Stormont, Putin, and Trump – Normalising Conquest…

Finley is a Slugger reader from Belfast

Axios just reported that Donald Trump proposes that the U.S. and other states recognise Russian claims of sovereignty over forcibly occupied Ukrainian lands.

“The new Trump plan to end the war in Ukraine would grant Russia parts of eastern Ukraine it does not currently control, in exchange for a U.S. security guarantee for Ukraine and Europe against future Russian aggression, a U.S. official with direct knowledge told Axios… According to the Trump plan, the U.S. and other countries would recognise Crimea and the Donbas as lawfully Russian territory, but Ukraine would not be asked to.” (Axios)

The central pillar of the post-1945 international order — the rule that territory cannot be acquired by force, and that states must not recognise such territorial changes — is now under unprecedented strain. For nearly eight decades, the non-recognition norm has served as the world’s brake on conquest. It has not prevented every act of aggression, but it has ensured that aggressors are denied legitimacy, markets, investment, and, crucially, diplomatic confirmation of their claims. Without this norm, the international system reverts to a world of imperial spheres of influence and the open trading of territory by major powers.

Two developments — one in Washington, one in Belfast — illuminate the fragility of this norm and the speed with which it is being eroded.

The first is the new U.S. plan for Ukraine reported by Axios, under which the United States and other countries would recognise Crimea and the Donbas as lawfully Russian territory in exchange for a security guarantee for what remains of Ukraine. The second is the decision of Stormont’s education minister to visit a school in occupied East Jerusalem, an act that implicitly acknowledges Israeli sovereignty in a territory the United Kingdom formally classifies as occupied and whose status it does not recognise.

At radically different scales, both actions strike at the same principle: that conquest cannot be legitimised. Taken together, they reveal a dangerous inconsistency in Western state practice and a growing willingness — sometimes deliberate, sometimes careless — to treat the non-recognition norm as optional. The consequences extend far beyond Ukraine or Israel-Palestine. If the norm weakens, the incentives for territorial aggression grow everywhere.

The U.S. Proposal and the Return of Territorial Revisionism

The new Trump plan for Ukraine represents a decisive rupture with the West’s unified position on Ukraine since 2014. Indeed, it would be the first time a major Western power formally recognised the outcome of a post-1945 war of territorial conquest.

The plan’s core, as described by Axios, is not merely a ceasefire. It is not even a negotiation over disputed lines of control. It is a proposal that: “The United States and other countries will recognise Crimea and the Donbas as lawfully Russian territory, even though Ukraine will not be required to.”

This single line is the operational heart of the plan and the most dangerous element in it.

For the first time, a major Western state would be prepared to treat internationally recognised Ukrainian territory — territory that Russia seized through invasion and occupation — as belonging to Russia de jure. And it would do so unilaterally, regardless of Ukraine’s refusal to accept annexation.

This is not a peace deal. It is a precedent.

It signals to every revisionist power — Russia, China, Israel — that the West’s stance on territorial integrity is flexible, negotiable, and, critically, reversible.

A. The Weakening of Ukraine’s Legal Shield

Ukraine’s strongest defence has not been military; it has been legal and diplomatic. The West’s unwavering commitment to non-recognition meant that Russia’s annexations were considered nullities, incapable of producing legal effects. Ukraine could rely on the international community to treat its borders as intact, even when militarily violated.

If the U.S. breaks that commitment, Ukraine’s position collapses. Russia gains legitimacy. Ukraine loses the moral and legal basis on which sanctions, support, and international solidarity have been built.

B. The Introduction of “Dual Recognition” — A Fatal Innovation

The Trump plan introduces something unprecedented: a dual-recognition system in which Ukraine may maintain its legal claim to its territory while major powers recognise Russian sovereignty over that same land.

This is a direct attack on the Namibia principle articulated by the International Court of Justice (1971): that the international community has an obligation not to recognise territorial claims arising from violations of international law.

If the U.S. implements this new model, recognition becomes a tool of great-power management rather than a universal legal commitment.

The Erosion of the Norm Accelerates Future Conquest

Once the non-recognition norm is breached in Ukraine, it is breached everywhere.

• China gains cover for future action regarding Taiwan or the South China Sea.
• Serbia is emboldened regarding Republika Srpska.
• Israel gains political cover for claims in East Jerusalem and beyond.
• Russia gains a roadmap for future moves toward Odesa or Kharkiv.
• Any state with a territorial grievance or ambition sees that recognition can be negotiated.

The world reverts to territorial bargaining, where land can be transferred not through war alone but through diplomacy that ratifies war’s results.

The cost of non-recognition is that it must be applied consistently. The moment the West applies it selectively — rigid for some countries, negotiable for others — it loses credibility as a universal rule and becomes instead a tool of political convenience.

And this is where the Stormont episode becomes critical.

Stormont and the Quiet Undermining of the Same Norm

The UK has long maintained a careful diplomatic stance on disputed territories, including East Jerusalem, consistent with its international legal obligations. The UK — including its devolved governments — is bound by the same prohibition on recognising the acquisition of territory by force. East Jerusalem is explicitly designated by the UK as occupied territory, its status unresolved and its sovereignty not vested in Israel.

For this reason, UK officials traditionally avoid any activity in occupied East Jerusalem that might be construed as acknowledging Israeli sovereignty. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has repeatedly issued guidance discouraging such visits and has, in past cases, intervened to prevent them.

Stormont’s recent visit to a school in occupied East Jerusalem breaks this practice. While seemingly minor, it is a direct implication of recognition: the physical presence of a UK minister in an institution under Israeli municipal authority has a symbolic and diplomatic meaning.

More serious still is Westminster’s inaction. A failure to enforce norms amounts to acquiescence, signalling that deviation from non-recognition is tolerable for devolved administrations even when it contradicts the UK’s stated foreign policy and legal obligations.

A. This Is Not Just a Political Issue — It Is Legally Actionable

Under UK law, devolved institutions must act consistently with:

• the UK’s international legal obligations, and
• the UK government’s established policy positions on those obligations.

If Stormont engages in conduct that contradicts the UK’s non-recognition commitment, it may be subject to judicial review. A party such as People Before Profit could plausibly challenge the decision on the grounds that:

1. Stormont exceeded its devolved competence by entering into foreign-policy-relevant conduct that breaches the UK’s international obligations.
2. Westminster failed to enforce those obligations, constituting an unlawful abdication of duty.
3. The visit creates a reasonable perception of recognition, placing the UK in violation of the non-recognition norm.

This is not theoretical. Courts in the UK have previously ruled on the compatibility of government actions with international law — including cases involving occupation, sanctions, and state conduct abroad.

B. The Political Consequence: A Rogue Regional Administration

If Stormont departs from the non-recognition norm, it effectively acts as a rogue regional government — not in the sense of criminality, but in the legal sense of taking actions inconsistent with the UK’s obligations. Devolved governments are prohibited from pursuing their own foreign policy on reserved matters, especially when it involves sensitive questions of sovereignty recognition.

Just as the Trump administration’s proposed recognition of Russian claims undermines the non-recognition norm globally, Stormont’s actions undermine it domestically.

And the two cases reinforce each other.

The Common Thread: The West Is Eroding Its Own Defences

The United States, through its Ukraine plan, and the United Kingdom, through its failure to enforce discipline on Stormont, are weakening the very norm that protects global stability and shields weaker states from predation.

What these developments share is the same dangerous logic:

That territorial conquest may be legitimate if powerful states decide it is politically convenient.

Once that logic takes hold, the norm ceases to function. Russia, China, Israel and other revisionist powers need not destroy the norm themselves; they only need wait while the West erodes it for them.

If the UK cannot maintain consistency on East Jerusalem, and if the United States is prepared to recognise Russia’s conquests in Ukraine, the entire doctrinal architecture that has prevented great-power territorial expansion since the Second World War begins to collapse.

And with it collapses the only real protection Ukraine has left.

Conclusion: The Responsibility to Defend the Norm Falls to Those Still Willing to Act

The global order is not undone in a single moment. It is undone through a series of exceptions — one large, one small, but each structurally identical. The U.S. plan for Ukraine is the most significant breach of the non-recognition norm in decades. The Stormont visit to occupied East Jerusalem is a smaller but still meaningful erosion of the same principle.

Both must be resisted.

Ukraine’s territorial integrity depends on the non-recognition of conquest. So does the stability of borders everywhere. The Trump proposal strikes directly at that core protection. Stormont’s actions, and Westminster’s failure to restrain them, weaken the same principle at home.

The UK still has legal tools to enforce compliance, including judicial review. It should use them. Because once the non-recognition norm falls, it will not be Russia or China or Israel who bear the cost, but every state whose security rests on the idea that borders cannot be redrawn by force.

The consequences will be far wider.

“No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest.” — Algernon Sidney