Secession as the Future

Transcription

1 Secession as the Future Making the big world smaller? Secession, whether by violent or peaceful means, is one of the few methods by which new states are created today. In this paper, I explore the development of international norms regarding this political process which often challenges the status quo in institutions like the League of Nations and United Nations. Heather E. McCormic By exploring eight cases from the 20 th and 21 st centuries including Norway, Finland, Biafra, Bangladesh, the Baltics, Yugoslavia, Georgia, and South Sudan, I conclude that states today more openly accept secession as a way to ensure human rights to all populations, whereas in the past secession was viewed only as a way to shift the balance of power in the international system. Though secession will occur infrequently in the future, it will alter regional dynamics and the international community by adding new actors to the current state system. Government Department Independent Study Professor David Dessler 4/26/2013

2 Table of Contents Preface... 1 Chapter 1: Literature and Theory Review... 7 Revolution as the origin of secession... 7 Self-determination as the motivation for secession The morality of secession Norm development, and how it influences international receptiveness to secession Figure 1: Norm life cycle My specific normative study Chapter 2: Trend 1-Pre-WWI Legacy and Wilsonianism Westphalia The American and French Revolutions, and the Concert of Europe Case: Norway Wilson and the Interwar Case: Finland and the Aaland Islands Conclusion Chapter 3: Trend 2-WWII and Decolonization Decolonization or secession? Legislation and international organization developments I. United Nations Charter (1945) Box 1: Self-Determination in the 1945 UN Charter II. Resolution 1514 (1960) III. UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) Case: Biafra IV. Resolution 2625 (1970)... 45

3 Case: Bangladesh Legacy of decolonization Table 1: Decolonization and UN Membership, Conclusion Chapter 4: Trend 3-Humanitarianism in the Post-Cold War Era Post-Cold War self-determination policy Case: The Baltics Case: Yugoslavia Case: Georgia Case: South Sudan Conclusion Epilogue: Moving toward a Big World of Small Countries? Bibliography... 76

4 1 Preface Though all legal and normative trends seem to begin and end with certain events, they instead by nature evolve, morphing into seemingly new ideas. You can observe the rise and fall of ideas by analyzing legislation and other written documentation, dialogue between and among actors, and actions taken by various parties, but the issue or phenomenon at hand remained the same. In this paper I explore the development of the modern norms about secession. 1 Selfdetermination and separatism existed throughout the 20 th century, starting with Norway s secession from the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway in Even then, the seeds of autonomy were planted in the mid-19 th century. Peoples rose to claim greater independence, civil liberties, and representation in government. Driven by nationalism, the desire to overcome economic or political discrimination, or other factors expounded upon in the theory chapter (Chapter 1), separatist movements emerged and acted politically and occasionally violently (see the Biafra and Bangladesh cases in Chapter 3, and the Yugoslav and South Sudan cases in Chapter 4) to achieve independent state status from their parent states. In discussing secession, I often refer to the state which already exists as the parent state, while the group or population separating from the preexisting state to create a new political territorial unit is the separatist movement or challenger state. This paper will explore the historical origins of the modern normative trends regarding secession. My objective in doing so is to expound upon the trends of secession throughout the 1 As I will later explicate further in Chapter 1, I adopt Pantazopolous s definition of secession. He, like Beran and Heraclides, claim that secession is the demand for formal withdrawal from a central political authority by a member unit on the basis of a claim to independent sovereign status I also draw from Pavkovic s definition in which he characterizes the phenomenon as a process of withdrawal of a territory and its population from an existing state and the creation of a new state on that territory. 1 The completion of this process deems a secession attempt successful. See Panagiotis Pantazopolous Secessionist Movements: An Analytical Framework (honors thesis, SIUC, 1995), 1. See also Aleksandar Pavkovic and Peter Radan, Creating New States: Theory and Practice of Secession (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2007), 1.

5 2 20 th and 21 st centuries, analyzing how these trends emerged in context by investigating how the world reacted to a series of cases. This investigation will allow me to infer the changing international norms surrounding state-making, particularly secession. I argue that the extended history of international normative trends regarding state creation and specifically secession reveals that states are currently in the midst of a struggle between two norms, one emerging and another receding. Where in the past states have often supported secession when doing so favors individual state interest (i.e., the protracted Cold War against the Soviet Union on the part of the United States and its allies), the recent case of South Sudan proves that the international community in fact holds the preservation of human dignity and establishment of human rights in high esteem. However, this new norm has not yet reached what Martha Finnemore characterizes as the tipping point of norm establishment (see Chapter 1: Figure 1, page 24). Thus what I present with the following research and analysis merely predicts the solidification of the next trend in international norms concerning secession. In no way am I presenting criteria for when secession is justified or legally legitimate in the past, present, or future. Neither am I recommending an international or domestic political approach to separatism or secession claims. Instead, I explore how states determined the legitimacy of secession claims in historical context and how that process developed over time. In so doing, I am simply assessing the journey of a norm, interpreting historical events through constructivist and liberal institutionalist lenses so that we can predict its future trajectory. The results of this study will greatly contribute to secession literature, and will shed light on the fate of the state system. In the future, the major changes in the state system will result from secession, as the world s inhabitable land has been claimed by one particular state, or has

6 3 been declared an international zone by the United Nations (primary example of both these phenomena is Antarctica). Colonialism in the traditional sense has met an end, and the world s state-based structure has been crystallized. New states will emerge chiefly through secession. How the international community views such a phenomenon is thus vitally important to the continuance of greater peace among states in the future. The structure of this paper is rather straightforward. I first base my research on the established secession literature and theories in Chapter 1. In the chapter I include an overview of the development of revolutionary movements, the legislation and political sentiment surrounding the emergence of self-determination, and the morality debate between whether secession is to be considered a right or a privilege, justified or not. The evaluation of these factors and historical trends proves important because, as Heater observes, national consciousness and selfgovernment can each exist without the other. National self-determination is the concept which propounds their interdependence. 2 I then begin my case study analysis by exploring the history of the world political environment, starting with the creation of the state system in 1648 at Westphalia, examining changes made in the structure leading up to the advent of the League of Nations following World War I. The first normative trend I explore is Wilsonianism, the desire for all peoples to acquire self-determination (Chapter 2). States in the international system did not involve themselves in the early cases of secession (i.e., Norway and Finland). In fact, because the League of Nations was yet pubescent, no overarching norm regarding these cases emerged. Due to the effects of the Great Depression and other interwar events, states focused inward throughout this tense twenty year period. 2 Derek Heater, National Self-Determination: Woodrow Wilson and his Legacy (Basingtoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994), 27.

7 4 The second trend (Chapter 3), spanning from the creation of the United Nations and the signing of its Charter in 1945 to the secession of Lithuania from the Soviet Union in 1989 (marking the beginning of the dissolution of the Soviet Empire), was the period of historical decolonization. 3 Though decolonization is not widely considered secession, the international sentiment surrounding these events is vital to understanding how the norms regarding secession developed. As Martha Finnemore argues in The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force, norms never form in isolation; instead, they coevolve. 4 In this section I, like Grigoryan, address both successful (the separatist movement acquired a new state and gained international recognition) and failed attempts at secession because limiting my study to successful cases alone would limit my understanding of normative developments. 5 Norms are formed from failures as much as triumphs; actors in any system including the state structure make judgments about events and other actors from both their mistakes and achievements. In addition, norms regarding secession were altered over time by both violent and peaceful cases. Starovoitova succinctly summarizes this era with the following: In the post-world War II era, it has been more or less commonly accepted that the right to self-determination applies only to colonies, which filled the ranks of the United Nations as full-fledged states during the wave of decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s. Last, in Chapter 4 I delve into the current norms of secession by evaluating the international reactions to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the civil wars and ethnic tension in the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and successful establishment and 3 For further reading on the historical development of self-determination, see Eric Kolodner, The Future of the Right to Self-Determination, Connecticut Journal of International Law 10 ( ): ( 4 Martha Finnemore, The Purpose Of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About The Use Of Force (New York: Cornell University Press, 2003) See Arman Grigoryan, Ethnofederalism, separatism, and conflict: what have we learned from the Soviet and Yugoslav experiences? International Political Science Review 33(2012): 530, accessed March 14, 2013, doi: /

8 5 recognition of South Sudan. These cases clearly demonstrate that the international community at large has yet to reach a consensus on how to address the creation of new states outside the realm of decolonization. The world watched from afar as all three of these cases took place; however, their acceptance and support of each varied. Because Lithuania s secession in 1989 displayed the Soviet Union s weakening dominion over the Baltics, states (especially those allied with the United States) supported and recognized the new entity. Just five years later, those same states did not act to prevent the humanitarian crises occurring in the Yugoslav states. The international community s failure to prevent further bloodshed in Somalia deterred those same forces from intervening during the Rwandan conflict, and kept them at bay in the midst of genocide in the Balkans. However, as global civil society makes greater demands of international organizations and bodies like the United Nations and International Monetary Fund, we see increased levels of humanitarian aid offered to the Third World and other developing states. This is partly due to the lack of a truly bipolar system, the existence of a mutual enemy, or the fight against good and evil. Today s evil, the enemy of the world, is poverty, oppression, injustice, violence, war, hunger. It is crime against humanity as a whole. Such a change in mindset influenced the development of norms regarding self-determination and secession. Granting nations their own states may alleviate some modern struggles, especially those caused by political or economic discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, religion, race, or historical precedent. Slowly the world is becoming more humanitarian-focused, and norms are changing to reflect it. This phenomenon can be seen particularly with the case of South Sudan. Though the international community unsuccessfully attempted to assist Sudan and the surrounding states with the Darfur crisis over the last two decades, individual states expedited their recognition of

9 6 South Sudan at an unparalleled rate. Realizing the gravity of this change in the international community, states (including the parent Sudan) openly accepted South Sudan and admitted the state into the UN (a major display of legitimacy) within months of its establishment. The world has witnessed the importance of humanitarianism and secession in the furtherance of global aspirations (like the Millennium Development Goals). Despite this, I do not foresee secession as a common occurrence in the future; however, it will serve to assist humanity, and will significantly impact the international community when it occurs. As one of the very few methods by which new states will be created in the future, secession will be used with great caution because the addition of any new states to the international system may upset the status quo and any balance of power established. 6 6 Galina Starovoitova, Sovereignty after Empire: Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union, United States Institute of Peace: Peaceworks 19 (1997): 7.

10 7 Chapter 1: Literature and Theory Review This chapter introduces the extant literature regarding secession, starting with an overview of how secession is born of revolution. By exploring the debate regarding the morality of secession in the next section, we can begin to understand how the idea of morality shapes state action and the consequent development of norms. Last, an overview of the predominant norm development theory provides a framework for the analysis of the following studies in this paper. Revolution as the origin of secession Secession is born of revolution. In this section I survey primary revolutionary literature, exploring where revolution originates and how it affects the greater international community. Like John Foran, I adopt Theda Skocpol s definition of revolution, though only in part: Social revolutions are rapid, basic transformations of a society s state and class structures. 7 One set of theories claims that revolution sparks when a state fails to provide for its population, whether the whole citizenry or a subset. Government activities or the lack thereof fail to satisfy the population, creating a negative sentiment among the people. Goldstone describes at length situations which often spawn disapproval among the people, including the state s inability to provide for the people economically and politically, the oppression it exerts, its economic and infrastructural instability or collapse due to poor budgeting, widespread famine, conflict or 7 For the sake of brevity, I do not delve into Skocpol s full definition for the purposes of this paper because of her emphasis on the changing class structure as political revolution occurs. See Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China (UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 4-5. John Foran, Taking Power: On the Origins of Third World Revolutions (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 7.

11 8 disunity among leadership, or civil war. 8 In addition, Goodwin claims that revolutions could also emerge because 1) the state supports unpopular economic or social arrangements; 2) the state represses or excludes population subsets; 3) the state commits violence against mobilized populations; 4) the state has weak police and infrastructure; or 5) the corrupt state alienates counterrevolutionary elites. 9 Essentially, as Cynthia McClintock says, misery matters. 10 A number of other theories exist today as well. Davies (1962) and Gurr (1970) developed the idea of relative depravation which argues that a population subset, in comparing its economic and political standings to other groups, feels alienated or cheated by the government or competing population. Alternatively, Smelser (1963) and Johnson (1966) focused primarily on institutional imbalance, meaning that if one subsystem of society the economy, the political structure, or employment were to change independently of each other and not simultaneously, balance would be lost and people would be open to the prospects of revolution. Huntington (1968) synthesized the relative depravation and institutional imbalance theories, while Tilly proposed that resource mobilization by challengers caused revolutionary ideologies to emerge. 11 Though many theorists claim that the state is to blame for revolutionary movements, in so doing they neglect to consider that the population itself may alienate certain subsets in a discriminatory fashion. 12 Another set of theories argues that nationalistic tendencies inspire populations to revolt against the state. Nationalism binds people together with a mutual sense of belonging and identity. 13 States with weak, exclusive regimes often see the rise of revolutionary movements among nationalistic groups; those with patrimonial regimes are most susceptible to 8 Jack A. Goldstone, Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2002), Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Foran, Taking Power, Goldstone, Revolutions, Goodwin, No Other Way Out, Goldstone, Revolutions, 13.

12 9 being overthrown by these movements. 14 Individuals elect to join social movements, especially revolutionary causes for personal advantage, solidarity, principle, or the desire to find belonging in a group. 15 Goodwin argues that these groups, though formed on the basis of national identity, can sometimes grow to encapsulate multiclass or even multi-ethnic coalitions, and can attract international support. 16 The above theories merely explain the origins of dissatisfaction among the population, failing to explore the mobilization of peoples against governments. In his book The Power of Movement, Tarrow argues that social movements form when cultural cleavages organize to build broad consensus around their goals. Organization, consensus mobilization, and political opportunity combine to support the contemporary social movement theory. 17 De Tocqueville notes that strong states with weak civil societies are less likely to see open public participation in revolutionary or social movements than weak states with strong civil societies. 18 When joining a group costs an individual little culturally, economically, socially, and politically, people mobilize and collectively act to achieve political or social goals. Tilly agrees with Tarrow that collective action becomes integrated into community culture, inspiring the population to pursue mutual goals despite risk. 19 Consequently, Tarrow argues that it is not the organization itself which rallies people, but the social networking and mobilizing structure of solidarity in a cause or set of goals which inspires people to sustain their revolutionary activities Goodwin, No Other Way Out, Sidney G. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Goodwin, No Other Way Out, Tarrow, Power in Movement, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 153, 57.

13 10 A population must sustain social mobilization in order to fulfill demands. 21 The continuance of a movement occurs not only due to the ideals of achieving a distant goal like political change, but instead because of the people s dissatisfaction with everyday standards of living. The lack of food, the people s inability to express their beliefs, the denial of land ownership claims, and deaths of those involved in the opposition party rally people as they confront their long-term challenges against elites, foes, and other authorities. 22 Sparked by political opportunity, movements become models for collective action in states with similar political and social structures. 23 However, many world revolutions have started in the Third World though many of those countries have not experienced revolutions internally. 24 Many previously colonized states considered to be Third World countries were once subject to dependent development. Dependent development is a principle cause of grievances of classes or groups that participate in revolutionary coalitions. 25 A repressive, exclusionary, personalist state accompanies dependent development which leads to political and economic discrimination against the lower and middle classes. 26 The dichotomy of dependent development is that one benefits while the other suffers. 27 Colonialism acts as a variant of dependent development; the colonizer develops as the colonized are made increasingly dependent on the First World due to its supply of finished goods. Because of this unbalanced relationship, it is relatively easy for the colonized population to find a collective grievance against the foreign power, leading to the emergence of mobilization and, in some cases, revolt Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Foran, Taking Power, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

14 11 Movements began in one country easily spill over into the international community. 29 Revolution, emerging from political opportunities like state breakdowns, economic and political failure, and failure to provide security and equality to all population subsets within a state, is a modern phenomenon due to the current international state system. 30 Tilly describes global political society thusly: The increasing fluidity of capital, labor, commodities, money, and cultural practices undermines the capacity of any particular state to control events within its boundaries. 31 Walt argues that revolution oftentimes introduces new state governance into the international system. Along with new governments come new ideologies, as well as new uncertainties. 32 Some young governments and leaders abandon compromise for radicalism, partly due to the new country s confidence because of its success. Sure that its ideology will convince other states of the faults in their governance, the new state remains self-assured in its ideology at its demise as its pride deters potential allies and supporters. 33 The new state appears hostile to the international environment because it does not know of others intentions toward them. In addition, new states are wary of old states (i.e., colonizers) which were once responsible for them for fear of punishment or rejection by the international community Tarrow, Power in Movement, Goodwin, No Other Way Out, 40, Tarrow, Power in Movement, Goodwin, No Other Way Out, Ibid., Ibid., 255.

15 12 Self-determination as the motivation for secession Literature exploring secession frequently begins with the debate regarding the definitions of historically vague terms such as nation, people, and self-determination. Starovoitova describes a nation as a political entity, whether state or non-state, while a group of humans who may (or may not) comprise a state or nation are considered a people. 35 Pantazopolous combines the views of Beran (1998) and Heraclides (1991) by classifying secession as a demand for formal withdrawal from a central political authority by a member unit on the basis of a claim to independent sovereign status The aim is to redraw the boundaries instead of moving out of the control of the host state. Separatism is merely demand for formal autonomy. 36 Pavkovic likewise defines secession as the process of withdrawal of a territory and its population from an existing state and the creation of a new state on that territory. 37 In this paper the term secession refers to the process by which a population subset claims formal autonomy over an occupied territory and removes itself from its parent state by redrawing political boundaries. Successful secession involves the completion of this process. 38 However, self-determination applies only to the right of the majority within an existing political unit to exercise power. 39 This right does in some cases translate into the desire to form a separate state outside of the control of the current state; it is at this point that the self-determination movement can be classified as a secessionist or separatist movement. 35 Galina Starovoitova, Sovereignty after Empire: Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union, United States Institute of Peace: Peaceworks 19 (1997): Panagiotis Pantazopolous Secessionist Movements: An Analytical Framework (honors thesis, SIUC, 1995), Aleksandar Pavkovic and Peter Radan, Creating New States: Theory and Practice of Secession (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2007), Ibid., Pantazopolous Secessionist Movements, 7.

16 13 Similarly, Halperin refers to self-determination as a people s right to govern their own affairs. 40 In his book, he forms six specific categories of self-determination claims according to the type of group making the demands, as well as the parent state and its treatment of the population in question. First, Halperin considers groups consisting of those populations which seek to gain independence from a colonial power to be anti-colonialist. His second grouping is sub-state self-determination where the bid for greater autonomy stems from the historic, ethnic, religious, or economic dimensions of the relationship between populations and the state. A group (or an outside force assisting the movement) may find it necessary to protect minority rights, create a new political arrangement, or secede in order to rule its geopolitical area in alignment with its values as a population. The Ibos in Nigeria and the Tamils in Sri Lanka both made selfdetermination claims on these grounds. 41 Third, trans-state self-determination claims like those made by the Kurds or Basques cross international borders, complicating political and legal matters in the act of secession. Often, the full accommodation of a trans-state movement s demands would require radical changes in the borders of more than one state. 42 A selfdetermination of dispersed people claim frequently originates among ethnic groups, or other groups with common community identities, which find themselves in a diaspora across one or more states. The dispersed people may pursue secession and the creation of an independent nation-state to ensure that rights are guaranteed. Frequently, minority groups and dispersed people threaten to secede to garner attention from the larger state government(s) in order to secure more minority rights within the existing country. 43 Populations seeking indigenous selfdetermination typically possess a special claim to land and resources acquired by a state. 40 Morton H. Halperin, David J. Scheffer, and Patricia L. Small, Self-Determination in the New World Order (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 1992), Ibid., Ibid. 43 Ibid.,

17 14 These groups may respond to state governance by demanding their own territorial boundaries which cannot lawfully be encroached upon by the larger challenging state. 44 Last, representative self-determination is a desire for independence or sovereignty which forms among populations under repressive, non-democratic regimes which may engage in human rights violations. 45 Alternatively, Buchanan has six criteria by which he analyzes self-determination claims. First, he investigates the scale of the group seeking greater autonomy, whether an entire group of people, or unorganized individuals. 46 He also considers whether the movement is based geographically at the core of a country, or in its periphery. 47 Third, he analyzes whether subordinate units of existing states seek greater divisions locally (rather than national division). 48 In addition, he explores whether the group in question desires local autonomy, or a state unto itself. 49 In addition, Buchanan investigates the makeup of separatist groups by determining whether the population seeking division is a majority or minority ethnicity, demographic, or geographic entity. 50 Sixth, he studies the group to determine its economic status, either relatively better off or worse off than the other population subsets Ibid., 51. In addition, Brilmayer addresses sub-state, trans-state, and indigenous self-determination claims in an article. He argues that many populations invoking self-determination claims have a superior claim to the land in question. Especially during colonization, land was acquired through conquest of state. Pantazopolous notes that some minority groups may have been unjustly annexed into developing states. Consequently, ethnic groups which had inhabited the land prior to colonization desired their historical territory. Another similar case is when a foreign state forcefully joins two populations together on one plot of land. In both cases, the colonized populations desire to reclaim their traditional homeland. See Lea Brilmayer, Secession and Self-Determination: A Territorial Interpretation, Yale Journal of International Law 16 (1991): See Pantazopolous Secessionist Movements, Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 52. Pantazopolous notes that cultural groups may pursue selfdetermination if they perceive that the majority or external sovereign state threatens to extinguish the minority population altogether. See Pantazopolous Secessionist Movements, Allen Buchanan, Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce From Fort Sumter to Lithuania And Quebec, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 16.

18 15 An important issue raised by many theorists and politicians is whether granting greater autonomy to people would lead to the compromise of the territorial integrity of existing states. However, Brilmayer argues that the right of people to nation-state status and the integrity of the physical state do not fundamentally contradict each other. 52 Instead, allowing people the right to self-rule solidifies the legitimacy of the state because of the consent of the governed. Buchanan makes a similar claim, saying that group rights and individual rights coexist without constantly challenging one another. 53 The above literature references are vital to the understanding of the normative developments concerning secession because they shed light on many aspects of the current debate about separatism and the creation of new states. History reveals the controversy surrounding this vital issue to international security and the state system established with the Peace of Westphalia in Buchheit argues that the reason why bids for self-determination emerge today is mainly because of mankind s pursuit of conquest; certain populations and groups unified by race, ethnicity, religion, geographic location, and the like desire to attain a greater share for their own. Consequently, they desire to expand their boundaries to claim more land, more resources, more wealth for their own. However, this zero-sum process disenfranchises other populations who are not fortunate enough to defend or monitor their own territory in order to prevent the growth of other groups in the area. 54 The concept of popular sovereignty as a governmental doctrine did not emerge until the French Revolution in the late 18 th century; eventually the idea grew into the widespread desire 52 Brilmayer Secession and Self-Determination, Buchanan, Secession, Lee C. Buchheit, Secession: The Legitimacy of Self-determination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 3.

19 16 for self-determination. 55 Historically, Western civilization has frequently regarded nationalism with suspicion; though it had many benefits, including popular support of the well-liked state, it also was a volatile emotion that could change on a whim. Nationalism (in the eyes of Europeans in the interwar period of the 20 th century) implied that societies could be broken down into natural political units, undermining those political boundaries already established by the governing body in power. 56 The Europeans and others who shaped the new political boundaries of the world following the First World War had the opportunity to form new states based on cultural, ethnic, and religious associations, and attempted to do so (if in their state interest) in order to preserve international peace and limit social unrest in some of the more unstable regions, especially the Middle East. 57 From the interwar period spawned a doctrine of self-determination the only legitimate form of government was self-government by natural political units, with its corollary that multinational States or empires, the products of conquest or dynastic union, were ultimately illegitimate political entities. 58 In addition, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson claimed that all peoples have the right to self-determination. Despite disagreement within his cabinet, Wilson pursued increased rights for those peoples seeking greater autonomy. From his dedication grew a global movement toward including self-determination rights in international proceedings, culminating in the 1945 UN Charter which officially sanctioned self-determination as a legitimate political activity. After World War II, self-determination took center stage as mass decolonization occurred. Though this notion did not bode well with colonizers, the process continued and 55 Brilmayer, Secession and Self-Determination, Buchheit, Secession, Brilmayer, Secession and Self-Determination, Ibid.

20 17 peoples across the world began to exercise their right to create and govern their own states. In 1960 the UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Peoples acknowledged decolonization as justification for secession. 59 Soon after this document was drafted and signed into law, secessionist self-determination movements emerged, challenging the nascent status quo. States, especially those with polyethnic populations, struggled to quell secessionist movements and maintain their legitimacy domestically and in the international community. 60 However, since the 1970s, the legal trend regarding secession has moved to combine the ideas of minority rights and decolonization as justifications for self-determination claims. 61 Any secessionist effort ultimately aims to dismember a previously unified state. 62 Separatist groups do not necessarily exercise political control over its target population and territory by means of a military challenge to the state's control over the territory, demanding independent statehood. 63 Instead, they seek to withdraw their allegiance to [a] nation separate from it, abolish the former government, and set up a new independent state. 64 As a result, a self-determination bid cannot simply be considered on the state-level; instead, the proper response to such a separation movement involves the international community at large because the potential creation of a new state could upset the current status quo, requiring a range of political rights including recognition, jurisdiction, diplomatic customs, membership in 59 Patricia Carley, Self-Determination: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and the Right to Secession, United States Institute of Peace: Peaceworks 7 (1996): v. 60 Buchheit, Secession, Carley Self-Determination, v. 62 I choose to adopt a definition of secession and secessionism which opposes Jason Soren s work. His definition, which includes all movements seeking extensive self-government for their territories, whether or not the explicitly endorse full independence, leaves the subject matter too broad for the purposes of this article. See Jason Soren, Secession and Democracy (Buffalo: University of Buffalo, 2006), Timothy Mason Roberts, review of Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America s Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements, by Don H. Doyle, ed., Journal of Southern History 78 (2012): Don H. Doyle, ed., Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America's Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), 2.

21 18 international organizations, state responsibility, and so on. 65 In addition, the emerging state may require an extensive amount of defensive protection as it forms a government, economy, and military force. Internationally, with the exception of additions of anti-colonial justification for self determination, no clear extension of this right has been added to existing UN resolutions. 66 Since the early 1990s, the United Nations has passed more direct legislation regarding minority rights, the promotion of democracy, and recognition of new states. 67 Regardless of UN regulations, the body lacks enforcement mechanisms independent of state interests. 68 In essence, if a separatist movement is not in the favor of existing states interests, the UN can do nothing for the group. Though the United Nations has a role in security politics, it remains limited by the states which impose their individual interests with little consideration for other states, let alone populations without a state to represent them. 69 In the past, secession has garnered much attention on the global stage because of the controversy surrounding revolutions and self-determination movements. Additionally, states question central state survival following a secession attempt. 70 Groups often propose secession as a viable option to solve issues like inequality, disenfranchisement, and stratification of groups; however, Goldstone and other theorists claim that these social, economic, and political problems 65 Buchheit, Secession, Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, The UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, the Conference on Human Dimension (at Copenhagen in 1990), and the 1991 European Convention for the Protection of Minorities were the major pieces of legislation passed on the protection of minority rights. As for recognition, state and government recognition are not synonymous. State recognition is the acceptance of a physical territory, while government recognition depends on the acceptance of the ruling regime. The primary test of state recognition is UN admission. See Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, Michael N. Barnett, Bringing in the New World Order: Liberalism, Legitimacy, and the United Nations, review of Agenda for Peace by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Our Global Neighborhood by Commission on Global Governance, Cooperating for Peace by Gareth Evans, and The United Nations in Its Second Half-Century by the Working Group on the Future of the United Nations, World Politics 49 (1997): Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 71.

22 19 emerge regardless of who holds power in a state, and what peoples comprise the state population. 71 A number of state approaches to self-determination bids exist. A state can simply ignore the demands, support the existing central government and combat the self-determination movement, or take early action to promote the peaceful resolution of political issues via negotiations and other diplomatic means. 72 Today, discouraging secession allows states to believe they can use any means to preserve the unity of the territory; hence states are encouraged to accommodate instead of use coercive force to combat separatist movements. 73 In addition, denying a population the right of self-determination and secession violates the international norm of popular sovereignty. 74 Like all international norms, the idea of popular sovereignty began domestically. 75 The international community endorses mainly multilateral responses to rising issues are the only interventions and actions widely endorsed by the international community. 76 This is especially true when considering issues which could potentially alter the current state system. An issue of recent international concern is the escalation of civil wars. Because civil wars threaten to spill over into surrounding states, and divide the global community on their loyalties to those involved, these conflicts threaten world peace. 77 In order to preserve universal human rights, international institutions and coalitions mediate such conflicts and have used coercive force to 71 Goldstone, Revolutions, Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, Ibid., Brilmayer, Secession and Separatism, Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, Ibid., Boutros-Ghali (in his Agenda for Peace) notes that intrastate conflict can undermine regional security and the unity of the United Nations. Additionally, Gareth Evans (Cooperating for Peace) promotes the resolution and prevention of domestic conflicts via peace building, maintenance, restoration, and enforcement cooperative security instead of by hard power alone. See Barnett, New World Order,

23 20 prevent them. 78 However, some [states and their leaders] seem to believe that today s political map of the world constitutes an ideal and final global configuration. 79 This greatly hinders the effectiveness of international intervention and mediation of domestic conflicts, especially as the world seeks to adopt a more systematic approach to the challenges of self-determination movements. 80 In the end, the United Nations holds much power in the international community because it serves to prescribe how states should behave in domestic and global situations. 81 The morality of secession A great number of books and articles have been written concerning the morality of secession as self-determination has become more widely accepted by the international community. The morality debate regarding secession is vital to this paper because the perception of actions taken by individual states and populations determines how other entities in the international system react and form norms domestically and in global organizations like the United Nations. Buchanan explores when it is morally permissible and legally permissible to secede in his article Theories of Secession: Because secessionist attempts are usually resisted with deadly force by the state, human rights violations are common in secession. Often, the conflicts, as well as the refugees fleeing from them, spill across international borders... Yugoslavia demonstrate[s] both the deficiencies of international legal responses and the lack of consensus on sound ethical principles to undergird them [is the right to secede a] noninstitutional ( natural ) moral right or a proposed international legal 78 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, xii. An example of an international intervention which attempted to expedite the end of a conflict was in Somalia in Starovoitova, Sovereignty after Empire, Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, Barnett, New World Order, 542.

24 21 right[?] Others signal that they are proposing changes in the way in which the international community responds to secession crises 82 Buchanan consequently defines two types of normative theories regarding secession, the remedial right only and the primary right to secede. 83 The remedial right of a population to secession permits a people such as the Iraqi Kurds or Bangladeshis to separate from a state which, through gross injustices like war and human rights violations, threatens the physical survival of the group. 84 In addition, a population which controlled sovereign territory later unjustly taken by a state may also be justified in seceding from the state. 85 Alternatively, primary right theories give a population the right to secede in the absence of injustice toward the group. Solidarity among peoples, whether economic, social, cultural, or political can be considered justification for pursuing secession. 86 In The Morality of Political Divorce, Buchanan classifies the protection of exploited liberty, furtherance of diversity, preservation of liberal purity (tolerance and growth of communities), escape from discriminatory redistribution of wealth, employment, and political benefits, nationalism, self-defense, and mutual consent as moral justifications for secession. 87 Conversely, the protection of the status quo, majority rule, and order of the state (the prevention of anarchy) are among the many arguments against the morality of secession. 88 Another theory claims that existing states and international organizations often fear the pure plebiscite theory which denotes that any group can constitute a majority in a particular area 82 Allen Buchanan, Theories of Secession, Philosophy & Public Affairs 26 (1997): Ibid., The chief difference between the right to secede and the right to revolution, according to Remedial Right Only Theories, is that the right to secede accrues to a portion of the citizenry, concentrated in a part of the territory of the state. The object of the exercise of the right to secede is not to overthrow the government, but only to sever the government s control over that portion of the territory. The recognition of a remedial right to secede can be seen as supplementing Locke s theory of revolution and theories like it. Buchanan, Theories of Secession, Buchanan, Theories of Secession, 37. A primary example of this occurrence is the case of the Baltic Republics. See Buchanan, Morality of Political Divorce, Buchanan, Theories of Secession, Buchanan, Morality of Political Divorce, Ibid.,

25 22 by concentrating its population in a geographical space. In so doing, the group can claim solidarity and self-determination rights. This could occur anywhere and any number of times due to the existence of subcultures in these smaller subsets of populations. An indefinite number of states could be produced according to the precepts of this theory. 89 Additionally, some theorists like Beran claim that any group can justify its inclinations to secede if it makes up a majority of the population in any given geographical space in a state, and can manage resources appropriately to become a fully functioning state entity. 90 Secession creates a ripple effect which travels through multiple levels of society, domestic and international. Upon the secession of an ethnic minority, oftentimes another ethnic group becomes the minority in the newly formed state. The former marginalized population becomes the majority, and may persecute small population subsets within the young country. 91 Wellman claims that a population has the moral right to secede from a state entity to form its own if and only if the separation will render the new state and the parent state fully capable of performing the necessary political functions to provide for a citizenry. Supporting secession does not conflict with valuing the integrity of extant states. In valuing self-determination, people, states, and the international system should accept that peoples have the right to political activism within their state, and make demands for a new state if their political needs are not met by the existing state and the creation of a new country would meet those needs Buchanan, Theories of Secession, Ibid., Ibid., Christopher Heath Wellman, A Theory of Secession (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

26 23 Norm development, and how it influences international receptiveness to secession This paper is meant to explore the development of normative trends regarding secession. As such, it is important to understand how an international norm comes into being. Constructivist theorist Martha Finnemore claims that many international norms began as domestic norms and become international through the efforts of entrepreneurs of various kinds. 93 Regulative norms order and constrain behavior while constitutive norms create new actors, interests, or categories of action. 94 I argue that the development of norms regarding secession was once a constitutive norm which evolved into a regulative norm during the 20 th century as the state structure became less variable and more stable with the establishment of international bodies, particularly the United Nations. Norms are anchored to institutional development; as the United Nations grows to include new states created via secession, states with similar histories will be accepted into the organization in a positive feedback system. 95 As Finnemore states, norms by definition embody a quality of oughtness and shared moral assessment prompt[ing] justifications for action. 96 However, moral inclinations of oughtness fluctuate throughout history. Norms most of us would consider bad -norms about racial superiority, divine right, imperialism-were once powerful because some groups believed in the appropriateness (that is, the goodness ) of the norm, and others either accepted it as obvious or inevitable or had no choice but to accept it. 97 White adds to this, noting that international norms regarding secession have been repeatedly violated by those states strong enough to dissent 93 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, International Norm Dynamics and Political Change, International Organization 52 (1998): Ibid. 95 Ibid., Ibid. 97 Ibid., 892. Emphasis added.