Self-determination and Secession: Human Rights-based Conflict Resolution

Abstract Throughout its development as an international law principle, there prevailed an assumption that self-determination gives rise to secession. This assumption, which has fuelled the most violent ethno-national conflicts in modern history, is however misleading. Self-determination does not lead to secession. Self-determination is conceptually and legally separate and independent from secession. Its association with secession actually makes self-determination a legal anomaly. Whether a “nation” can secede is not a function of self-determination but is dictated by an entirely different variable – effective power or authority in international politics. There is a need to break the link between self-determination and secession, and instead recognise self-determination as a human right per se rather than a principle that justifies, confuses, and exacerbates ethno-national conflicts. The result is a change in our way of understanding, and hopefully resolving, existing secessionist struggles and ethno-national conflicts worldwide.