In extreme circumstances, should a people facing gross human rights abuses be allowed to declare
independence as an emergency measure to ensure their survival?
In this video, I'm going to look at the concept of remedial secession and show how many see it as providing
a route for independence in the most serious cases of violence - such as ethnic cleansing or genocide.
However, as I'll show, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to put it into practice in any systematic way.
[MUSIC]
Hello. My name is James Ker-Lindsay.
Welcome to 'Independent Thinking'.
A channel dedicated to international relations, independence, statehood and the origins of countries.
In the modern era, the international community has taken a very restrictive view of the right of territories
and people to break away and become independent.
As I've noted time and time again, countries really don't like secession.
Outside of colonial contexts, and cases of occupation, the right of self-determination extends to what we call
internal self-determination - best understood as autonomy within an existing state.
Independence in these cases can only really be achieved with the permission of the parent state.
However, in recent years many observers have been asking whether it's time to consider
new approaches to self-determination and secession.
In some cases, these discussions have focused on a general right of statehood.
How can the international community open up independence for all peoples who might want it?
In other cases, the debates has been far more restrictive.
Rather than the broad principle of independence,
the focus has been on limited changes that would allow independence in very specific and restricted cases.
Perhaps the most interesting of these narrow debates has focused on the idea of remedial secession.
Essentially, this considers whether, in certain cases,
the right of secession should be extended to people suffering gross human rights abuses.
So, is this really a viable idea?
The creation of the United Nations in 1945 put in place a new system of international relations
firmly focused on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.
Countries were duty-bound not to interfere in one another's domestic affairs.
One of the clearest statements of this came in 1970 when the UN General Assembly passed the:
'Declaration on Principles of International Law, Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States
in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.'
This declaration, the so called Friendly Relations Declaration, appeared to take an uncompromising
position on sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It made clear in no uncertain terms that UN members were to stay out of the internal affairs of one another
- not only because this violated the UN Charter, but also because intervention leads to the creation of situations
which threaten international peace and security.
At a crucial point, the Declaration also noted:
'that nothing in the foregoing paragraphs should be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action
which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and
independent states conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and
self-determination of peoples as described above and thus possessed of a government representing the whole
people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race creed or colour.'
In the view of some observers, though by no means all, this one paragraph appeared to open the way for
secession in those cases where the government wasn't truly inclusive and offering the rights
of internal self-determination to its citizens.
In other words, it appeared to extend a right of independence
in cases beyond colonization and occupation.
Even now, this paragraph is often regarded as the foundation for the doctrine of remedial secession.
In reality, the idea of remedial secession didn't begin to gain real traction until the 1990s.
The end of the Cold War saw the emergence of some truly appalling cases of human rights violations.
These included the genocide in Rwanda and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
This led many observers to start to ask whether the international community could, in all good conscience,
stand aside in the name of respecting sovereignty.
In 2001, a report entitled 'The Responsibility to Protect' was published by the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)
- a body made up of senior international figures that was established by the Canadian government.
Essentially, the report argued that state sovereignty should not be thought of as solely a right.
It also conferred responsibilities on states to protect their citizens.
Moreover, the responsibility to protect human rights also rested with the wider international community
when a particular state is clearly either unwilling or unable to fulfill its responsibilities to protect,
or is itself the actual perpetrator of crimes or atrocities.
Four years later, in 2005, world leaders unanimously agreed to accept
the provisions of Responsibility to Protect
As stated in paragraphs 138 and 139 of the World Summit Outcome Document,
'Each individual state has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.'
In addition, the international community, through the Security Council, and in accordance with the UN Charter,
also had a responsibility to take action.
Although this would ideally be done through the use of appropriate
'diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means',
it did leave the door open for other forms of action.
This widening of the debate about sovereignty and statehood
and the ways to respond to human rights abuses,
naturally spurred new thinking on the idea of remedial secession.
If states could no longer hide behind sovereignty in the face of human rights abuses,
then surely peoples facing an existential threat should be allowed to have the right, in extreme cases,
to pursue independence as one means to secure their safety.
Before going any further, it's perhaps worth explaining how remedial secession could help in such cases.
In the face of gross human rights abuses, it isn't the act of declaring independence, as such, that has an effect.
It's the consequences of doing so.
Declaring independence paves the way for international recognition.
This allows the international community to accept the territory in question now constitutes
its own political community and enjoys sovereignty.
There's no obligation to stay out of domestic affairs of the parent state
as its sovereignty over the territory is no longer recognized.
This in turn allows external actors to then act in defence of the new States,
not only through direct or indirect military support, either through sending troops or supplying arms,
but also in various other diplomatic, political and economic ways.
The problem is that while it may seem to be a worthy idea from a theoretical perspective,
it's hard to see how remedial secession could be put into practice.
First of all, under what conditions should the idea of remedial secession apply?
For some, the mere denial of internal self-determination is sufficient to create a right to remedial secession.
If a government is unable or unwilling to grant a community within its borders a degree of autonomy,
then that people should have the right to independence.
Of course, many would feel that this is too low a threshold.
Even though the denial of any sort of autonomy would almost certainly, if not necessarily,
entail a degree of human rights abuse,
many, if not the vast majority, of the countries around the world would be unwilling to extend recognition
to a peoples that had declared independence under such circumstances.
In this sense, remedial secession would have to be reserved for the most serious cases
of human rights abuse, such as genocide, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity.
But, even then, putting it into action would be incredibly difficult.
Ideally, any act of remedial secession would have to be approved by the Security Council.
But reaching consensus there would be extremely difficult.
One reason for this is that such a step cannot be temporary.
Sending in peacekeepers, or even acting in enforcement capacity,
the usual forms of UN sanctioned intervention in conflicts,
leaves the door open for the continued sovereignty of the parent states once hostilities had subsided.
By contrast, recognizing the territory as an independent state is permanent.
It can't be merely rescinded when things have calmed down.
Many countries would therefore be extremely reluctant to accept remedial secession
- even under the most serious of circumstances.
On top of this it would almost certainly be caught up in politics.
Quite apart from the fact that it would obviously preclude any action against
the five permanent members of the Security Council
- Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China -
it would mean that any states close to any of these countries would be protected.
In fact, and especially in the current highly fractured geopolitical environment, it would seem safe to say that
the vast majority of the world will be protected by one or more members of the Security Council.
Indeed, this protection could well become an important source of patronage for certain members of the Council.
Of course, in the event the UN Security Council couldn't reach a decision,
the alternative would be for some countries to act on their own.
While this might create an immediate opportunity to offer support to the seceding territory,
this is far from certain.
Again, many countries harbour grave concerns about secession.
While they might be willing to stop human rights abuses,
they would be reluctant to get involved if they thought that this would be based on accepting
the unilateral secession of the territory in question.
It would also create longer-term problems.
The opponents of a case of remedial secession at the height of any emergency
would then be extremely unlikely to recognize the new states once tensions had calmed.
This would mean that the country's integration into the international system would be hindered,
if not obstructed.
Additionally, it could also create tit-for-tat situations.
Other countries could then start to claim human rights abuses and draw on the concept of remedial secession
to justify recognizing the independence of territories they support.
The modern system of international relations has been built around the idea of sovereignty, territorial integrity
and the non intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries.
In the context of secession and statehood,
this has severely restricted the right of peoples to break away and form their own countries.
This said, there have been efforts to think about ways that these ideas can be extended.
One of the most interesting of these has been this notion of remedial secession.
Building on the concept of 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P), this has attracted a lot of interest.
However, as I've hoped to show, the idea, while certainly worthy and theoretically possible,
nevertheless opens up a range of serious practical difficulties.
Not only would there be questions about the appropriate threshold for action, many countries,
while willing to accept some form of intervention, would be wholly opposed to endorsing an act of secession.
On top of this, it seems almost inevitable that given the high stakes involved,
it would actually inject an even greater element of power politics into a situation.
All things considered, and especially in the current geopolitical environment,
its all but impossible to see how remedial secession could realistically be put into action
in any meaningful manner.
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