ANDREJEVA v. LATVIA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINION 47 occupation, within which the dispute between the applicant and the respondent State arose (see, conversely, Kovačić and Others v. Slovenia [GC], nos. 44574/98, 45133/98 and 48316/99, § 256, 3 October 2008). It goes even further in stating that the respondent State’s submission to the effect that it is not a successor to the rights and obligations of the former USSR as regards welfare benefits is misconceived (see paragraph 78 of the judgment). 17. The reasoning that the majority offer is as follows: “Even assuming that the Government were correct on this point, the conclusion that has to be drawn in this case would be unaffected: where a State decides of its own accord to pay pensions to individuals in respect of periods of employment outside its territory, thereby creating a sufficiently clear legal basis in its domestic law, the presumed entitlement to such benefits falls within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1” (see paragraph 78 of the judgment). There are several problems with this statement. First of all, the phrase “even assuming that the Government were correct” is incomprehensible. Are the majority suggesting that Latvia is a new successor State to the ex-USSR? The adoption of such a position by the Court would go against its own approach in several other cases (see, for example, Ždanoka v. Latvia [GC], no. 58278/00, ECHR 2006-IV) and in a more relevant pronouncement of the Commission in the Jasinskij and Others case (cited above). It would also go against the position of the majority of international-law actors. Whatever the meaning, it is here that the majority should have undertaken “an exercise in competent legal reasoning”, which for the purposes of the interpretation of an international treaty is “an effort at ‘systemic integration’ – namely integration in the system of principles and presumptions that underlie the idea of an inter-State legal order” (Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.682, § 465). It should be pointed out that one of the general principles of international law relevant to this case is the principle of ex injuria non jus oritur as well as the obligation of nonrecognition of an unlawful situation as legal (see point 22 below). Furthermore, no doubt, once a Law is enacted by the State Party it has to comply with the Convention. No one disputes this principle. However, the principle per se does not lead very far, nor does it provide for specific solutions to concrete legal issues. The Government make the point that, for the purposes of interpreting the contested provision in national law, international law relevant to situations of State continuity ought to be taken into consideration since this context inspired the specific solutions that Latvia adopted. The Court does not have competence to interpret national law, but it does interpret the Convention and, where applicable, takes the international-law context into consideration. Of course, the transitional provisions of the 1995 Act have to comply with the Convention as