Chapter 2 examined the tradition of legal thinking and historic practice with respect to the recognition of states. The rationale for that exercise was the claim, in part, that if the EC's recognition of Yugoslav republics was driven primarily by political and strategic considerations, one could not dismiss the relevance of international law altogether. The claim rested on two observations: first, that the EC consciously and deliberately considered the question of recognition within a legal framework, evident most notably in its establishment of the Badinter Commission; and second, that the legal framework, once invoked, both facilitated and constrained the EC in some of its actions.

This chapter returns to the latter point. For to suggest that the EC's response was at all moulded by international law would not only seem to contradict the views of legal scholars and political analysts alike who maintain that the Community's actions were motivated largely, if not entirely, by extra-legal considerations; it also begs a number of fundamental questions about the relationship between international law and politics in general and the bearing that both have on the recognition of states in particular. For instance, how does one distinguish conformity to law from the fortuitous coincidence of law and politics? And if international law at times does indeed facilitate and constrain international behaviour, how does it achieve that effect?