Nikos Skoutaris

The Birth of a Republic, But Not of a Nation: The Case of State-Building in Cyprus

The principle of bicommunality has been advanced as a founding feature of state-building in Cyprus. The aim of this article is to provide a systematic account of the different variations of the bicommunal principle enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus and in the Annan Plan as the most comprehensive proposal for the reunification of the island. In order to achieve its scope, the article focuses on the provisions concerning state institutions and citizenship. It argues that, in all those constitutional structures, state-building is not linked with nation-building. In fact, the acceptance of bicommunalism as a fundamental principle of the united Cyprus proves that the main concern has been the accommodation of the political tensions resulting from a divided society.

Speaking of the de … rogations: accommodating a solution of the Cyprus issue within the Union legal order

In the past decades, almost every aspect of the Cyprus issue has been discussed in innumerable academic fora and negotiated between the two communities and several international actors. The unmitigated failure so far to achieve a comprehensive settlement to that conflict should not prevent academic or political initiatives from brainstorming the way to reach this much-anticipated goal but also to comment on the basic parameters of the solution. The present contribution consists of a modest effort to address the legal implications of the introduction of a somewhat new variable in the political equation of the Cyprus issue, that is, the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU. Having as a starting point the proposal for a constitutional convention we shall analyse how a possible settlement could be accommodated within the Union legal order. Undoubtedly, the process described in ‘On the Way to a Constitutional Convention for Cyprus’ is not only ground-breaking and innovative with regard to the constitutional history of Cyprus, but also as a method of conflict resolution. The idea of the Convention, to hand ownership of the settlement process to the Cypriots themselves, is obviously in accordance not only with the principles on which the Union is founded, namely, liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law, but also with the new ‘UN vision’ for a Cypriot-owned process for the solution of the age-old dispute. To that effect, the Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General in the bi-communal negotiations that are currently taking place at the moment, Mr Alexander Downer, in his opening statement at the launch of the bi-communal negotiation on 3 September 2008, told the two leaders that they ‘own this process and, as a result, your continuing leadership is the critical element to make it succeed’. Moreover, the suggested constitutional convention procedure also follows a paradigm that has been used twice by the Union itself. In thinking about the idea of a constitutional convention there is an inherent tension between, on the one hand, the understandable desire to avoid preconditions (or even second-guesses) as to the substance of the outcome of the Convention, and on the other, the requirements of legitimacy, which are of