CYPRUS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 19 respondent State's attempt to reinforce the division of Cyprus through the proclamation of the establishment of the “TRNC” in 1983 was vigorously condemned by the international community, as evidenced by the adoption by the United Nations Security Council of Resolutions 541 (1983) and 550 (1984) and by the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers of its resolution of 24 November 1983 (see paragraph 14 above). 71. The applicant Government stressed that even if Turkey had no legal title in international law to northern Cyprus, Turkey did have legal responsibility for that area in Convention terms, given that she exercised overall military and economic control over the area. This overall and, in addition, exclusive control of the occupied area was confirmed by irrefutable evidence of Turkey's power to dictate the course of events in the occupied area. In the applicant Government's submission, a Contracting State to the Convention could not, by way of delegation of powers to a subordinate and unlawful administration, avoid its responsibility for breaches of the Convention, indeed of international law in general. To hold otherwise would, in the present context of northern Cyprus, give rise to a grave lacuna in the system of human-rights protection and, indeed, render the Convention system there inoperative. 72. The applicant Government requested the Court to find, like the Commission, that the Loizidou judgments (preliminary objections and merits) defeated the respondent Government's arguments since they confirmed that, as long as the Republic of Cyprus was unlawfully prevented from exercising its rightful jurisdiction in northern Cyprus, Turkey had “jurisdiction” within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention and was, accordingly, accountable for violations of the Convention committed in that area. 73. In a further submission, the applicant Government requested the Court to rule that the respondent State was not only accountable under the Convention for the acts and omissions of public authorities operating in the “TRNC”, but also those of private individuals. By way of anticipation of their more detailed submissions on the merits, the applicant Government claimed at this stage that Greek Cypriots living in northern Cyprus were racially harassed by Turkish settlers with the connivance and knowledge of the “TRNC” authorities for whose acts Turkey was responsible. 74. The Commission rejected the respondent Government's arguments. With particular reference to paragraph 56 (pp. 2235-36) of the Court's Loizidou judgment (merits), it concluded that Turkey's responsibility under the Convention had now to be considered to extend to all acts of the “TRNC” and that that responsibility covered the entire range of complaints set out in the instant application, irrespective of whether they related to acts or omissions of the Turkish or Turkish-Cypriot authorities. 75. The Court recalls that in the Loizidou case the respondent State denied that it had jurisdiction in northern Cyprus and to that end invoked

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