Regulation, property, and foreign investments: Competing claims and practices in and around de facto states

This paper is concerned with the lived legal realities of economic activities in de facto states. It aims at investigating three distinct dimensions: regulation, property, and foreign investments. What legal frameworks apply in these three spheres and what does this mean? First, disputed sovereignty in the case of de facto states shapes the management of economic activities and, more specifically, the illegality/informality divide. In contexts of de facto states, informal activities are managed and criminalized by a range of actors in function of their capacity and their strategies to project their authority and sovereignty. Who regulates, for example, the hazelnut trade in and out of Abkhazia? Second, disputed sovereignty also impacts the legitimacy of property claims in de facto states. What does it mean to own a house in Sukhum(i)? And finally, how do foreign investments occur in places such as de facto states where sovereignty is disputed? What does this tell us about the willingness of third countries and private investors to engage in territories with disputed legal frameworks, and how flexible are they in dealing with the ambiguity created by competing claims of sovereignty?