The International Court of Justice’sKosovoCase: Assessing the Current State of International Legal Opinion on Remedial Secession

Abstract

SummaryIn light of the global prevalence of secessionist movements, some have proposed “remedial secession” as a last resort solution where a “people” is either denied internal self-determination or is faced with massive human rights violations by a repressive regime. While lack of state practice largely confined this concept to academic circles through the 1990s and much of the 2000s, remedial secession received renewed international legal attention in the proceedings concerning the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2008 advisory opinion in the caseAccordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo(Kosovocase).In light of support for remedial secession expressed in the submissions of eleven states, as well as its apparent endorsement in the separate opinions of two ICJ judges, advocates of remedial secession may plausibly argue that the soft law status of the concept has been strengthened and perhaps even that it is in the process of emerging as a regional customary norm for those states that supported it. However, the impact of theKosovocase on solidifying the legal status of remedial secession should not be overstated, as opponents of the concept may point to a number of contrary indicators that also emerged from the formal discourse surrounding the case.