Great Power contentions

[rory_20_uk]

Finding a way to 'correct' borders still remains a major problem within the UN framework. Creating new countries like Kosovo or South Ossetia is a major problem that should require buy-in from the country they are seceding from in some form.
This is why things like Taiwan will remain major problems for a long time as there isn't a way for the country losing said province to 'save face' and accept what may be de facto conditions forever.

Although there has so far not been a way to codify how countries morph over time, reality continues with a much simpler "might is right" approach where if an area can be either overcome by another, or resist domination then there is essentially a change in countries. Tibet isn't a country whereas Taiwan is.

That countries that cede land are the exception rather than the rule is why all those at the UN are more interested in keeping what they have rather than assisting - democratic countries are all about the wishes of the people until they want to leave (as we can see in examples such as Spain).

But then the UN has its rules mainly outlined by international lawyers whose lives are cloistered to a point where hardship is pretty much unheard of. I think we also see this with the "rules of war" which do not seem to have asked what those who have been at the edge of the meat grinder - often forgiving senior commanders who direct the bombing whilst expecting soldiers to be able to act as robots with treating those who have just killed their comrades as utterly neutral persons. It is a nice thought where the person needs to be distinct from the soldier but surely a yardstick as opposed to a criminal code. But invariably the rules are only enforced on the loosers.