia’s invocation of the doctrine in the ongoing war against Ukraine. It will examine whether there are sufficient legal bases on these grounds, and it will demonstrate how Russia disregards the doctrine’s interpretation after the entry into force of the UN Charter promoting a hegemonic reading thereof. It will argue that the state’s policy shows the emergence of a new pattern regarding the forcible protection of its nationals abroad, which has endured for the last two decades. Finally, it will propose that continuity in such state practice is a constant threat to the former Soviet Union countries’ sovereignty, while it questions the very notion of their citizens’ nationality rights.