Romania urges all states to strictly observe international law, Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu affirmed on Friday at the online event "A Century of Law and International Relations. From the League of Nations to the Organization of Nations United (1919/20-1945-2020)/23 October 2020", according to AGERPRES.
At the same time, the head of the Romanian diplomacy emphasized the need to adapt to developments in society.
"The current international, safe system, centered on the United Nations, is imperfect, but it remains preferable to the absence of firm and clear rules or unilateral approaches that we have seen manifesting themselves in rather acute forms, including this year, in the first moments of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, in the last period we are witnessing some tendencies of the states to resort to unilateral measures to promote their own interests," he pointed out.
In this regard, he stressed the importance of the effort to "adapt international law to the very dynamic developments of international society."
"International law has a practical, pragmatic relevance for Romania, because, for a state like Romania, which is a medium-sized state, international law is the best tool to maximize foreign policy efforts, to streamline our diplomatic efforts. By using the instruments of international law, by using international courts, we can achieve goals that we otherwise could not have achieved through diplomatic negotiations or other methods of resolving disputes," he said.
In this context, Aurescu recalled the process of maritime delimitation in the Black Sea, completed in 2009, through which Romania managed to obtain at the International Court of Justice 9,700 square kilometers of continental shelf and exclusive economic zones in the Black Sea, "with significant resources of hydrocarbons, which will ensure, when their exploitation begins, the energy independence of Romania, but also of other states in the region ".
"I am referring here to the Republic of Moldova, which we will help by transferring these resources through the recently completed gas pipeline this summer, but also to other states in the region, which are dependent on external gas resources," Bogdan Aurescu added.