The Southern State in the Eyes of International Law
Ali Haitham Al-Ghareeb
Introduction and Preliminary Thoughts
Since 1994 war, South Yemen underwent two legal trials, in 1194 and in 2015, and at least four stages to restore the occupied state. But changes in international politics hindered these efforts although the Arab Region stood with South Yemen in the war against Al-Houthi and Saleh’s militias. The legal framework of this issue is an actual application of self-determination principle that has become an obligatory international legal rule.
Nevertheless, some “veto” countries and other members of the UN-Security Council makes fun of international laws for its own interest. And if they cannot do so sue to interrelated interests, they seek to annul these laws and replace with special decrees of the security council to enable them to deceive conquered nations.
The purpose of this legal memorandum is to concentrate on international law principles that previously helped the south to regain its independence from UK (1963-1967) and reaching the current legal situation embodied in UN secretary general Ban Ki Mon’s invitation to the Southern Movement to attend and participate in Geneva 1. In addition, we will analyze efforts of the (10) Gulf States fostering Yemen National Talks as representatives of these countries arrived at Adan in February 2014 to convince leaders of the Southern Movement to participate in Yemen National Talks with a fair share of 50% of negotiators giving the south (8) seats and the north (8) seats too. This particular step led our southern cause to the doors of UN.
Accordingly, this legal memorandum is divided into four stages: Stage one: Historical/Legal background of the Southern Cause – Stage Two: Setback of The Union and Second Trial for Restoring the Southern State – Stage Three: War Against Northern Invasion – Stage Four: The Dream of Independent Federal State. For the next four parts of this article we will deal with each stage in details.
