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Who, Why and How: Assessing the Legitimacy of Secession
Author(s) -
Baer Josette
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1002/j.1662-6370.2000.tb00297.x
Subject(s) - secession , legitimacy , argument (complex analysis) , normative , political science , independence (probability theory) , politics , political economy , law , law and economics , sociology , biochemistry , chemistry , statistics , mathematics
Since the breakdown of bipolarity, the international community had to cope with independence movements spreading in Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe. Given the peculiar coercive character of the Soviet and Yugoslav Federations and the Soviet Union's hegemonial rule in Central Europe, the wish for independent statehood can be understood as a sum of single secessionist movements. This article investigates secession as a moral problem of public international law; it also attempts to define normative criteria for the assessment of secessionist legitimacy. What conditions are required for a legitimate secession? On what political, social or historical characteristics should a legitimate secession be based in order to obtain international recognition? The analysis is carried out on three levels: legitimacy of the actors (Who), legitimacy of the secessionist argument (Why) and procedural legiti‐macy (How). The analysis is illustrated by three examples of recent se‐cessionist movements: Slovakia, FYR Macedonia and Chechnya.