Bescherming van mensenrechten in entiteiten gelijkend op staten in de pan-Europese ruimte: tussen de facto controle en staatscentrisme

This dissertation addresses a longstanding and internationally significant human rights protection gap affecting individuals living in what the study refers to as 'state-like entities'. These entities exercise effective control over territory and population and claim to be independent States. However, they are excluded from the international legal system because they originate from unlawful or illegitimate attempts at State formation through unilateral secession from the title-bearing State (i.e. parent State), often pursued with the political, military or economic support of a third State (i.e. sponsor State). Their ambiguous position (they exist de facto, but not de jure) creates a structural mismatch between the State-centric design of international human rights law and the realities on the ground. The thesis offers an original contribution by conceptualizing state-like entities as a distinct category of non-state actors, and analysing, through a positivist yet empirically-informed and normatively-oriented lens, how the existing international human rights system can mitigate this protection vacuum. Focusing on the state-like entities situated in the pan-European space, namely the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and (until 2023) Nagorno-Karabakh, the study clarifies the concept and legal status of state-like entities, demonstrating that, while they do not exist as States, they may nonetheless possess international legal personality below the threshold of statehood. In particular, evidence of (emerging) customary international law supports the conclusion that state-like entities are bound by international human rights law by virtue of the de facto control they exercise. The thesis then examines the nature and structure of the international human rights system, including its State-centric assumptions and the conceptual pathways that may overcome them. Building on this foundation, the dissertation proceeds to assess the international human rights obligations and potential responsibility or accountability of three actors for breaches of those obligations: the parent State, the sponsor State, and the state-like entity itself. The study concludes that, far from being mutually exclusive, their roles are complementary and, when pursued in parallel, allow the international human rights system to move closer to bridging the protection gap in state-like entities.