What Sort of a Right is the Right of Secession?

Abstract

In this paper I argue that international law sees secession as a matter for and of politics. Therefore, this law cannot give us an answer to the many questions raised by secession. We might need to examine the issue of secession from the vantage point of political philosophy. However, liberal political theories of secession do not take into account the realities of much of the armed separatist conflict in the postcolonial world. Given the harm that is caused by secession, the only way out to deflect the movement is to institutionalize the preconditions of self determination for groups within the state. Secession will remain a right, but a weak one, liable to be outweighed by other moral considerations.