Cyprus 1958-1968: An interdisciplinary assessment of inter-communal violence, with a particular emphasis on Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions I-IV

Abstract

The present thesis examines whether armed violence in Cyprus from 1958 to 1968, between its ethnic ‘Greek’ and ‘Turkish’ communities, reached the legal threshold that would constitute a non-international armed conflict under International Humanitarian Law. These events are the prologue to the Island’s division since 1974. Thus, despite the extensive literature on the Cyprus Question, the chosen chronology has attracted less attention in academic and public discourse, and legal literature in particular is overall scarcer. In that regard, the thesis seeks to address gaps both in the historical narrative and in the legal literature. For this reason, the thesis has assumed an interdisciplinary approach, combining legal and historical approaches, with previous research in the social sciences. From an international legal perspective, the inquiry is underpinned by critical international legal scholarship and the ‘Third World Approaches to International Law ‘(TWAIL) movement.

The thesis consists of four core chapters. Chapter 2 intertwines the history of public international law with historical developments on the Island of Cyprus starting from the Island’s transfer from Ottoman to British administration in 1878, until the first wave of intercommunal violence in 1958. Chapter 3 presents the constitutional framework of the Republic of Cyprus as established in 1960 and the problems that derived thereof, with reference also to the domestic criminal legal order. Chapter 4 focuses on the most violent period from December 1963 assessing the level of violence through the legal criteria of ‘organisation’ of the armed groups involved, and ‘intensity’ of violence, under common article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It then proceeds with a brief examination over the invocation of the Doctrine of Necessity by the Supreme Court in November 1964, by way of introduction to the less violent period from 1965 to March 1968, examined in Chapter 5, which saw a series of socio-legal and political changes that have been contributing to the standstill in inter-communal relations to this day.

The thesis illustrates how the lack of clarity surrounding the events from 1958 to 1968 derived from the diplomatic and political discourse at the time. From today’s perspective, it problematises the interplay between law and politics in protracted unresolved disputes, and the socio-legal complexities that perpetuate them.