…unless they also condemn the USA for invading Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
Most European territories serve the USA’s geopolitical goals. Sanctions against Russia right now are part of that. There’s nothing moral about it. It’s simply a service to the USA for being in its sphere of influence. There is nothing, not a single shred of integrity in that.
If you find a territory which sanctions Russia for its crime, and also the USA for its crimes, you can recognise it as a real principled act.
I don’t really distinguish between annexation and occupation. But yes maybe there is some legal difference. Which chapter deals with this?
Chapter I, Article 2. Annexation vs occupation might be a bit subtle, but occupation keeps the country existing as an entity, whereas annexation ends it.
Examples: The US occupied Iraq, and Iraq still exists. Russia annexed Crimea, and that part now exists as a part of Russia, even though not accepted by either Ukraine or most of the international community. Apparently Russia’s goal was to annex all of Ukraine, but it’s difficult to say yet whether this is actually what they wanted to do originally. They are looking, right now, to annex the Donbass area, and they’re using the same method they used in Crimea (and what Hitler used in many countries before WW2, incidentally): by occupying the area first, and then holding a fake election.
This one? Or this one? I don’t understand why there are (at least) two different version. Maybe one is an amendment. But anyway neither makes a legal distinction between occupation and annexation.
If you’re saying that annexation (like in the Crimea) is “specifically forbidden by the Charter of the United Nations” but occupation (like in Iraq) is not, that doesn’t seem to be true, and I don’t see why the UN (or anyone) would make a big distinction between the two.