Uncertain Future and Prospects of the Prespa Agreement between Macedonia and Greece

In the present article we discuss the future and prospects of the Prespa Agreement, concluded on June 17, 2018, between Macedonia and Greece aiming at resolving their “difference” over the name of Macedonia. The analysis is carried out by examining the legal aspects of United Nations Security Council Resolution 817 (1993) recommending the admission of Macedonia to UN membership but imposing on the applicant a provisional name (pending the settlement of difference over the applicant’s name), in particular its legal consistence with the provisions of Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) and with the general jus cogens norms of International Law enshrined in the UN Charter. It is concluded that the UN SC Res.817 (1993) is by itself an ultra vires act and cannot serve as a legal basis for the Prespa Agreement (ex injuria jus not oritur), that the Prespa Agreement violates the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the peremptory norms of International Law, particularly the principle of self-determination and enters into legal matters that belong stricto sensu to the domain of domestic jurisdiction of Macedonia. For these reasons the Prespa Agreement cannot be considered a legally valid treaty and, consequently, and Agreement can be subject of unilateral termination under provisions of Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969).

admission of a state to UN membership, and accepted by the General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/197(III) on December 8, 1948. (Note 1) The opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ, 1948) was that "the conditions stated in paragraph 1 of Article 4 must be regarded not merely as necessary conditions, but also as the conditions which suffice" (for admission). Furthermore, it stated: "Nor it can be argued that the conditions enumerated (in paragraph 1 of Article 4) represent an indispensable minimum, in the sense that political considerations could be superimposed upon them, and prevent the admission of an applicant which fulfils them". Hence, the conditions laid down in paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the UN Charter are exhaustive, necessary and sufficient and, if fulfilled appropriately in Security Council's opinion, the applicant state must be unconditionally admitted to UN membership. As mentioned above, this legal interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter by the Court was accepted by the General Assembly in its resolution A/ RES/197(III) of December 8, 1948. In view of the accepted Court's interpretation of Article 4(1) and of its acceptance by the General Assembly in 1948, it follows that the resolutions SC Res. 817 (1993) and GA Res. 47/225 (1993) with the additional conditions imposed on Macedonia at its admission to UN membership are in violation with Article 4 (1) of the Charter as a legal norm. As mentioned above, the introduction of the additional conditions (i) and (ii) for the admission of Macedonia to UN membership was based on the Greek allegation that the name of the applicant "implies territorial claims" were reflected in the wording of both resolutions as "difference over the name". However, according to the international law no state has an exclusive right over a name and that the "Greek demand that Macedonia change its name has no basis in the international law and practice" (Henkin et al., 1993). Indeed, as argued by Janev (1999), based on the principle of separability of domestic and international jurisdictions, the name of a state, which is subject to that state's domestic jurisdiction, does not create international legal rights for that state, nor does it impose legal obligations on other states. Clearly, the name per se does not have a direct impact on the territorial rights of states. Therefore, the Greek allegation that the name of the applicant implies "territorial claims" has no legal significance. Interference with matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a state, such as the choice of state's name, is also incompatible with Article 1(2) of the UN Charter (self-determination of peoples). Article 2 (7) of the Charter explicitly extends the validity of this legal norm to the United Nations themselves. It appears, therefore, that the Greek opposition to the admission of Macedonia to UN membership under its constitutional name and the intervention of the UN Security Council in the matters related to the name of the applicant state, are inconsistent with the Charter.
The inherent right of a state to have a name can be derived from the necessity that a juridical person must have a legal identity. In absence of such identity, the juridical person, such as a state, could to a large extent loose its capacity to interact with other juridical persons (e.g., conclude agreements, etc.) and independently enter into and conduct its external relations. The name of a state is, thus, an essential element of its juridical personality and of its statehood. The principles of sovereign equality of states and the inviolability of their juridical personality lead to the conclusion that the choice by a state of its www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape Advances in Politics and Economics Vol. 3, No. 2, 2020 4 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
own name is a basic, inherent right of the state. This right is not alienable, divisible or transferable. It is an essential part of the right to "self-determination" (determination of one's own legal identity), i.e., it belongs to the domain of jus cogens norms. External interference with this basic right is inadmissible.
It is also obvious that if such an external interference with the choice of the name of a state would be allowed, even through a negotiation process, it might easily become a legally endorsed mechanism for interference in the internal and external affairs of that state, i.e., a mechanism for degradation of its political independence. From these reasons, the choice by the state of its own name must be considered as an inherent right of the state that stricto sensu belongs to the domain of its domestic jurisdiction. In exercising this right, the states have, therefore, a complete legal freedom. This freedom may in practice be constrained only by considerations of avoidance the overlap of legal identities of two (or more) international juridical persons (The province "Macedonia" in Northern Greece is, however, not an international juridical person).
The imposition of two additional conditions on Macedonia at the time of its admission to membership to United Nations (to accept a provisional name for use within the UN system and negotiate with Greece over its name), outside those exhaustively enumerated in Article 4(1) of the Charter, represents a breach of the Charter provisions and, therefore, are an ultra vires act. They also violate Article 1(2) of the Charter (the principle of "equal rights and self-determination of peoples"). It is important to note that these conditions transcend the time of the admission act and define a membership status which is also in violation with the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 7 of Article 2. The condition for acceptance of a provisional name is also in violation with Article 83 of the "Vienna Convention on the Representation The condition regarding negotiations with Greece (speedy settlement of the difference over the name) needs a more detailed analysis (Janev & Petrović, 2011). It is an obligation imposed on Macedonia whose fulfillment depends on another country and is, therefore, outside of its control. The obligation for "the settlement of the difference over the name" is carried only by one of the parties involved, while the other party has a full freedom and control over the negotiating process. Indeed, in the course of negotiations over 25 years, mediated by a UN Special Representative, Greece has been repeatedly obstructing the negotiations by ever-expanding its demands. In later years of negotiating process the Greek demands started to include more and more matters which are strictly within the domain of domestic jurisdiction of Macedonia (significant changes to the Constitution, demands relating to the use of Macedonian language and redefinition of national identity) and will be discussed in more detail in the next Section. Here we only note that these demands are completely outside of the initial legal frame of the subject of negotiations, formulated by the SC Res. 817 (1993) and in the latest stage of the negotiation process took the form of an ultimatum.
Thus, the illegal conditions imposed on Macedonia for its admission to UN membership relating to the provisional name of the state and the "settlement of the difference" over its name generated a serious long-term problem in the relations between Macedonia and Greece, threatening Macedonian people to lose their national identity. It should be noted that before its admission to the UN membership in 1993, Macedonia had been recognized by its constitutional name Republic of Macedonia by 30 sovereign states. As a member of the United Nation its legal personality has been given a provisional denomination 'The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" for use within the UN system. However, due to the authority of the UN "recognition" many countries and international organizations have  non oritur"). It cannot serve as a basis for any kind of an "ID agreement", that appears to be a consequence or the final result of the mentioned additional conditions imposed on the candidate for UN membership.

The Prespa Agreement and the International Law
In the Preamble of the Vienna Convention on the Law of treaties (1969) (1993) and 845 (1993) [as well as the Interim Accord of 1995]". We note that SC Res. 845 (1993) "urges the parties to continue their efforts to arrive at a speedy settlement of the remaining issues between them". The wording "remaining issues" in the interpretation of the First Party of Prespa Agreement does not mean only "differences over the name" but extends to matters of national identity, state language, constitution and even the internal administrative system. This Greek interpretation of the provisions of SC Res.845 (1993)  1) Pursuant to those negotiations the following have been mutually accepted and agreed: a) The official name of the Second Party shall be the "Republic of North Macedonia", which shall be the constitutional name of the Second Party and shall be used erga omnes, as provided for in this Agreement. The short name of the Second Party shall be "North Macedonia". b) The nationality of the Second Party shall be Macedonian/citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia, as it will be registered in all travel documents. c) The official language of the Second Party shall be the "Macedonian language", as recognized by the Third UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, held in Athens in 1977, and described in Article 7 (3) and (4)   The core provisions b) and c) of paragraph 3 are essentially beyond the scope of the subject of the Agreement defined by SC Res. 817 ("settlement of difference" over the name) and relate to the matters of national identity and language. As mentioned in sub-paragraph (3-f) above the meaning of noun "Macedonia" and adjective "Macedonian" is provided by the provisions of Article 7 the first three paragraphs of which read: 1) The Parties acknowledge that their respective understanding of the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" refers to a different historical context and cultural heritage.
2) When reference is made to the First Party, these terms denote not only the area and people of the northern region of the First Party, but also their attributes, as well as the Hellenic civilization, history, culture, and heritage of that region from antiquity to present day.
3) When reference is made to the Second Party, these terms denote its territory, language, people and their attributes, with their own history, culture, and heritage, distinctly different from those referred to under Article 7(2).
The provisions 2 and 3 deprive the terms ''Macedonia" and "Macedonian" from their general meaning, framing them within a historic, cultural or regional context. This a severe derogation of Macedonian identity and Macedonian language; it represent a flagrant negation of the rights to national identity, culture and language of Macedonian minority in Greece and other countries. Like the state name, the identity of a people, its culture and language are indivisible, non-transferable and non-alienable.
Therefore, the Articles 1(3-f) and Article 7 are in violation with the general norms of International Law, including those related to the rights minorities.
In the remaining paragraphs 4-13 of Article 1 the implementation of the provisions of Article 1(3) are stipulated, again in an ultimate form, with the First Party playing the over sighting role. 4) Upon signing this Agreement, the Parties shall take the following steps: a) The Second Party shall, without delay, submit the Agreement to its Parliament for ratification.

b)
Following ratification of this Agreement by the Parliament of the Second Party, the Second Party shall notify the First Party that its Parliament has ratified the Agreement.
c) The Second Party, if it decides so, will hold a referendum.   (1969). For this reason the Prespa Agreement can be considered as null and void, and a subject of unilateral termination.
As argued earlier the state name and national identity are essential parts of the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination. Moreover, the national identity is by its nature an unchangeable inherent category. It is a self-identification of a group of people built through a common history, sharing the same language, customs, believes, ethical norms and having the same aspirations. It is a social phenomenon existing essentially outside of the realm of the Law. The main psychological characteristic of the members such a social group is their individual and collective conciseness of their "belonging" (to the group). The name is only linguistic or a formal description of such social group, most often related to the geographical name of the territory it occupies. Therefore, both the national identity and the name per se, cannot be subject to negotiation or imposition. The population of Macedonian nation on the territory of present Macedonia has been carrying that name and national sentiment for centuries, politically expressed during the long struggle for independence from the Ottoman rule and the  This provision is far from the legal standards of sovereign rights of states, provides a mechanism for revision of the cultural history of the Second Party and permanent intervention and control of its cultural and educational policies, hence severely derogating its sovereign cultural rights and sovereign identity. There are only a few articles on this matter (Siljanovska Davkova, 2019). The mentioned principle relating to collective human rights as a rule of self-determination is also applicable to the rights of States. Namely, States has a right to self-determination, particularly to self-identification and juridical equality vis a vis other sovereign states (Messineo, 2012). A link between the name of the State and a general category of a national identity (as a collective human right) lies in the category of legitimacy that means original sovereign people's will and consent to freely refer to itself and to self-identify (itself or themselves) as a people or as a nation, in accordance with the basic principle of sovereign people's will (i.e., principle of a popular sovereignty) (Vankovska, 2019

Conclusions
In the present article we have analyzed sustainability and legality of the Prespa Agreement concluded  In conclusion, one can observe that erga omnes norms contained in the Prespa Agreement for mandatory internal application of ID modifiers may not be implementable. The implementation of such modifiers in domestic legal and social order generally and finally depends on the people's will to accept (i.e. tolerate) or resist to the new imposed identity, and that imposition of alienated redefined new identity obviously does not seem durable.
If Macedonian people can't reconcile or endure with the obligations arising from the provisions contained in the Prespa Agreement that alter their identity, than a possible outcome could be an unilateral termination of the Agreement with a diplomatic note to Greece and a diplomatic note about the termination to the UN. In parallel, the diplomatic note to the UN may be accompanied with a formal request for a new name, in the form of Draft Resolution to the UN General Assembly related to extension of membership under this new name (the "Republic of Macedonia").
However, at this moment, it seems that the termination of the Agreement is not an option neither for the government, nor for the Macedonian opposition, since such radical shift in the foreign policy (for both current government and VMRO-DPMNE) seems to be a subject of an offstage informal approval from the USA as a major partner of the Macedonian state. Any unilateral step towards unilateral termination or withdrawal from the Agreement from the Macedonian side may jeopardize the valuable strategic partnership with USA.