Secession as the Future

Heather E. McCormic

Government Department Independent Study

Professor David Dessler

4/26/2013

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.

By exploring eight cases from the 20th

and 21st 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.

Making the big world smaller?

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 ........................................................................... 12

The morality of secession .................................................................................................................. 20

Norm development, and how it influences international receptiveness to secession ......................... 23

Figure 1: Norm life cycle............................................................................................................ 24

My specific normative study .............................................................................................................. 25

Chapter 2: Trend 1-Pre-WWI Legacy and Wilsonianism ........................................................................ 27

Westphalia ........................................................................................................................................ 27

The American and French Revolutions, and the Concert of Europe .................................................... 28

Case: Norway..................................................................................................................................... 30

Wilson and the Interwar .................................................................................................................... 31

Case: Finland and the Aaland Islands ................................................................................................. 33

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 34

Chapter 3: Trend 2-WWII and Decolonization ....................................................................................... 36

Decolonization or secession? ............................................................................................................. 36

Legislation and international organization developments .................................................................. 39

I. United Nations Charter (1945) ................................................................................................ 39

Box 1: Self-Determination in the 1945 UN Charter ........................................................ 40

II. Resolution 1514 (1960).......................................................................................................... 41

III. UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on

Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) ............................................................................. 42

Case: Biafra............................................................................................................................... 43

IV. Resolution 2625 (1970) ........................................................................................................ 45

Case: Bangladesh ............................................................................................................. 47

Legacy of decolonization .................................................................................................................... 48

Table 1: Decolonization and UN Membership, 1945-1980 ......................................................... 49

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 50

Chapter 4: Trend 3-Humanitarianism in the Post-Cold War Era ............................................................ 52

Post-Cold War self-determination policy ............................................................................................ 53

Case: The Baltics ................................................................................................................................ 55

Case: Yugoslavia ................................................................................................................................ 58

Case: Georgia .................................................................................................................................... 62

Case: South Sudan ............................................................................................................................. 66

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 69

Epilogue: Moving toward a Big World of Small Countries? ................................................................... 72

Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................... 76

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 Self-

determination and separatism existed throughout the 20th century, starting with Norway’s

secession from the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway in 1905. Even then, the seeds of

autonomy were planted in the mid-19th

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.

2

20th 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

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 self-

government 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.

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 (1994-1995): 154-157.

(http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/conjil10&div=10&g_sent=1&collection=journals0 4 Martha Finnemore, The Purpose Of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About The Use Of Force (New York: Cornell

University Press, 2003) 1-23. 5 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:

10.1177/0192512112456050.

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

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.

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.

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), 1-2. 9 Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 45-49. 10 Foran, Taking Power, 23. 11 Goldstone, Revolutions, 5-6. 12 Goodwin, No Other Way Out, 3. 13 Goldstone, Revolutions, 13.

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.20

14 Goodwin, No Other Way Out, 29. 15

Sidney G. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (UK: Cambridge University

Press, 2011),15. 16 Goodwin, No Other Way Out, 27. 17 Tarrow, Power in Movement, 13. 18 Ibid., 62. 19 Ibid., 17-19. 20 Ibid., 153, 57.

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.28

21 Ibid., 20-25. 22

Ibid., 36-39. 23 Ibid., 65. 24 Foran, Taking Power, 17. 25 Ibid., 19. 26 Ibid., 20. 27 Ibid., 145. 28 Ibid., 89-90.

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.34

29 Tarrow, Power in Movement, 1. 30 Goodwin, No Other Way Out, 40, 43. 31 Tarrow, Power in Movement, 196. 32 Goodwin, No Other Way Out, 252-254. 33 Ibid., 256. 34 Ibid., 255.

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): 6. 36 Panagiotis Pantazopolous “Secessionist Movements: An Analytical Framework” (honors thesis, SIUC, 1995), 1. 37 Aleksandar Pavkovic and Peter Radan, Creating New States: Theory and Practice of Secession (Farnham, Surrey,

UK: Ashgate, 2007), 1. 38 Ibid., 5. 39 Pantazopolous “Secessionist Movements,” 7.

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 self-

determination 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 self-

determination 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 self-

determination 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), 1. 41 Ibid., 50. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., 50-51.

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.51

44 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): 187-190. See Pantazopolous “Secessionist

Movements,” 13. 45 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 52. Pantazopolous notes that cultural groups may pursue self-

determination if they perceive that the majority or external sovereign state threatens to extinguish the minority

population altogether. See Pantazopolous “Secessionist Movements,” 12-13. 46

Allen Buchanan, Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce From Fort Sumter to Lithuania And Quebec,

(Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), 13. 47 Ibid., 14. 48 Ibid., 15. 49 Ibid., 18. 50 Ibid., 15. 51 Ibid., 16.

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 1648.

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 18th century; eventually the idea grew into the widespread desire

52 Brilmayer “Secession and Self-Determination,” 177-178. 53 Buchanan, Secession, 74. 54 Lee C. Buchheit, Secession: The Legitimacy of Self-determination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 3.

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 20th 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,” 180. 56 Buchheit, Secession, 4. 57 Brilmayer, “Secession and Self-Determination,” 180. 58 Ibid.

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, 3-5. 61 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), 6. 63 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): 467. 64 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.

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, 13. 66 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 24. 67 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, 53-67. 68 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 53-67. 69 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): 527. 70 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 71.

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, 194. 72 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 3. 73 Ibid., 1. 74

Brilmayer, “Secession and Separatism,” 185. 75 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 81. 76 Ibid., 9. 77 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,” 530-531.

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 1991. 79 Starovoitova, “Sovereignty after Empire,” 6. 80 Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination, 7. 81 Barnett, “New World Order,” 542.

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): 33. 83 Ibid., 34. 84 “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,” 35. 85 Buchanan, “Theories of Secession,” 37. A primary example of this occurrence is the case of the Baltic Republics.

See Buchanan, Morality of Political Divorce, 67-70. 86 Buchanan, “Theories of Secession,” 40. 87 Buchanan, Morality of Political Divorce, 29-70. 88 Ibid., 87-114.

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.92

89 Buchanan, “Theories of Secession,” 39. 90 Ibid., 39. 91 Ibid., 45. 92 Christopher Heath Wellman, A Theory of Secession (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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 20th

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): 893. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 891. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid., 892. Emphasis added.

24

and prevail against cynics.98

Despite this, norms often influence actions taken in the international

community and individual states. To better understand the impact norms have on state activity,

we must explore the norm life cycle.

Finnemore and Sikkink use the graphic below (Figure 1, page 24) to depict the typical

life cycle of a norm.99

First, the norm emerges due to the efforts by one or a couple of “norm

entrepreneur” states which take a particular stance on an issue. Once the entrepreneurs gather

enough support (a point which remains undefined), the norm moves past its “tipping point” and

begins to “cascade” as more states join the cause and give the norm momentum. Eventually, the

norm becomes internalized by individual states, meaning the idea becomes second-nature,

accepted without debate.100

The “… agreement among a critical mass of actors on some

emergent norm can create a tipping point after which agreement becomes widespread…”101

Though Finnemore and Sikkink have yet to discover the precise formula for when a norm

reaches and exceeds its tipping point, they currently have two theories regarding the event.102

First, one-third of the total states in the system create the norm cascade upon adopting the norm.

Second, certain “critical states” (“those without which the achievement of the substantive norm

goal is compromised”) must embrace the norm. All things considered, the size, location, and

moral structure of states makes the adoption of each norm vary. Although no exact science has

98 Richard White, “Contradicting Norms of Secession in the Balkans” (honors thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2010), 1. 99 Finnemore and Sikkink, “Norm Dynamics,” 896. 100 Ibid., 895-905. 101 Ibid., 892-893. 102 Ibid., 901.

25

been deduced for the norm creation and widespread adoption, these authors have come far as

they explore how and why states adopt particular stances on domestic and international issues.

My specific normative study

A quote from Barnett aptly summarizes my choice in using the constructivist lens as I

proceed with research on the topic of secession and its vital role in the international system and

in states’ foreign affairs and policy.

"In contrast to neorealism, which emphasizes coercion and force, and neoliberal

institutionalism, which focuses on stabilized exchange relations through norms

and institutions, constructivism entertains the possibility that order is also

achieved through a normative structure, an acceptance of some basic rules of the

game that place normative restrictions on behavior… But because constructivism

shares with these reports a consideration of how international order is secured

through normative forces, it is better able to consider, first, how international

order might be produced by the articulation, legitimation, and transmission of the

codes of state conduct, and second, the potential role of the UN in all the

above."103

In this paper, I do not confine a “case” to a single secession incident or separatist group.

Instead, Martha Finnemore provides a framework for this paper in her book The Purpose of

Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force. Finnemore breaks down normative

trends regarding the use of intervention by analyzing the “patterns of change in international

behavior.”104

As Finnemore notes, “Normative context is imperative because it shapes

conceptions of interest and gives purpose and meaning to action.”105

Consistent norms mutually

reinforce each other, coevolving over time.106

I seek to apply her structure to this paper by

103 Barnett, “New World Order,” 550-551. 104 Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press, 2003), 11. 105 Ibid., 53. 106 Ibid., 57, 71.

26

evaluating past norms formed about secession and separatism, and analyzing various states’

reactions to specific cases over the past century in order to evaluate the changes in international

and individual state behavior.

A shared notion of legal authority and the rising influence of international laws led to

systematic changes in behavior toward the imposition of force on a state by another.107

Today the

international community concerns itself more with human equality and sovereignty equality, the

respect of peoples and the territorial integrity of states.108

The expansion of international law and

its recognition by states is connected to the decline in the use of coercive force. Increased

diplomatic initiatives and negotiations between states bilaterally and in the context of

organizations with global membership, mainly the UN, shows the interconnectedness of the

world, and how each state is influenced by the actions and beliefs of others to some extent.109

In

the end, institutions bear much weight when states wish to establish international norms because

the world requires multilateralism to secure legitimacy of action.110

107 Ibid., 26. 108 Ibid., 20. 109 Ibid., 145. 110 Barnett, “New World Order,” 528-529.

27

Chapter 2: Trend 1- Pre-WWI Legacy and Wilsonianism

The following explores the creation of the current international state system, and

evaluates the development of the early norm regarding secession and new state creation.

Secessionary activity in Scandinavia in the first quarter of the 20th

century did not pose a

significant threat to the international community, especially as states formed a consensus

supporting the territorial integrity of existing states. Though Norway and Finland both peacefully

gained independence with their parent states’ consent, the Aaland Islands did not find the same

favor when they attempted to secede from Finland without approval. This shows that in this era

of history, the international community valued the interests of existing states as opposed to those

of disenfranchised populations and minorities.

Westphalia

Most scholars argue that the current international system and legal structure came into

being following the Thirty Years’ War in Europe with the establishment of the 1648 Treaty of

Westphalia.111

The Treaty established a number of independent territorial states which coexisted

in the pursuit of their individual interests. Thus states were made the central actors, or political

units, in the world. Though the system sought to equalize all state entities, the new countries did

not fervently seek to fulfill this goal as resources were unevenly distributed. To institutionalize

111 Some scholars such as Krasner (1995) and Osiender (2001) claim that Westphalia did not begin the state system;

however, for the purposes of this paper, I trace the creation of the international system to this particular instance

because no single watershed event caused state entities to emerge en masse. The Treaty of Westphalia serves to mark one of the first major international agreements and sustained engagements among multiple territorial bodies

and their leadership. Leo Gross, “The Peace of Westphalia, 1648-1948,” The American Journal of International Law

42 (1948): 26. Stephen D. Krasner, “Compromising Westphalia,” International Security 20 (1995-1996): 115.

Andreas Osiender, “Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth,” International Organization 55

(2001): 260-268.

28

equity among states, countries codified international laws, opened conferences and forums to

settle disputes, and developed diplomatic practices to relate to other actors. In addition, an

informal balance of power prevented the emergence of preeminent aggressor states. The

development of these systems served as the foundation on which international society formed.112

The American and French Revolutions, and the Concert of Europe

The American Revolution (1775-1783) sparked the notion of self-determination in the

18th century.

113 Not even a decade later, the French Revolution (1789-1799) generated interest in

the idea of “popular sovereignty,” the concept that “political authority rested on the consent of

the governed.”114

With the constitutional monarchy usurped, the French populace established

their secular democratic republic. Though more authoritarian and privatized, the state recognized

the principles of citizenship and individual human rights along with nationalism and

democracy.115

The Napoleonic Wars followed the French Revolution at the start of the 19th

century.

During this era, prominent states in Europe imposed their military forces on smaller or weaker

states to manipulate their domestic regimes and gain strategic advantage over competitors.116

Shortly thereafter, the Concert of Europe was established upon the drafting and signing of the

Treaty of Chaumont (1814). This new system, in place until the advent of World War I in 1914,

112 Gene M. Lyons and Michael Mastanduno, Beyond Westphalia?: National Sovereignty and International

Intervention (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 5-6. 113 Morton H. Halperin, David J. Scheffer, and Patricia L. Small, Self-Determination in the New World Order

(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 1992), 16. 114 Stephen D. Krasner, “Sovereignty and Intervention,” in Beyond Westphalia?: National Sovereignty and International Intervention, Gene M. Lyons and Michael Mastanduno (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1995), 243. 115 Derek Heater, National Self-Determination: Woodrow Wilson and his Legacy (UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 1994),

4-5. 116 Krasner, “Sovereignty and Intervention,” 243.

29

created the Congress of Aix la-Chapelle of 1818 where great power states periodically convened

to discuss European affairs.117

After extensive debate regarding whether states should impose

their political ideologies on smaller states, and the extent to which national sovereignty should be

valued and respected by all international actors, the members of the Congress remained divided

on these issues. Britain stood by its claim that all states’ sovereignty should stand without

external intervention, while the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Austria, and Russia (established

in 1815) promoted the rule of monarchical regimes across Europe. For nearly a century no

prevailing international norm prevailed.118

Across the Atlantic, the United States of America experienced its first secessionist

movement during the Civil War (1861-1865). Though this proved a watershed event for

separatism, the country’s physical isolation restrained European and other states from becoming

more involved and forming an idea about secession from it.119

The Second Hague Peace Convention of 1907 finally gathered all European states to end

the ongoing dispute regarding intervention and state sovereignty. The conclusions of the

conference supported non-intervention and the mutual respect of all national boundaries and

territorial integrity, and ultimately encouraged the increased participation of smaller, less

influential states in the international decision-making process.

117 Gross, “The Peace of Westphalia,” 20. 118 Krasner, “Sovereignty and Intervention,” 243-245. 119 The main support for either side was economic; also, arms and other provisions for the Northern and Southern

militias were made available from various European allies.

30

Case: Norway120

In the early 20th

century, the Norwegians in the United Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden

supported secession because they shared ethnic solidarity and desired to operate a distinct state to

reflect their common identity separately from the ruling Swedes.121

In addition to their shared

characteristics, the Norwegians historically developed their own political and economic systems

to resist deeper integration with the Swedes. Under the Danes, the Norwegian Constituent

Assembly enacted Norway’s first constitution in 1813; this legislation granted the Norwegians

the legitimacy to control their territory’s domestic and international political and economic

systems. However, the 1814 Treaty of Kiel transferred greater dominion over the Norwegians

and their territory to the Swedes.122

Though the Norwegians continued operating their

independent government structure (complete with a legislative assembly, civil service, and

military) without including a mechanism for the Swedes to influence decision-making processes,

the Norwegians’ shared characteristics led to the formation of a political movement to pursue the

creation of a new state from their occupied territory.123

Heavily influenced by Romanticism, the Norwegians regained their collective sense of

history, language, literature, music, and other cultural traditions. Beginning in the 1840s,

scholars and artists spearheaded the nationalist movement in Norway which grew into a

mobilized force of political secessionists. As the Norwegians became more inspired to end the

120 For further reading on the summarized historical background of the Norway-Sweden separation, see Raymond E.

Lindgren, Norway-Sweden: Union, Disunion, and Scandinavian Integration (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1959), 8-234. 121 Aleksandar Pavkovic and Peter Radan, Creating New States: Theory and Practice of Secession (Farnham, Surrey,

UK: Ashgate, 2007), 49. 122 Ibid., 68. 123 Pavkovic and Radan, Creating New State, 43, 69. Robert A. Young, “How Do Peaceful Secessions Happen?,”

Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 27 (1994): 777-778.

31

Swedes’ rule over the United Kingdoms and sought to reduce political inequality, the secession

movement budded and grew until the advent of the 20th century.

124

Following the Karlstad Conference negotiations held from August 31 to September 23,

1905 after Norway’s unilateral declaration of secession from Sweden on June 7, the countries

peacefully separated.125

The international community recognized Norway as a separate state

entity and carried on normal interactions with the two states once Sweden ratified and

acknowledged Norway’s statehood.126

Because the rifts between Sweden and Norway existed

many years prior to the division, other European states had little objection to maintaining

separate political and economic connections with each entity. For example, in the 19th

century

during the unification, Sweden mainly traded with Germany while Norway limited economic

exchanges to England.127

Because the secession did not cause civil war or other violent conflicts

in the region, the creation of Norway was looked upon in a positive light by the European

community.

Wilson and the Interwar

Heater notes that the “precise term ‘national self-determination’ did not emerge until the

First World War, even though the basic principle… had been abroad for more than a century.”128

Following the conclusion of World War I in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson made a speech

124 Pavkovic and Radan, Creating New States, 70-71. 125 According to Johan Galtung, Norwegian sociologist and political scientist, noted in a 1985 speech that 368,200

Norwegians voted in favor of the referendum to secede, with only 184 opposing. See Johan Galtung, “Karlstad

1905, Karlstad 1949, Karlstad 19--?: Speech on the occasion of the Karlstad Fourth Centenary, June 1984” (speech, Paris, France, June 1984), Transcend International, http://www.transcend.org/galtung/papers.php. Lindgren,

Norway-Sweden, 195-196. 126 Pavkovic and Radan, Creating New States, 73. 127 Young, “How Do Peaceful Secessions Happen?,” 777. 128 Heater, Woodrow Wilson, 24.

32

declaring that all peoples possessed the right to choose sovereignty free from external coercion

or alien domination, and meaningful participation in the political processes of their state.129

However, such vague terminology worried Wilson’s Secretary of State, Robert Lansing. Lansing

was against giving self-determination rights to what he considered to be the uneducated masses,

however. He implied that too much power given to the masses would lead to their making

impossible demands of their state governments, thus breeding discontent, disorder, rebellion. He

also claimed that self-determination meant all groups would feel that they had the right to their

own states, which would ultimately make all of humanity miserable.130

Regardless, Wilson is

thought to have desired that people have the control over their own destinies, and often wrote

and spoke in favor of increased minority rights.131

Though at the time he knew not of the

complexities of self-determination, Wilson brought to light a topic of great interest which would

demand the attention of all international actors for the next century.132

Despite the progress made with the 1907 Peace Convention, the devastation following

World War I demanded a new international body be made to address the debts and settlements

necessary for world recovery. The 1919 Paris Settlement used the preexisting structures from

Westphalia, the Concert, and the Hague Peace Conventions to make the League of Nations

(1919-1946) in which states committed to cooperate on particular issues (the League acted as a

broker for bilateral and multilateral relations and made no universal rules and regulations on state

conduct).133

Though the legal code of the League of Nations failed to mention self-

determination, nationalism as an ideology gained momentum domestically and internationally

129 Halperin, Self-Determination, 16-17. 130 Halperin, Self-Determination, 17. Heater, Woodrow Wilson, 53. 131 Halperin, Self-Determination, 18. Heater, Woodrow Wilson, 84-85. 132 Lea Brilmayer, “Secession and Self-Determination: A Territorial Interpretation,” Yale Journal of International

Law 16 (1991): 180. 133 Gross, “The Peace of Westphalia,” 20.

33

during the interwar period as peoples sharing distinct historical, cultural, lingual, racial, ethnic,

religious, or other traits banded together as nations.134

Case: Finland and the Aaland Islands

The first case of secession confronted by the League of Nations occurred in 1917 when

the Bolshevik government allowed Finland to secede from Russia.135

However, a lasting dispute

occurred three years later concerning the Aaland Islands. Though the Aaland Islands have

historically been inhabited by ethnic Swedes, geographically they remain directly linked to the

Finnish mainland.136

When Russia first acquired the isles in 1809 following the Treaty of

Fredrikshamn, the Aaland Islands were declared neutral territory.137

After small skirmishes over

the islands and areas across Europe with Sweden, England, and France, Russia reasserted its

dominion over the isles with the 1856 Paris Convention.138

In 1917, Russian revolutionaries

overthrew the autocratic tsar, declaring the state a socialist republic. Less than one month later,

Finland was recognized as an independent political entity by Russia followed by Sweden,

France, and Germany.139

Because the Islanders were still politically attached to Finland, they

remained under its jurisdiction despite their desire to gain independence. Brushed aside, the

Aaland Islanders appealed to the League of Nations International Committee of Jurists in 1920.

The Committee recognized Finland as a state, but refused to acknowledge the Aaland

population.140

134 Halperin, Self-Determination, 19. Patricia Carley, “Self-Determination: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and the

Right to Secession,” United States Institute of Peace: Peaceworks 7 (1996): 3. 135

Pavkovic and Radan, Creating New States, 19. 136 Norman J. Padelford and K. Gosta A. Andersson, “The Aaland Islands Question,” The American Journal of International Law 33 (1939): 465. 137 Ibid., 466. 138 Ibid., 467. 139 Ibid., 469-471. 140 Halperin, Self-Determination, 19-20. Padelford, “Aaland Islands,” 472.

34

Although the principle of self-determination of peoples plays an important part in modern

political thought, there is no mention of it in the covenant of the League of Nations. The

recognition of this principle in a certain number of international treaties cannot be considered

sufficient to put it on the same footing as a positive rule of the Law of Nations.141

The Aaland population wished to join the Swedes because of their shared heritage.

However, as Halperin explains, “[i]n a definitely constituted state [like Finland], the right of self-

determination was limited to less radical options. Thus the Aaland population was denied its

preference to join Sweden… The Commission [of Rapporteurs] refused to separate the islands

from Finland, but recommended autonomy for the islands, under an international guarantee, and

demilitarization of the archipelago...”142

No states voiced a dissenting opinion as they ratified

this convention.143

To this day, the isles remain autonomous within Finland, lacking recognition

as a state entity.

Conclusion

Following the creation of the international state system in 1648, the world became

steadily more stagnant in terms of political territory. Nations emerged as people rallied their

support behind movements for popular sovereignty and representative governments. As the

world grew smaller due to increased communications and connectivity, states began to form

more opinions of the secessionist claims being made. The first secessions of importance were the

141 “Report of the International Committee of Jurists entrusted by the Council of the League of Nations with the task of giving an advisory opinion upon the legal aspects of the Aaland Islands question,” League of Nations Official

Journal, Special Supplement 3 (1920): 5, accessed April 25, 2013, http://www.ilsa.org/jessup/jessup10/basicmats/

aaland1.pdf. 142 Halperin, Self-Determination, 19-20. For further information, see Padelford, “Aaland Islands,” 472-476. 143 Padelford, “Aaland Islands,”477-478.

35

Norwegian and Finnish cases in 1905 and 1917, respectively. Ultimately, however, because these

secessions were non-violent and were settled on peaceful terms, the world did not then see active

separatism as a threat. Instead, new questions emerged. Who makes up a nation? What is self-

determination? How does a nation acquire the right to secede? The world faced these queries and

countless others as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union emerged

following World War II and the creation of the United Nations.

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Chapter 3: Trend 2- WWII and Decolonization

After the atrocities and achievements of World War II, the world transitioned into a new

era as the previously Euro-centric realm of policymaking fell to the bipolar system between the

United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) during the Cold War. In addition, the creation of the

United Nations (UN) altered the dialogue between states, developing or great power, as it

presented a central forum where state legitimacy could be debated and addressed by a larger

international governing body. As the UN gained more validity on the international stage, the

major test of statehood became admission into the organization. During the Cold War, other

major international legislation regarding secession and the creation of new states emerged from

the United Nations, including UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 1514, the UN

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic,

Social, and Cultural Rights, and UNGA Resolution 2625 which I will explicate further in the

following sections.144

Decolonization or Secession?

Before I delve into the various pieces of legislation passed by the United Nations, I want

to address the question of whether cases of decolonization affected the international normative

sentiment regarding secession.145

I argue that the period of decolonization following World War

144

Lea Brilmayer, “Secession and Self-Determination: A Territorial Interpretation,” Yale Journal of International

Law 16 (1991): 181. 145 For clarification on this academically controversial subject, I have elected to reference Buchheit’s definition of

decolonization which is clearly explained in his book entitled Secession: The Legitimacy of Self-Determination.

Decolonization, the reclamation of a territory for local rule and the removal of foreign occupation and governance

has been characterized as a noble cause, politically legitimate. Colonialism limited the rights given to natives and

imposed the societal norms of foreign states on localities; natives lost the power to govern themselves during

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II greatly influenced how existing states, particularly previous and emerging great powers,

viewed state creation. Theorists such as Pavkovic, Cabestan, and Crawford do not consider

decolonization secession; however, I agree with Radan that cases of decolonization, imperial

dissolution, and state partitions all contribute to the understanding of secession as an

international phenomenon in the last century. Particularly, in this paper I include an analysis of

decolonizing states in order to fully understand why the international community views the

creation of new states, particularly by secession processes, the way it does.146

During what Buchheit names “imperial fatigue,” 20th century colonial powers (mainly the

British and French) lost their grip on the empires they constructed and consequently saw the

irruption of anti-colonial independence movements in occupied provinces and regions.147

El-

Ayouty argues that “the real impact of [World War II] is represented by developments which

either undermined or totally eliminated the principle motives of colonialism” such as prestige,

nationalism, religious and cultural mission, geopolitical strategy, and economic advantage.148

Colonialism, once viewed as a humanitarian favor toward the uncivilized masses, became

associated with foreign oppression and was consequently looked down upon by states adopting

policy paradigms which favored individual rights for peoples.149

Change was brought about

because of