The month of August 2025 saw major political upheavals. First came the Alaska Summit, where President Trump met President Putin. Days later, in the White House, President Trump met several European Union leaders, most importantly, President Zelensky. The purpose of these meetings is to cease the Russia-Ukraine war, which has been ongoing since February 2022. According to the reports and statements until the time of this writing, the cessation of this war is now centered around the demands made by the Russian President in the Alaska summit involving the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from its territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, in exchange of Russia’s promise to halt further advances and freezing the frontline in the occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. However, President Zelensky rejected the demand for a land cession, calling for a ceasefire as the basis for further negotiations.
These developments now unfold almost daily through press releases and statements by the concerned leaders. Yet behind the political stage lies a critical legal question: how does international law view territorial cession under political and military coercion? A cession concluded under political or military coercion cannot create a lawful title over the ceded territory, but rather amounts to the acquisition of territory by force, a practice that international law prohibits.
Prohibition on Forceful Acquisition
International law is clear with its rule that territory cannot be acquired by force. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of any state, and this rule has become part of jus cogens, a peremptory norm allowing no derogation. Moreover, the Friendly Relations Declaration of 1970 made this principle explicit by declaring territorial acquisition through force as illegal. It was the experience of two world wars that shaped this rule. The objective was to outlaw conquest as a legitimate means of expansion of territorial borders. However, States remain free to adjust their boundaries, but only through lawfully recognised methods such as peaceful cession, negotiation, or mutual agreement. With force and coercion entering the picture, the resulting arrangement is treated as an invalid transfer of sovereignty under international law.
Consent and Coercion in Treaty Law
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties reflects a principle familiar even in domestic contract law: an agreement made under duress is no agreement at all. Article 52 makes this explicit, declaring void any treaty concluded under the threat or use of force in violation of the UN Charter. The reasoning is straightforward that consent must be free and genuine. If a state signs under the shadow of force, it is barely consenting at all. The International Court of Justice has underlined this point in Nicaragua v. United States (1986), stressing that coercion or the threat of force violates the UN Charter and deprives a state of its freedom of choice. A similar approach was taken in the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo case (2005), where the Court refused to treat agreements concluded under military occupation as valid exercises of sovereignty. Jurist Lauterpacht (1953; 233) argued that peace deals or annexations forced by an aggressor could never create lawful rights.
Here lies the key point for the present discussion. If a treaty transferring land is signed because one side has no real choice, and the “offer” on the table is peace only in exchange for surrender, then this is not a voluntary cession at all but a coercion. And international law does not create a loophole here by treating coerced cession as a separate, lawful category of transfer. It is simply another form of unlawful acquisition of territory by force.
Jurisprudence, Practice, and the Duty of Non-Recognition
The principle that coerced territorial changes produce no lawful title has been consistently reinforced in both jurisprudence and state practice. In its Namibia Advisory Opinion (1971), the ICJ declared South Africa’s continued presence in Namibia illegal, emphasising that acts of authority exercised there had “no legal effect.” Crucially, the Court went further, stressing that other states were under an obligation not to recognise South Africa’s authority or lend support to its unlawful administration. In other words, coercion not only voids a territorial arrangement; it also triggers a collective duty of non-recognition.
This line of reasoning has been repeated in later decisions. In the Wall Advisory Opinion (2004), the Court again underscored the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition by force, making clear that annexationist measures, even when dressed in legal or administrative form, cannot generate lawful sovereignty. Jurisprudence thus affirms a double principle: coerced agreements are void, and recognition of them by others is legally impermissible.
State practice echoes the same conclusion. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and attempted to annexe it, the Security Council responded with Resolution 662, declaring the annexation “null and void” and explicitly calling on all states and organisations not to recognise or assist Iraq’s claims. That episode remains one of the clearest demonstrations that international law resists the legitimisation of coerced territorial change.
Applied to the present conflict, the implications are direct. If Ukraine were forced to cede Donetsk or Luhansk under Russian military pressure, such an act would be legally void, and third states would have a positive duty not to treat it as valid. This is why Kyiv and its allies insist that peace talks cannot rest on territorial concessions made under coercion. The law here performs a vital function: it blocks the transformation of conquest into sovereignty, no matter how artfully coercion is concealed behind treaty language.
Application to Ukraine
The unfolding negotiations around Ukraine illustrate why these legal rules matter in practice. At the Alaska Summit of August 2025, President Putin’s demands were framed as part of a “peace settlement”. Prima facie, it may look like a bargain, but the circumstances around it are clear that it is nothing short of blackmail to cede territory in return for ending the war.
It is quite evident that Ukraine is not negotiating from a position of free and equal consent but is doing so under the shadow of continued military aggression, political pressure to be blamed for not ending the war and the threat of further escalation. Under these circumstances, the proposed “cession” of Donetsk and Luhansk, if extracted through military pressure or even political pressure, is not a voluntary transfer but a coerced one and thus amounts to nothing more than unlawful acquisition by force. Ukraine, therefore, is not only defending its own borders, but standing at the frontline of a principle that has kept global order, imperfect as it is, intact for almost eight decades. Equally important is the response of the wider international community. If the United States, the European Union, or other states were to recognise such a coerced cession, they would be violating the duty of non-recognition. In this sense, President Zelensky’s rejection of the demand for land cession is more than political defiance. It reflects the legal reality that any such bargain would lack validity under international law. The only lawful basis for ending the war lies in a ceasefire and negotiations that respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, not in arrangements that normalise aggression.
Conclusion
With the Alaska Summit, the old temptation in global politics was revived: treating territory as a bargaining chip in exchange for promises of peace. But the post-1945 legal order leaves little room for doubt. Forceful acquisition of land remains illegal under international law. For Ukraine, any concession made under Russian aggression would not create a lawful peace; it would legitimise precisely the practice of international law set out to prevent. For Russia, no diplomatic wording can turn coerced control into sovereignty. And for third states, the duty is equally clear: they must refuse to recognise coerced settlements and ensure that peace initiatives do not erode the ban on acquiring territory by force. What is at stake goes far beyond Ukraine. If coercion can be disguised as negotiation and occupation as lawful cession, the cornerstone of the international order, the prohibition on territorial conquest, begins to crack. The choice for the international community is stark: treat Ukraine as an exception or uphold the principle that has underpinned stability for nearly eight decades.
References
- CNN, Takeaways from the Trump-Putin Alaska Summit, 15 August 2025 — https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/15/politics/takeaways-trump-putin-summit-alaska
- The Guardian, Russia Jubilant after Putin’s Alaska Summit with Trump on Ukraine, 16 August 2025 — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/16/russia-jubilant-putin-alaska-summit-trump-ukraine
- The Guardian, Russia Jubilant after Putin’s Alaska Summit with Trump on Ukraine, 16 August 2025 — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/16/russia-jubilant-putin-alaska-summit-trump-ukraine
- UN Charter, Article 2(4).
- UN General Assembly, Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States (1970).
- Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 52.
- International Court of Justice (ICJ), Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1986.
- International Court of Justice (ICJ), Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2005.
- H. Lauterpacht, Recognition in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 1953).
- International Court of Justice (ICJ), Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970), Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1971.
- International Court of Justice (ICJ), Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2004.
- UN Security Council, Resolution 662 (1990) on Iraq/Kuwait.
- The Guardian, Trump blames Ukraine over war with Russia, saying it could have made a deal, 19 February 2025 — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/19/trump-ukraine-war-russia-could-have-made-a-deal
