Frozen Conflicts in International Law

Summary and Outlook

This thesis explored international law’s relationship with the ambiguous concept of frozen conflicts. It therefore addressed different levels: the term ‘frozen conflict’ (Part I), the actual cases called frozen conflicts (Part II and III), and international law when placing the concept within the wider field (Part IV). Part I of the thesis pursued investigations of the term ‘frozen conflict’. These investigations showed that although the date of first use remains unclear, most authors situate its emergence in the 1990s. The empirical analysis of the use of the term in UN documents indicates that it emerged in 1998 and that it gained momentum only in the 2000s because only after a certain amount of time are conflicts perceived as frozen; moreover, Russian policies underwent changes in this decade. Since then, the term has always been in use and has never fully disappeared, despite some variation in the frequency of its use. The empirical analysis also revealed that the four conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Nagorno-Karabakh have most frequently been referred to as frozen conflicts. This finding both suggested and justified the thesis’s focus on the post-Soviet context. While many authors have regarded these four conflicts as the original frozen conflicts, until today no empirical data has been provided to support this assumption. Part I also presented attempts at conceptualizations and definitions of frozen conflicts in various disciplines. The Peace Research Centre Prague offers a definition and has identified 42 cases of frozen conflicts between 1946 and 2011. They apply the concept universally and reject a restriction to the post-Soviet context. In the realm of international law, Grant has offered a legal definition of frozen conflicts that follows a classical concept structure in which a situation is either a frozen conflict or not, with no grey areas. In the end, he asserts that the concept is not relevant to international law. This thesis chose a different approach and followed what cognitive science calls the family resemblance concept structure: instead of ‘yes or no’, concepts are understood gradually. This is legitimate, because from the beginning it has been acknowledged that frozen conflict is a descriptive concept that does not entail direct legal consequences. Additionally, this approach is valuable because it has been shown that thinking of frozen conflicts as a rigid category with clear boundaries misses the essence of the phenomenon, which inherently blurs conceptual boundaries due to its ambiguity.

To grasp this ambiguity, Parts II and III presented a case study of the four frozen conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Part II provided an overview of their history and recent developments, and Part III analysed their common characteristics in which the frozenness can be seen. The quality of frozenness, in other words, the deadlock, has been illustrated by four common elements: the conflicts’ core issues, time factor, intensity, and proliferation. Parts II and III showed that the core issue in each of the conflicts is the status of the break-away territory and that it remains unresolved. This is because the parties’ territorial claims to the region are mutually exclusive and thus imply a deadlock. The separatists claim their right to self-determination and demand secession while the parent state requires the integrity of its territory. Both parties have retained their maximalist legal positions for three decades, resulting in the perpetual deferral of any resolution to the issue. The time factor in the conflicts is dominated by this strategy, playing for time, which is facilitated by the fact that international law does not set a time frame for dispute settlement. Additionally, due to the absence of rapidly evolving emergency situations in frozen conflicts, the international community has been shown not to intervene with timely and decisive actions. Thus, the conflicts are prolonged, and the passage of time further widens the gap between the de jure and the de facto territorial situations: while the de jure territorial situation is resistant to any factual changes over time, the de facto territorial situation becomes more consolidated the longer it persists. By pulling in these two opposing directions, the time factor exacerbates the deadlock. Furthermore, frozen conflicts have been characterized by their generally low intensity. They are distinguished from the intensity and violence of full-scale war or armed conflict by the fact that most of the time no active armed hostilities take place. Nevertheless, they are also distinct from positive peace, because violence is not completely absent either. The low intensity of frozen conflicts is evident in three respects: in the military occupation of the regions, which amounts to a permanent violation of international law and a constant threat of the use of force; in the human rights situation, which presents challenges for both procedural rights and substantive rights; and in the displacement of thousands of people over the decades, which has significantly changed the demographic composition of these regions. Finally, the thesis has emphasized that the proliferation of these conflicts in the post-Soviet space must be included in the analysis, and that we consider frozen conflicts not as something universal. A particular political and historical climate has been key to freezing these conflicts. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Russia’s waning influence on the former Soviet Republics led Russia to develop specific approaches to international law. The theory that it has — S. 161 —a permissive stance on the use of force and changes to territorial titles in its near abroad explains Russia’s support of the de facto states in frozen conflicts. Only with this support can the de facto states persist, and as long as Russia follows this approach, the frozen conflicts will continue.

Part IV located the concept of frozen conflicts within the legal landscape. The concept has been situated between two dichotomies: between the states of war and peace, and between the realms of law and politics. First, the dichotomy of war and peace has been shown to have evolved from a formalist approach to a factualist one and the term ‘war’ has been substituted by ‘armed conflict’. Although this approach is more dynamic and flexible, it nevertheless still implies a binary approach: a situation is either an armed conflict or it is not. This oversimplification is challenged in diffuse situations such as frozen conflicts. Moreover, the possibilities of not fitting into the binary logic of international law can be instrumentalized by conflict parties. In frozen conflicts, Russia instrumentalizes the dichotomy of war or armed conflict and peace and plays on this ambiguity. It benefits from international law’s difficulties to recognize and act appropriately vis à vis such diffuse situations. In the dichotomy of law and politics, frozen conflicts can be a matter of both realms. Criticisms that frozen conflicts are a purely political matter have been dispelled because the question whether a matter is legal or political is not determined by the nature of the object. Instead, it is determined by the perspective taken, and frozen conflicts can be viewed from both legal and political perspectives. The more interesting question is whether law or politics can deal better with frozen conflicts. The law has been acknowledged to have its limits in dealing with or resolving frozen conflicts. However, if politics were to address these conflicts with the willingness to resolve them, it might succeed. Overall, the concept of frozen conflicts has therefore been located between law and politics. In the next step, the similarity of frozen conflicts with other ambiguous concepts was presented. The analogy with jus post bellum has shown that other concepts aim to overcome the oversimplistic binary logic of international law and enhance the discipline’s sensitivity to complex realities, particularly in situations that are no longer armed conflicts but not true peace either. The comparison with the concept of asymmetric warfare has shown other examples in which binary categories of international law are instrumentalized by conflict parties. In asymmetric wars terrorists often exploit the binary categories of combatants and noncombatants, and the boundaries between war and peace become blurred. Like frozen conflicts, asymmetric warfare has also been shown to be a descriptive concept that, consequently, triggers no action by the international community. Both jus post bellum and asymmetric warfare remain ambiguous concepts that lack — S. 162 —consolidated definitions; however, a remarkable interest in the topics has been noted, and they can prove useful not only in addressing cases but in reflecting on the discipline’s patterns and limits. Finally, the localization of frozen conflicts within the legal landscape concluded with an evaluation of the concept. Its strengths and weaknesses have been outlined. Strengths include the increasing interest in the topic and particularly its current salience, the enhancement of the visibility of these conflicts in international law, the growing awareness of particularities, and the opportunity to overcome dichotomies in international law and reflect on its limits. Weaknesses of the concept are its lack of a consolidated definition and of legal implications. Overall, we think it valuable to consider frozen conflicts as a legal concept and, for instance, to include the term in glossaries for law students.

By investigating the overall relationship of frozen conflicts and international law, this thesis has explored new research directions. Unlike much existing literature, which primarily focuses on frozen conflicts themselves, the present thesis has used these conflicts to reflect on international law. To thoroughly investigate a relationship such as that between frozen conflicts and international law, it is essential to consider both entities involved in the relationship. Thus, the thesis touched on several legal topics relevant in frozen conflicts and on questions about international law itself. This is both a strength of the work and, simultaneously, one of its limitations. Each theme—such as territorial claims, the time factor affecting the de facto states, the human rights situations, Russia’s approaches to international law, the break-away regions’ dependence on Russia, and the recent developments in Nagorno-Karabakh— is worth exploring in greater depth; each presents an independent research topic. Moreover, the scope of this work excluded deeper analysis of the geopolitics in the post-Soviet space. By providing a wide-ranging overview, the thesis thus sacrificed the depth that could be achieved by focusing on a specific aspect in more detail. Another limitation of the thesis is inherent to the concept of frozen conflicts. As has been discussed throughout the thesis, its ambiguity remains its key feature: bringing absolute clarity to frozen conflicts is like trying to square the circle. This ambiguity presents both opportunity and limitation. It allows awareness to be raised of atypical cases transgressing the well-established legal categories, but not fitting these categories lowers the concept’s power and leverage and will continue to do so.

Future research on the concept of frozen conflict in international law could explore a range of directions. It could delve deeper into various aspects that have been discussed above. For example, the empirical analysis of the use of the term ‘frozen conflict’ in UN documents could be complemented by an analysis of the documents of other international and regional organizations — S. 163 —and bodies, various states’ documents of legislative process, military strategy, political speeches and so forth, and scientific literature. Additional information could be collected from these documents, such as the most dominant collocates of the term, similar to Lukin and Garcia Marrugo’s corpus-linguistic studies of the term ‘war’ in legal documents, where they found that ‘person/s’, ‘prisoner/s of war’, ‘belligerent/s’, ‘forces’, ‘enemy’, ‘civilian/s’, and ‘combatant/s’ are the terms most frequently used together with ‘war’.¹⁰⁸⁷This would generate more precise insights into the use and meaning of the term ‘frozen conflicts’. Furthermore, characteristics portraying the frozenness of the conflicts could be examined in greater detail. For instance, breaches of ceasefire agreements could be analysed to provide detailed information on how the intensity of violence in frozen conflicts may shift. It would be insightful to quantify the spirals of violence by counting and classifying instances of violence per region. Furthermore, further studies on human rights violations in the regions would help better understand the violence occurring in the regions: which human rights have most frequently been violated and by which state, and how does this contrast with other frozen and nonfrozen conflicts in the world?

Certainly, the development of the concept of frozen conflict is another potential area for research. Depending on its use in future legal sources and policies, the concept could evolve significantly. For example, if the term ‘frozen conflict’ were to appear in a formal judgement by the ICJ to describe a situation or perhaps even to help interpret or apply the law, such an appearance could have far-reaching implications on the relationship between international law and frozen conflicts that would require further research. The same is true if the UN suddenly appropriates the concept and derives certain actions from it—a scenario that is feasible, similarly to the UN’s sponsoring of the concept of transitional justice. Finally, the ongoing war in Ukraine presents another critical area for future research. Depending on the war’s outcome, it could impact the use and meaning of the term ‘frozen conflict’ and its status in international law. If the situation in Ukraine were to become a frozen conflict, perceptions of the concept might well shift: when compared to the full-scale war that has been ongoing since 2022, a frozen conflict might be seen as preferable to active warfare, leading to a more positive connotation of the term ‘frozen conflict’. In conclusion, we think that research on frozen conflicts is still in its early stages and holds significant potential for further exploration.

A new morning was dawning grey outside the window.

Andrey Kurkov,

Grey Bees

About the Author

Livia Enzler studied Law at the University of Zurich. Prior to her legal studies, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in French and Russian Linguistics and Literature, studying at both the University of Zurich and the University of Lausanne. She also completed an exchange semester in Odesa, Ukraine. During her PhD, she conducted research at Stanford University and the University of Cambridge, and received the UZH Candoc Grant.

Currently, she is working at the Directorate of International Law within the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

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019 — APARIUZ XXII: Unter Gleichen

025 — Severin Meier: Indeterminacy of International Law? 026 — Marc Thommen: Introduction to Swiss Law (2nd edition, 2022)

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033 — Joséphine Boillat / Stéphane Werly: 20 ans de la transparence à Genève

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R.Lang: Einordnung und Gestaltung der Rechtsverhältnisse in der Stromversorgung

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der Unabtretbarkeit von Forderungen Criminal Law 014 — Stephan Bernard: Was ist Strafverteidigung?

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von 1990 bis 2014 031 — Martin Klingler: Füllung der Gesetzeslücken im schweizerischen Adhäsionsverfahren 032 — Nicolas Leu: Kritik der objektiven Zurechnung 048 — Benjamin Clément: Die strafbare Unterlassung der allgemeinen Lebensrettungspflicht 049 — Martin Seelmann: Strafzumessung und Doppelverwertung

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edited by Marc Thommen.

1^stedition, 20 December 2025

© 2025 Livia Enzler

This thesis was accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich on 2 April 2025, upon the recommendation of

Prof. Dr. Oliver Diggelmann and Prof. Dr. Urs Saxer, and was awarded the distinction magna cum laude.

Print of the dissertation approved by the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich.

This work has been published under a Creative Commons license

which requires only the attribution of the author when being reused (CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).

The pre-press stage of this publication was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

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FROZEN CO

IN INTERNA

The term “frozen conflict” is commonly understood as a blurred state between war and peace. It typically refers to disputes in the post-Soviet space, namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. However, it remains an ambiguous concept with no uniform definition. This book explores the relationship between International Law and frozen conflicts by examining the term, analysing the four cases mentioned, and situating the concept within the wider legal landscape. Frozen conflicts challenge the discipline’s binary logic by blurring the boundaries of war and peace, international and non-international armed conflicts, states and nonstates, and law and politics. The book offers a critical reflection on the limitations of International Law when addressing such ambiguous phenomena.

sui generis

ISBN 978-3-907297-71-1

DOI 10.38107/071