## 1. Philosophical Issues of Secession




Political scientists, sociologists, and political economists attempt
to describe and explain the causes and effects of secessionist
movements and of states' reactions to them. Philosophers focus on
the moral issues and on clarifying the conceptual framework for
thinking about secession. Philosophical work on secession can be
divided into three categories: (1) attempts to articulate the
conditions under which a group has the moral right to secede; (2)
examinations of the compatibility or incompatibility of secession with
constitutionalism, (3) attempts to determine what position
international law should take regarding secession. Thus far,
philosophical theories of secession have not been integrated with two
areas of normative theorizing that are directly relevant to them. The
first is just war theory. This is surprising, since part of what
motivates systematic thinking about secession is a realization that
attempts to secede often involve or provoke large-scale violence. The
second is theories of territorial justice. This, too, is surprising,
because ideally a theory of secession would be situated within a
broader normative theory of a range of claims to territory, including,
but not limited to claims to sovereign jurisdiction of the sort now
associated with statehood.




It is useful to distinguish secession from other ways in which
"separation" or "state-breaking" can occur. In
what might be called secession in the classic sense, a group in a
portion of the territory of a state attempt to create a new state
there; secessionists attempt to exit, leaving behind the original state
in reduced form. Second, there is irredentist secession, wherein the
attempt is not to create a new state, but to merge the seceding
territory with a neighboring state. This typically occurs when the
majority in the seceding area are of the same ethno-nationality as that
which is predominant in the neighboring state. A third case,
exemplified by the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, occurs when there is
agreement between the populations or at least the leaders of two
regions (which together comprise the whole territory of the state), to
split the state into two new states. A fourth case is that of
externally imposed partition of an existing state into two or more new
states. In the past partition usually occurred when a deal was struck
between two powerful neighboring states at the expense of the state
that was partitioned, as with the partitioning of Poland between Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union. At present, externally imposed partition
is more likely to be considered as a last resort for dealing with
intractable ethno-national conflict within a state. In what follows,
the focus is on secession in the classical sense, but with some
attention also to irredentist secession.


### 1.1 The distinction between a (mere) justification and having a claim-right




We begin with a distinction between unilateral and consensual
secession. The former is secession without the consent of the state
from which a portion of territory is taken by the seceding group or
without constitutional sanction. A theory of the right to unilateral
secession is most urgently needed, not only because unilateral
secession occurs more frequently than consensual secession, but also
because it is both more controversial and more likely to result in
large-scale violence.




Consensual secession results either from a negotiated agreement
between the state and the secessionists (as occurred when Norway
seceded from Sweden in 1905) or through constitutional processes (as
the Supreme Court of Canada recently envisioned for the secession
of
 Quebec).[1] 
 Constitutionally
sanctioned secession is achieved either by the exercise of an explicit
constitutional right to secede (which only a few constitutions
currently contain) or by constitutional amendment.




A second important distinction is between being justified in
seceding unilaterally and have a (claim-) right to unilateral
secession. It is not always clear whether a theorist is advancing a
theory of the conditions under which secession is morally justified
(that is, the conditions under which a group has a moral liberty-right
or mere moral permission to secede), or a theory of the conditions
under which a group has the claim-right to secede unilaterally. Talk
about "the right to secede" is often ambiguous between
these alternatives. A claim-right includes not only a liberty-right or
mere permission (i.e., that a group is justified in seceding in the
sense that if they do so they do not thereby act impermissibly), but
also a correlative obligation on the part of others not to interfere
with the attempted secession.




The distinction between establishing that a group is morally
justified in unilaterally seceding (in the sense of having a
liberty-right) and establishing that the group has a moral claim-right
to unilaterally secede is crucial, though it is rarely explicitly drawn
by philosophers writing about secession. Having the liberty-right does
not imply having the claim-right: a group might be morally justified in
seceding and yet it might not be the case that others (including the
state from which the group is seceding) are obligated to refrain from
interfering with the group's attempt to secede.




Therefore, an argument that suffices to establish that a group is
justified in seceding under such and such conditions may not suffice to
establish that the group has a (claim-) right to secede under those
conditions. Yet when philosophers attempt to develop a moral theory of
secession by appealing to intuitions about hypothetical examples of
secession, it is often unclear whether the intuition elicited is about
the moral justifiability of the secession (the mere permissibility) or
about the existence of a moral claim-right.


### 1.2 Constitutional theorizing about secession




Some philosophers have distinguished between the question of whether
and, if so, under what conditions a group has a moral claim-right to
secede and the question of whether and, if so, under what conditions a
constitution ought to or may permissibly include a right to secede. For
example, while acknowledging that secession may sometimes be morally
justified (where this presumably means the group in question has the
claim-right to secede), Cass Sunstein has argued that constitutional
recognition of a right to secede is incompatible with the principles of
constitutionalism (or at least democratic
 constitutionalism)[2]
 (Sunstein 1991). Sunstein argues
that a basic principle of constitutionalism is that political
institutions, including the constitution itself, must be designed to
encourage citizens to engage in the hard work of democratic politics,
where this means competing in the public forum on grounds of principle,
with a minimum of strategic bargaining. Following Albert O. Hirschman
(1970), he then contends that if the constitution acknowledges a right
to secede, then discontent minorities will be tempted to shirk the hard
work of principled, democratic politics either by seceding when the
majoritarian decisions go against their preferences or by using the
threat of secession as a strategic bargaining tool as a de facto veto
over majority rule. In either case, democracy will be undermined.




However, as Buchanan has argued (1991: 132), Sunstein fails even to
consider the possibility that a constitution could so hedge the right
to secede as to reduce the threat of exit by minorities to acceptable
proportions. The analogy here is with the right of constitutional
amendment as found in the United States Constitution. This right is
significantly hedged: two super-majorities, one in the Congress, the
other among the States, are required for amendment. Similarly, an
appropriately hedged right to secede is not incompatible with the
principles of constitutionalism: well-designed procedural hurdles
(super-majorities, waiting periods, etc.) can make secession
sufficiently difficult as to avoid an unacceptable risk of premature
exit or strategic bargaining by minorities, while still making
secession possible under appropriate conditions. The current Ethiopian
Constitution in fact includes such a hedged right to secede, requiring
not only two super-majorities in favor of secession, but also a waiting
period. So, although appropriate constitutional design regarding
secession must cope with the risks that secession will impair
democratic processes, constitutional recognition of a right to secede
does not appear to be incompatible with constitutionalism.




Wayne Norman goes further, arguing that there are significant
advantages to constitutionalizing conflicts over secession (Norman
2003). The Supreme Court of Canada recently took the same position,
arguing that the potentially disruptive process of secession by Quebec
can be subjected to the rule of law by a process of negotiation and
constitutional 
 amendment.[3]




There is yet another argument for including a right to secede in a
constitution. In some cases, when a new political entity is being
created out of two or more independent or semi-autonomous entities,
including a right to exit in the constitution of the new entity may be
necessary as an inducement to join the new union. Under conditions of
uncertainty as to how the new union will work, constitutional
recognition of a "bail out" option may be necessary to get
the new union going 
 (Buchanan 1991: ch. 4).[4]




There is much philosophical work to be done on the question of when
and, if so, how the right to secede might be constitutionalized. It
will require both an account of the principles of constitutionalism and
of the morality of secession and an empirically based knowledge of the
conditions under which various constitutional arrangements can be
reasonably expected to realize the principles of constitutionalism in a
manner that is consistent with secession.


## 2. Theories of the Right to Secede




In the philosophical literature a putatively exhaustive distinction
is drawn between two theories of the right to secede (understood as a
unilateral claim-right): *Remedial right only* theories and
*primary right* 
 theories.[5]
 Remedial right only
theories analogize the right to secede to the right to revolution,
understanding it as a right that a group comes to have only as a result
of violations of other rights. On this view secession is justified only
as a remedy of last resort for persistent and serious injustices. The
right to unilateral secession thus understood is not primary, but
rather derivative upon the violation of other, more basic rights; hence
the label "remedial right only." Sometimes the term
"just cause theories" is used to refer to remedial right
only theories and the term "choice theories" to refer to
primary right theories.




Different versions of remedial right only theories specify different
lists of the injustices that can ground the remedial right. Consider,
for example, a remedial right only theory that includes among the
grounds for the (unilateral) right to secede the following: (a)
large-scale and persistent violations of basic human rights, (b) unjust
taking of the territory of a legitimate state (where secession is
simply the taking back of wrongly taken territory, as with the
secession of the Baltic Republics from the Soviet Union in 1991), and
(c) in certain cases, the state's persisting violation of
agreements to accord a minority group limited self-government within
the state (Buchanan 2004) or perhaps even refusal to enter into
negotiations aimed at agreement on an intrastate autonomy regime. A
more austere remedial right only theory would recognize only (a),
persistent, large-scale violations of basic human rights (in the most
extreme case, genocide or other mass killings) as sufficient to justify
unilateral 
 secession.[6]





Primary right theories of the unilateral right to secede recognize
that a group can have a right to secede on remedial grounds, but they
contend that the (unilateral) right to secede can exist even when the
group has not been subject to any injustice. This second type of theory
thus holds that there is a right to unilateral secession over and above
whatever remedial and hence derivative right there may be.




Primary right theories are of two types: *Ascriptivist*
(predominantly nationalist) theories and *plebiscitary* (or
majoritarian) theories. The former hold that certain groups whose
memberships are defined by what are sometimes called ascriptive
characteristics, simply by virtue of being those sorts of groups, have
a unilateral (claim-)right to secede. Ascriptive characteristics are
those that are attributed to individuals independently of their choice
and include being of the same nation or being a "distinct
people." The most common form of ascriptivist theory holds that
nations as such have a right of self-determination that includes the
right to secede in order to have their own state.




Plebiscitary theories, in contrast, hold that the (*pro
tanto*) unilateral moral claim-right to secede exists if a majority
residing in a portion of the state chooses to have their own state
there, regardless of whether or not they have any common
characteristics, ascriptive or otherwise, other than the desire for
independence. They need not be co-nationals or members of a distinct
people or culture. Rather, they need only constitute a group that is
capable of establishing an autonomous government with the capacity to
fulfill the political functions necessary for legitimacy.




What the two types of primary right theories have in common is that
they do not require injustice as a necessary condition for the
existence of a unilateral (claim-)right to secede. They are primary
right theories because they do not make the unilateral (claim-)right to
secede derivative upon the violation of other, more basic rights, as
the remedial right only theories 
 do.[7]
 No attempt will
be made here to provide a comprehensive comparative evaluation of these
rival theories (see Buchanan 1997). Instead, we will only identify
their major strengths and weaknesses.


### 2.1 Remedial Right Only Theories




Remedial right only theories, as their designation suggests, hold
that secession is justified as a remedy of last resort against
injustices perpetrated against the aspiring secessionist group by the
state. Remedial right theorists assume that a sufficiently just state
has legitimate jurisdiction over the people within its territory. This
legitimacy confers on the state permission to rule over its all
citizens--including those members of aspiring secessionist groups.
Matters can change only if the state violates the conditions of its
legitimacy, which requires that the state commit injustices that are
sufficiently weighty so as to undermine the state's claim to
legitimate rule. Various remedial right only views have different views
as to what types of injustices are of sufficient weightiness to ground
the right to secede. The most prominent view of this sort, advanced by
Allen Buchanan, identifies three particular kinds of injustices for
which secession can be a remedy: 1) genocide or other large-scale
violations of basic human rights; 2) unjust annexation; and 3) the
persistent violation of intrastate autonomy agreements (Buchanan 2003:
p. 351). Recently, Buchanan has also considered the possibility of
another condition: failure to enter into negotiations with the possible
outcome of an intrastate autonomy regime in the case of any group that
has a reasonable claim to such autonomy (Buchanan, personal
communication, August 2021).




Given the tendency for unilateral secession to provoke massive
violence, the obvious strength of the remedial right only approach is
that it places a significant constraint on unilateral
secession--namely, the requirement of a serious and persistent
grievance of injustice suffered by the secessionists. To that extent,
it captures the intuition that nonconsensual state-breaking, like
revolution, is a grave affair requiring a weighty justification. More
specifically, this view provides a plausible explanation of how the
state can come to lose its entitlement to the territory: it does so by
failing to do what gives states a moral claim to control territory in
the first place, namely, providing justice for those within its
jurisdiction.




Another strength of the remedial right only approach is that it
appears to provide the right incentives: States that are just (or at
least do not persist in very serious injustices) are morally immune to
unilateral secession and entitled to international support in
maintaining their territorial integrity. On the other hand, if, as the
theory recommends, a unilateral right to secede as a remedy for serious
and persistent injustices is acknowledged, this will give states an
incentive to act more justly.




Some critics have objected that the remedial right only approach to
unilateral secession is disturbingly irrelevant to the concerns of many
groups seeking self-determination. They say that in most cases it is
nationalism that fuels the quest for self-determination, not grievances
of injustice *per se* (Moore 1998a). An advocate of the remedial
right only view might respond that the latter is only an account of
unilateral secession, not a comprehensive theory of self-determination.
Thus, the remedial right only approach to unilateral secession is
compatible with a fairly permissive stance toward intrastate autonomy,
including various forms of self-government for national minorities
within the state. The point is to uncouple the unilateral (claim-)right
to secede from the various legitimate interests that
groups--including national minorities--can have in various
forms of self-determination short of statehood.




Moreover, the remedial right only approach need not reject claims to
independence on the part of nations; it only rejects the much stronger
assertion that nations as such have a unilateral right to secede. In
many cases the groups that suffer persistent grave injustices are in
fact nations, and therefore would be accorded the right to secede by
the remedial right only theory. To that extent it is inaccurate to say
that this type of theory ignores the realities of national
self-determination movements. But just as important, the remedial right
only theory, when integrated into a comprehensive theory of
self-determination that includes a principled account of when
intrastate autonomy arrangements warrant international support, will
address the concerns of national minorities in cases in which they do
not have a unilateral right to secede.




What the remedial right only approach does *not* do is
concede that nations as such--independently of any persisting
pattern of grave injustices--have a unilateral right to secede.
But it can be argued that this is a virtue of the account, not a
defect. It thereby avoids the objection to which ascriptivist theories
are vulnerable, namely, that they endorse a unilateral right to secede
for all nations in a world in which virtually every state contains more
than one nation and in which nations are not neatly sorted into
discrete regions of the state's territory, but instead claim the
same territories. The point is not simply that the ascriptivist view is
unfeasible; its support for the idea of the ethnically exclusive state
is an incitement to ethnic cleansing if not genocide. However, this
line of argument can supply an effective reply to the objection that
remedial right only theories neglect the importance of nationalism only
if the account of the right to secede a remedial right only theory
advances is properly situated in a plausible, more comprehensive theory
of self-determination.


### 2.2 Plebiscitary Theories




Plebiscitary (or voluntarist) theories are more permissive than
remedial right only theories and ascriptivist theories: they permit
unilateral secession in the absence of injustice and do not require
that the members of the seceding group share any characteristic other
than the desire to form their own state. Plebiscitary theorists ground
the right to secede in the right to *self-determination*
(Wellman 2005: ch. 3)*.* For them, self-determination is in
itself of such great value that it can ground a right to complete
political autonomy given certain conditions. The most prominent
proponent of the plebiscitary view, Christopher Wellman, argues that
the right to self-determination generates a right to secede if and only
if (a) any group that constitutes a majority within a portion of some
given territory votes in favor of secession, (b) that group is willing
and able to establish a well-functioning independent state, and (c) its
secession will not undermine the remainder state's ability to
function as well (Wellman 1995; Wellman 2005: ch. 3; Altman and Wellman
2009: ch. 3). Let us call (a) the *majority vote condition* and
the conjunction of (b) and (c) the *state viability proviso*.
Satisfying the state viability proviso is not likely to be easy in most
cases, particularly where the establishment of a new set of
institutions is concerned. The viability proviso, then, limits the
permissiveness of the plebiscitary view.




Plebiscitary theories have many appealing features. First, they are
able to avoid some of the problems that afflict the other main type of
primary right theory, ascriptivist theories, because they do not
require either an account of what constitutes a nation nor an
explanation of why nations have a right to their own state. In
addition, if a plebiscitary right to secede is widely acknowledged,
those wishing to secede need not frame their case in nationalist terms,
which can provoke sometimes violent nationalistic responses from those
who oppose them. Second, they are less conservative than remedial right
only theories, as they permit a democratic redrawing of state
boundaries--which, in theory, allows for a greater degree of
self-determination for the people that reside within them. This appeal
to a democratic determination of state boundaries rather than the
maintenance of the status quo also advances an admirable commitment to
democracy, understood as majority rule.




This view, like the others, faces many objections. One worry is that
the plebiscitary theory licenses morally problematic secessions of the
"haves" from the "have-nots:" well-off
majorities in resource-rich portions of the state might divest
themselves of obligations to redistribute wealth to their less
fortunate fellow citizens. In response, Wellman might appeal to the
viability proviso: a secessionist party may not secede with the
commodities necessary for the continued functioning of the remainder
state. If they are located in a region that has the greater amount of
natural resources, for example, their right to secede is conditional on
their willingness to share at least some of those resources with the
citizens of the remainder state. On this view, richer groups may secede
from poorer groups--however, the poorer group's reliance on
the resources held by the richer group establishes the terms by which
the secession may occur (Wellman 1995: p. 145).




Whether this reply works depends on how much Wellman is willing to
pack into the requirement that the remainder state must still be able
to "function." Wellman's account is somewhat vague in
this regard, but it appears that he only includes the requirement that
the state be able to perform the functions needed to secure basic
rights and justice, maintain order, and provide essential
infrastructure. If that is the case, then those who worry about
licensing the secession of the haves from the have-nots might argue
that the plebiscitary view permits the destruction of the modern
welfare state, a form of polity that often requires significant
redistribution of wealth from better-off regions to less well-off ones.
Though Wellman is not clear about precisely what functions are
necessary for the viability of a state, it is probable that the
functions of a welfare state exceed the more minimal ones
Wellman's view likely requires. Thus, critics might argue,
Wellman's plebiscitary view is either a) too austerely
libertarian or b) requires a modification and expansion of the
viability proviso that the secession not seriously damage the welfare
functions of the remainder state.




Wellman, however, takes another approach. He argues that the
continued sharing of resources from a newly created independent state
with the remainder state need not be limited to instances in which the
poorer region would be left unviable without the seceding
region's support. Thus, his view leaves room for the possibility
that the people in the poorer region may still be entitled to some
share of the resources that is greater than what they need for mere
viability- however that may be construed. Here, Wellman makes a
distinction between what he takes to be two separate questions: 1) what
do the citizens of the richer region owe to the citizens of the
remainder state as a matter of justice? And 2) are the citizens of the
richer region entitled to self-determination? As he would argue:
wealthy spouses divorce their less wealthy spouses all the time. We
don't think that this inequality prohibits them from divorcing;
rather, it establishes the terms by which they may permissibly do
so--and these terms more often than not require continued support
of the less well-off spouse beyond what is minimally required for his
subsistence (Wellman 2005: p. 142-3).




The question of maintaining the wealth distribution of a welfare
state, then, is one of distributive justice, and does not immediately
bear on the issue of whether or not a richer group has the right to
secede beyond a more minimal interpretation of the viability proviso.
That is to say that the richer group's right to
self-determination is of sufficient weight to justify their secession
(given the satisfaction of the requisite conditions), but it does not
*necessarily* outweigh any commitment to satisfying the welfare
expectations of those in the remainder state. The claims of
distributive justice may well require continued support of the
worse-off beyond mere subsistence or viability claims. One difficulty
with this response is that it appears unrealistic under current
conditions: once a region has achieved full independence, it will have
little incentive to continue to share its resources with the remainder
state in order to preserve its welfare functions and there is no
effective international agency to ensure that it does so.




Critics of the plebiscitary theory raise the further objection that
views like Wellman's would result in a proliferation of
secessions. The *domino effect* objection, as it might be
called, refers to the concern that, if all that is needed to establish
a potentially viable secessionist group is a mere majority vote in any
plebiscite, then the institutionalization of this view will license the
secessions of increasingly numerous and subsequently smaller and
smaller groups. This would likely be disastrous for political and
economic stability in the given regions and internationally. Again,
plebiscitary theorists refer back to the viability proviso in response.
The successful creation of a fully autonomous state that can both
maintain political legitimacy (through the satisfaction of its
political functions) and that can be reasonably expected to persist
over time is a tall order--one that many (if not most) aspiring
secessionist groups are not likely to meet. Indeed, Wellman argues that
the likelihood of a secessionist group's ability to achieve such
an ambitious and complex task decreases as its population and resources
dwindle in size (Wellman 2005: p. 7-8). The viability proviso, then,
serves as a practical limitation on the kinds of plebiscites that can
in fact form viable secessionist groups, which significantly decreases
the likelihood that an international splintering of states will occur
if the plebiscitary view were implemented.




The right to secede, of course, necessarily entails a right to the
territory on which the secessionists intend to establish their own
independent state. This territory will be taken, without consent, from
the original state. What gives the secessionists a stronger claim to
territory than that of the original state? How can the right to
self-determination plus the desire of the majority for independent
statehood both general a territorial claim *and* cancel a
legitimate state's claim to the same?




Instead of asking how the separatist group *gains* the right
to territory, Wellman starts by asking why the original state has
territorial claims in the first place (Wellman 1995). He argues that
the state owes us an explanation as to why it can claim unilateral
coercive authority over us and the territories on which we live. The
only plausible explanation, he concludes, is functionality. So, Wellman
has a distinctly functionalist view of state authority--the
authority of a state over its territory and people is legitimate
insofar and only insofar as it performs its necessary political
functions to some satisfactory degree. A state's claim to sole
authority over a territory is thus generated by the use of that
territory to the performance of its political functions (Wellman 2005:
ch. 2).




In the context of this view, the existence of a politically viable
and motivated internal separatist group calls into question the
state's claim to territory on which said group exists because a)
its political viability proves that the state does not, in fact, need
control over that territory and population to maintain the requisite
degree of functionality (per the viability proviso); and b) the
majority of the people in that region prefers another political
arrangement by which they can satisfy the functionality requirements on
their own. Given the fact that the original state does not need the
contested territory to create a politically secure and decently
well-functioning environment for its own citizens, the state's
claim to the disputed territory is not justified on the functionalist
view (Altman and Wellman 2009: 47). The specific scenarios in which
this plays out will depend on how we construe political viability, but
the overarching argument from functionality remains the same: if the
disputed territory is not necessary for the proper functioning of the
state, then the state's claim to that territory and those who
live on it is (at the very least) vulnerable to being overridden by the
self-determination claims of the aspiring secessionists.




Wellman's view on the potentially opposing territorial claims
is thus grounded in his functionalist understanding of state legitimacy
and his strong interpretation of the right to self-determination.
According to the prevalent understanding of self-determination in
mainstream political philosophy and international law, however, the
right to self-determination includes only two features: freedom from
external interference in self-governance and some minimally democratic
form of government such that each member of the polity enjoys equal
political participation rights. On this understanding, it appears that
the right to self-determination could only ground a right to territory
if possessing their own territory is the only way in which a group
could be free of external interference or could achieve democracy. It
does not encompass a right to take a portion of the territory of a
state that satisfies these two requirements. To respond to these
criticisms, the plebiscitary theory needs to be supplemented with a
plausible theory of territorial rights that explains how the right to
self-determination can generate a claim to territory in a portion of a
legitimate state in which all citizens already enjoy some sufficient
degree of self-determination. More on this in SS2.4.


### 2.3 Ascriptivist Theories




Ascriptivist theories, like their plebiscitary counterparts, hold
that secession rights are ultimately grounded in the value of
self-determination and thus need not only be conferred on those who
have suffered severe injustice. Unlike plebiscitary theorists, however,
proponents of ascriptivist views do not extend the right of
self-determination to just any group. They argue instead that
self-determination extends only to those groups that can be
distinguished by certain defining features- such as nationality,
religion, ethnicity, or other identities shared by the individuals that
constitute each group (Margalit and Raz 1990; Moore 1997; Miller 1995;
Miller 1998). Though various ascriptivist theories insist on different
criteria that are used define the "people" or
"nation" in question, they share the underlying claim that
the right to secede is motivated by the right to some kind of
*national* self-determination grounded in the unique moral
claims of individuals belonging to particular identity
 groups.[8]





This approach to unilateral secession has a long pedigree, reaching
back at least to Nineteenth Century nationalists such as Mazzini, who
proclaimed that every nation should have its own state. Critics of the
ascriptivist variant of primary right theory (Buchanan 1991, Gellner
2008) argue that it would legitimize virtually unlimited unilateral,
forcible border changes because it confers an entitlement to its own
state on every nation (or "people" or distinct society).
For reasons noted above this appears to be not only unfeasible, but a
recipe for increasing ethno-national conflict.




However, those who advocate for the ascriptivist view reply that it
does not require every nation (or distinct people) to exercise its
unilateral right to secede and have conjectured that were their theory
generally accepted not every group upon which it confers this
entitlement would choose to secede. Nevertheless, given the historical
record of ethno-nationalist conflict, the worry remains that
institutionalizing the principle that every nation is entitled to its
own state would exacerbate ethno-national violence, along with the
human rights violations it inevitably entails. Thus, the moral costs of
incorporating the ascriptivist version of primary right theory into
international law may appear prohibitive--especially if there are
less risky ways to accommodate the legitimate interests of nations,
such as better compliance with human rights norms and recourse to
intrastate autonomy arrangements.




There are variants of the ascriptivist theory that go some distance
toward allaying the worry that acceptance of the theory would add fuel
to the fires of ethno-national conflict by qualifying the unilateral
right of secession for nations (or distinct peoples) in various ways.
For example, the ascriptivist may hold that there is a presumption in
favor of each nation or distinct people having a right to its own state
if it so desires, or a *prima facie* unilateral right to secede
for all such groups, but acknowledge that the international legal
system is justified in requiring some groups to settle for autonomy
arrangements short of full independence to avoid dangerous instability
or to accommodate similar claims by other groups to the same territory.
This way of responding to the worry about adding fuel to ethno-national
conflicts comes at a price: What was originally billed as a unilateral
right of every nation as such to its own state now looks more like a
highly defeasible presumption in favor of independence for nations. And
unless a fairly concrete account of the conditions under which the
presumption is not defeated is provided, it is hard to know what the
practical implications of this qualified ascriptivist view are. What is
needed is an account of how the putative presumption in favor of
statehood for nations is to be weighed against competing claims and
values. So far, proponents of ascriptivist theories have not provided
this.




Earlier, we observed that critics of the ascriptivist version of
primary right theories tend to focus on the potential costs in terms of
exacerbated ethno-national conflict of incorporating the view into
international law. However, it is not enough to note the potential
costs of acceptance of the ascriptivist theory and its incorporation
into international law. It is also necessary to understand the putative
benefits of having a system in which the rights of nations to their own
states are acknowledged. Accordingly, David Miller has usefully
distinguished two ways in which ascriptivist theories can be supported:
by arguments to show that nations need states or by arguments to show
that states need to be mono-national (Miller 1995).




The first type of argument has two variants: One can argue that
nations need to have their own states, either (1) in order to be able
to protect themselves from destruction or from forces that threaten
their distinctive character, or (2) in order for co-nationals to have
the institutional resources to be able to fulfill the special
obligations they owe one another as members of an "ethical
community", in Miller's phrase. Both of these
considerations can, under certain circumstances, weigh in favor of some
form of political self-determination for nations, but it is not clear
that either is sufficient to ground a general right of all nations to
full independence and hence a unilateral right to secede. Indeed,
Miller marshals them in support of a weaker conclusion: that nations
have a "strong claim" to self-determination but does not
specify when the claim constitutes a full-fledged right.




The second type of justification for the view that nations are
entitled to their own states also has two variants: The first, which
dates back at least to John Stuart Mill's *Considerations
On Representative Government* (Mill [1861] 1991), asserts that
democracy can only flourish in mono-national states, because states in
which there is more than one nation will be lacking in the solidarity,
trust, or shared sentiments and values that democracy requires. The
second, advanced by David Miller, asserts that states need to be
mononational in order to achieve distributive justice, because
distributive justice requires significant redistribution of wealth
among citizens and the better off will only be willing share their
wealth with their less fortunate fellow citizens if they see them as
co-nationals (Miller 1995). Both forms of the "states need to be
mononational" argument raise very interesting questions about the
motivational conditions necessary if crucial state functions are to be
successfully performed.




Mill apparently based his judgment that multination states are
incompatible with democracy on historical experience. However, some
would argue that there are cases of multinational democratic states:
Canada, Belgium, and perhaps Switzerland (depending upon whether one
regards the last as multinational or merely multi-ethnic). One might
also add the United States, since most Indian tribes have a legal
status that approaches sovereignty.




Of course, modern proponents of Mill's argument would be quick
to point out that the continued existence of Belgium and Canada are in
doubt due to nationalist secession movements. (However, at present the
secession of Quebec seems very unlikely). On the other hand, it could
be argued that Mill's generalization is prematurely pessimistic:
genuine democracies are a very recent phenomenon and until even more
recently there have been almost no serious attempts, even on the part
of democratic states, to recognize the claims of nations within states,
through various forms of autonomy 
 arrangements.[9]
 So as a
justification for acknowledging a right to independent statehood for
all nations, with the risk of instability and violence this might
entail, Mill's pessimism about multinational democracies may seem
to some to be premature. The most reasonable strategy would seem to be
to do more to ensure that states respect the human rights of their
minorities and to encourage intrastate autonomy agreements rather than
giving up on the idea of multinational states.




The second version of the "states need to be
mono-national" argument also faces serious objections. First,
whether or not nationalism will facilitate or instead block large-scale
redistribution of wealth will depend upon the character of the
nationalism in question. Nationalist solidarity may not extend to
willingness to redistribute wealth. As socialists from Marx onward have
observed, the privileged minority has often been quite adept at
appealing to nationalism to counteract the redistributive impulse.
Second, even in cases where nationalist sentiment facilitates
redistribution, one must ask: what else does it facilitate? Miller
appears to argue from the fact that a morally pristine, highly
idealized nationalism would facilitate distributive justice (or
democracy) to the conclusion that nations as such are entitled to their
own states or at least to a presumption thereof. But there are many
historical instances in which the national unity that Miller assumes
will be harnessed for the pursuit of distributive justice has been
ferociously directed toward conquest and against non-nationals and
dissenting members of the nation itself.


### 2.4 Situating theories of secession within theories of territory and territorial justice




As Lea Brilmayer has rightly stressed, secession is not simply the
formation of a new political association among individuals or the
repudiation by a group of persons of their obligation to obey the
state's laws (Brilmayer 1991). It is the taking of a part of the
territory claimed by an existing state. Accordingly, rival theories of
secession must be understood as providing alternative accounts of what
it takes for a group to come to have a claim to territory that is at
the time included in the territory of an existing state.




The remedial right only approach to unilateral secession recognizes
at least two ways a group can have the requisite valid claim to
territory: (a) by reclaiming territory over which they were sovereign
but which was unjustly taken from them (as with the Baltic
Republics' secession from the Soviet Union in 1991); or (b) by
coming to have a claim to sovereignty over the territory as a result of
availing themselves of a last resort remedy against serious and
persistent injustices in the form of violations of basic human rights.
A more expansive reading of (b) would include among the injustices that
can ground a unilateral right to secede, not only the violation of
basic human rights, but also the state's major violations of, or
unilateral revocation of, intrastate autonomy agreements (as with
Milosovic's destruction of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989) and
perhaps also refusal to negotiate regarding intrastate autonomy with
groups that have a reasonable claim to it.




With respect to (a), the basis of the secessionists' claim to
territory is straightforward: they are simply reclaiming what was
recognized by international law as theirs. With respect to (b), the
remedial right only theory begins with the presumption that existing
states that are accorded legitimacy under international law have valid
claims to their territories but then argues that such claims can be
overridden or extinguished in the face of persistent patterns of
serious injustices towards groups within the state. The idea is that
the validity of the state's claim to the territory cannot be
sustained when secession is the only remedy for serious injustices.




While primary theorists like Christopher Wellman have not yet
published their own replies to the objections that his plebiscitary
view lacks a much-needed theory of territory, some developments in the
literature on territorial rights might be used in defense of the
plebiscitary view (though the way in which they do so is considerably
less straightforward than is the case with remedial right only
theories). Anna Stilz argues that a state has territorial rights if and
only if it protects basic rights and claims of justice and reflects the
shared will of the population within that territory (Stilz 2019, p.
90). She calls these the values of *basic justice* and
*collective self-determination.* Stilz also claims that a state
can *gain* the right to rule over a particular territory
*that is not already subject to the territorial rights of another
entity* when it is able and willing to satisfy these values.
Wellman could use this combination of basic justice and collective
self-determination to claim that a separatist group driven by majority
vote that is willing and able to satisfy basic rights and justice for
its members can gain rights to the territory it needs to form its own
independent state--while denying the original state's
territorial claim at the same time. Whether this appropriation of
Stilz's view works depends on whether the conditions that enable
the initial acquisition of territorial rights--the establishment
of a valid claim to territory over a region that at the time is not the
object of a valid claim by any other entity--are the same as those
which establish a claim to territory over which some entity has
hitherto held valid territorial rights. One might argue that the
conditions for the latter are more demanding than for the former.




Stilz's conception of the value of basic justice can be
satisfied by Wellman's viability proviso, and his simple majority
vote requirement bears directly on the way in which she conceives the
value of collective self-determination, namely, in terms of a shared
will. Wellman could say that a group that has voted to leave the state
and be independently self-determining no longer shares the relevant
political will with the broader citizenry of the original state. Stilz
holds that an important part of the political will is a willingness
and/or desire to engage (or continue engaging) in a political project
with members of the greater state. A vote in favor of secession is a
clear indication that such a desire is no longer shared by a majority
of that plebiscite--they do not affirm existing institutions and
do not share a commitment to cooperating with them. In this way, the
original state can no longer be taken to reflect the population's
shared will. Using Stilz's theory of territory, then, Wellman
could argue that the separatist group has a clearly stronger claim to
the disputed territory than the original state does. Whether this
appeal to Stilz's view works will depend on whether the notion of
a shared will can be spelled out and shown to be of such crucial
importance that the absence of it on the part of some groups within the
state defeats a legitimate state's claim to territory.




The plebiscitary view also faces the criticism that it cannot defend
the attribution of territorial rights to the particular group that
seeks independence. Here, too, plebiscitary theorists might borrow from
Stilz. In addition to the values of basic justice and collective
self-determination, she places considerable emphasis on *occupancy
rights*. On her view, a group must have occupancy rights to the
particular territory over which they seek to claim sovereignty (Stilz
2019, ch. 2). Wellman has previously acknowledged that his position
requires occupancy rights, but he has not yet elaborated on what these
occupancy rights consist in. His view might be bolstered by emphasizing
Stilz's notion that occupancy rights are grounded in the
importance of a region to the life-styles and culture of a group. Such
an account of occupancy rights might be utilized to explain how the
boundaries of the plebiscite on secession ought to be drawn.




The plebiscitary theorists appeal to occupancy rights may turn out
to be a double-edged sword, however. Those who oppose a
particular secession might argue that they have occupancy rights in the
whole territory of the state in which they are citizens and that to
have occupancy rights to a particular portion of it they need not
actually be present in it. If a state has a valid claim to a territory
and it allows freedom of movement within its boundaries, all citizens
are usually understood to have occupancy right to the whole extent of
the territory, not just that portion in which they presently
reside.




The plebiscitary rights theorist could reply as follows. Even if all
the citizens of the state have occupancy rights regarding the seceding
region, surely those residing in that region have weightier occupancy
rights, at least if being in that region is important for their
individual and collective projects.




The discussion in this entry thus far indicates that all three types
of the most prominent theories (remedial rights only, plebiscitary, and
ascriptivist) suffer a serious incompleteness: they do not situate
their views on secession within the context of a comprehensive theory
of territorial justice. A theory of territorial justice aims to do at
least the following four things, all of which are relevant to theories
of secession. First, it should provide a coherent account of
valid moral claims to territory of various types, from claims to full
sovereign jurisdiction, to claims to the more limited jurisdictional
control needed for various forms of intrastate autonomy (modes of
self-determination short of full independence), to claims to
participation in various forms of joint jurisdiction. Second, and
relatedly, it should offer a coherent explanation of which elements of
control over territory can be justified. A theory of territory is not
only a theory of the geographical domain of jurisdictional authority
but also must the right to control resources within a territory, the
right of defense against the taking of territory, the right to control
over the movement of people and good across borders, and so on.




Third, it should explain which groups are connected, in which ways,
to which territories. That requires offering principles to guide
the drawing of boundaries and to adjudicate disputes over
boundaries. Finally, it would need to have a theory of what kind
of agent has rights over territory (a nation? - as in
Miller's (2007) theory; an ethno-geographic group? as argued by
Kolers (2009); a people? as in Moore (2015) and Stilz (2019)) and how
these groups relate to the state.




For each type of theory of secession, there are unanswered questions
and potential objections regarding territorial justice. For example,
remedial right only theories that include unjust annexations of
territory among the injustices that ground a unilateral (claim-)right
to secede must provide a satisfactory solution to what has elsewhere
been called the moral statute of limitations problem (Buchanan 1991:
88): how durable are claims to independence based on past unjust
takings--how far back in history may a group go in making the case
that they are entitled to their own state because they previously had
one?




Importantly, a remedial right only theory of the unilateral right to
secede will only be defensible in the end if it rests upon a plausible
account of what entitles a state to control over a territory in the
first place. Without such an account the remedial right only view
appears arbitrarily to privilege the status quo by requiring
secessionists to bear the burden of showing that they have suffered
serious and persistent injustices in order to establish their claim to
territory. To answer this objection, the remedial right only theorist
would have to provide and defend a justice-based theory of legitimacy,
arguing that what grounds the state's claim to territory is its
provision of justice, and that it is for this reason that only serious
injustices can void that claim (such an account of legitimacy is in
Buchanan 2013). To avoid the charge that its theory of territorial
rights gives short shrift to the value of self-determination, a
remedial right theory would have to show that in some cases at least a
secessionist group's claims to self-determination can be
adequately accommodated by intrastate autonomy arrangements that do not
erase the state's claims to its entire territory. And it would
have to provide a principled account of when claims to
self-determination are adequately satisfied through intrastate autonomy
arrangements short of full-independence.


### 2.5. Narrowly versus Widely Institutional Theories




There is another illuminating way of sorting theories of secession.
As noted in subsection 2.3, some theories assume that only certain
facts institutions are relevant for determining when a group has the
right to secede.. The plebiscitary theory developed by Altman and
Wellman (2009), assumes that the only institutional facts that matter
are these: will the seceding group be able to create the institutions
needed for it to function and will the remainder state's
institutions allow it to continue to function. In other words, on
their view, the only institutional interests relevant to determining
whether a right to secede exists are the interest in the functioning of
the new state and the remainder state. In effect, this theory treats
secession as strictly a two-party affair, so far as the interest
relevant to determining whether a group has the right to secede is
concerned. Buchanan's theory, in contrast, argues that other
parties can have legitimate interests that are relevant to determining
what the rights of the primary parties are. In particular, he contends
that international institutional interests are relevant, including the
interest in preventing human rights violations that predictably occur
in contested secessions and the interest in sustaining stable and
peaceful relations among states.




Altman and Wellman might reply that their State Viability Proviso
does take the interests of third parties into account. More
specifically, the fulfillment of the Proviso serves the interests of
third parties in having viable states and in the provision of justice
that comes with the discharging of basic state functions.




The problem with this reply is that, while acknowledging that
third-party interests can be relevant to determining whether a group
has the right to secede, it offers no reason as to why legitimate
third-party interests should be thus restricted. Why aren't the
interest in sustaining a stable order of states and in avoiding
security crises of the sort that secessions--especially
irredentist secessions--can create also relevant to determining the
contours of the right to secede? After all, whether a group has the
(claim-)right to secede depends on whether other parties have
sufficient reason to refraining from trying to prevent the secession
and that in turn can depend on whether the secession is likely to have
a negative impact on various legitimate interests, including, but not
limited to the interest in the remainder state and the new state being
viable.




This leaves plebiscitary theories vulnerable to the following
objection: Suppose that a group within a legitimate, reasonably just
state, is a majority in a portion of the state's territory and
prefers to have its own state. Whether they have the right to secede
depends on whether there are sufficient reasons for other states to
refrain from interfering with their attempt at secession (because the
right in question is a claim-right, which features a correlative
obligation not to interfere with the secession). But whether other
states ought to refrain from interfering with a secession or not
interfere with the state's attempt to prevent a secession can
depend on whether behaving in this way is likely to help establish a
new norm of customary international law that permits
territorially-concentrated majorities unilaterally to form their own
states without interference. In the absence of impartial institutions
to determine when the conditions for justified secession according to
the plebiscitary theory are met, such a new, much more permissive norm
of customary international law would be dangerous--it might
encourage secessions that do not meet the plebiscitary theories'
own criteria. So, as in the case of irredentist secessions noted above,
it appears that in these circumstances as well, whether other states
ought to interfere with an attempted secession, and hence whether a
group has the right to secede, can depend on factors other than those
the plebiscitary theory allows to count.




If it is true that a range of legitimate interests is relevant to
determining the nature of the moral right to secede, and if the extent
that these interests are impacted by secession depends on the existing
institutional resources, including not just those of the remainder
state and the new state, but also those of regional and international
organizations, then it follows that a theory of the moral right to
secede must take into account existing institutional realities at all
levels. Buchanan's latest work on secession delves into just
this--he argues that the moral right to secede is
*institution-dependent* in the sense that whether a group has
the moral right to secede depends on the nature of existing
institutions and whether or not they can adequately mitigate the risks
that secession would pose to various morally important interests. This
means that properly theorizing the right to secede requires
empirically-backed premises that characterize a) the range of morally
significant interests at risk in various cases of secession and b) the
ability or inability of existing institutions to mitigate those risks.
If this is true, then it seems that both remedial right only and
primary right views are incomplete, as neither provide these important
empirical premises.


### 2.6 Comparing Theories of Secession




At present it is fair to say that none of the rival types of
theories is sufficiently worked out for a definitive comparative
evaluation to be possible. For each type of theory there are unanswered
questions and potential objections.




All three types of theories must address satisfactorily what may be
called the problem of authentic voice. For ascriptivist and remedial
right only theories, this means providing a reasoned answer to the
question "what counts as an authentic decision to attempt to
secede?" (Is there some nonarbitrary way of specifying what sort
of majority is required in favor of secession before it can be said
that the group in question has chosen to exercise its right to
secede?). Similarly, plebiscitary right theorists must provide a
principled account of how large a majority in favor of secession must
exist, before it can be said that the right to secede exists.




In addition, all three types of theories must articulate a plausible
account of the rights of those within the seceding territory who oppose
secession. For example, are there circumstances in which the
anti-secessionists should be granted dual citizenship, so that they can
preserve their citizenship in the state from which the secession is
occurring? Are there circumstances in which they deserve compensation
for losses they incur when a new state, perhaps with different property
laws, is created?




Finally, as suggested earlier, the implications of each type of
theory for international law regarding secession should be explained.
In the next section, we explore briefly the relationship between views
about the moral (claim-)right to unilateral secession and the question
of what position international law should take on unilateral
secession.


## 3. Secession and Just War Theory




A more serious lacuna in the philosophical literature on secession
than the failure to integrate it into a comprehensive theory of
territorial justice is the absence of a connection with just war
theory. In real-world conflicts in which a group asserts the right to
secede and the state denies the validity of the claim, either one or
both of the parties often resorts to force. But merely establishing
that a group has the right to secede does not settle whether it is
justified in using force to achieve its goal of independent statehood.
(In general, merely having a right to *X* does not
entail being justified in using force to secure *X*).
Similarly, if the group does not have the right to secede, it may still
not be justifiable for the state to use force to prevent it from
seceding. Remarkably, philosophical theories of secession have not
distinguished between having the right to secede and being justified in
using force to exercise the right. Nor have they discussed the
conditions under which states have the right to use force to resist
secessions when the secessionists have no moral right to secede. This
is especially surprising, given the resurgence of philosophical
theorizing about just war.




The key point here is that mainstream just war theory does not
endorse the assertion that the violation of any right can justify force
nor the assertion that force is justified if it is required for the
successful exercise of any right. Instead, the dominant view is that
the list of just causes (legitimate ends to be served by going to war)
is more constrained than that and should reflect the conviction that
the use of force is only justified if it is required to remedy very
serious injustices or for the exercise of very important rights and
also satisfies a proportionality requirement.




It is far from obvious how just war theory and the theory of
secession should be connected. It appears, however, the use of force by
secessionists would be more problematic on some theories of secession
than on others. Suppose, for example, that a majority of the people in
a portion of a legitimate state's territory decide that they want
their own state there, in spite of the fact that they are not victims
of any injustices at the hands of the state. On the plebiscitary
theory, they have the right to secede (so long as the new unit and the
remainder state will be able adequately to perform the basic functions
of government). If the state refuses to vacate its facilities in that
region, turn over control over that portion of the border to the
secessionists, etc., is it justifiable for the secessionists to use
force against the agents of the state? Does the mere preference for
their own state justify engaging in a course of action that is likely
to result in large-scale violence? The problem here is that the purpose
the secessionists can invoke to justify a course of action seems not to
fit well with the usual understandings of just cause. In contrast,
remedial right only theories would seem to be consistent, at least in
principle, with mainstream just war theory, because the latter
recognizes redress of serious injustices (and not the mere desire to
have one's own political unit) as a just cause.




Nonetheless, a fully-developed remedial right only theory would have
to provide an account of when injustices are sufficiently serious to
warrant secession under conditions in which there is a significant risk
of large-scale violence. Regardless of which type of theory one
embraces, one would also need an account of the conditions under which
the state would be justified in using force to block secession. For as
we have already noted, the mere fact that the group attempting to
secede does not have a right to secede does not imply that it is
justifiable for the state to use force to prevent them from seceding. A
moral theory of secession should not be limited, then, to articulating
and defending characterization of the moral right to secede. It should
also provide an account of the morality of using force in conflicts
over secession and one that is consistent with its view of the right to
secede.


## 4. Secession and the Philosophy of International Law




There is yet another desideratum for a theory of secession: As
suggested earlier, the implications of each type of theory for
international law regarding secession should be explained. And
presumably an account of the morality of secession should provide some
guidance for determining what the posture of international law should
be regarding secession. In the next section, we explore briefly the
relationship between views about the moral (claim-)right to unilateral
secession and the question of what position international law should
take on unilateral secession.




The deficiencies of existing international law regarding secession
motivate the project of developing principled proposals for reform. At
present international law recognizes only a very narrow set of
circumstances under which the unilateral right to secede exists as an
international legal right, namely, when a group is subject to colonial
domination or is the victim of an unlawful occupation by a foreign
entity or is subjected to an Apartheid-like regime. The difficulty with
this conception of the international legal right to unilateral
secession is that, while clearly embodying the idea that serious and
persistent injustices can generate a right to unilateral secession, it
arbitrarily restricts the injustices that generate the right.




Another difficulty is that while international legal doctrine with
an arbitrarily restricted conception of the situations that generate a
unilateral right to secede, several important international legal
documents include reference to an apparently much broader "right
of self-determination of all peoples" which is said to include
the right to choose full independence, and hence the right to
 secede.[10]
 One
way to conceive of the chief task for a moral theory of international
law regarding secession is that it must provide a reasoned basis for
removing the arbitrary restriction from which the current law suffers,
while avoiding the dangerously expansive notion that all
"peoples" are entitled to their own states, in a world in
which virtually every existing state includes more than one
"people", in which several "peoples" claim the
same territory, and in which there are no international institutional
principles or mechanisms for sorting out these conflicting claims.




An important choice for the moral theorist of international law
regarding secession regards the scope of the right itself. On one view,
international law should simply acknowledge, under certain conditions
to be specified by the theory, a group's right to its own state;
on the other view, international law should distinguish between (a) the
conditions under which a group should be accorded the right to
repudiate the jurisdiction of the state over a portion of the
state's territory and to attempt to establish its own control
there and (b) the conditions under which international law should
recognize the secessionist entity as a legitimate state, with all the
rights, immunities, privileges, and obligations this entails.




The difference between these two options can be appreciated if we
take the example of a remedial right only approach to proposals for
reforming international law regarding secession. For simplicity,
suppose that the remedial right only theory under consideration
recognizes only large-scale and persistent violations of basic human
rights as grounding the unilateral right to secede, and suppose that
group *G* has suffered such violations. On the first
view, the proposal is that international law should simply acknowledge
that *G* has the right to its own legitimate state if
forming a new state is the remedy of last resort for large-scale,
persistent violations of the basic human rights of members
of *G*, where this means that other states should recognize
the new entity as having all the rights, privileges, immunities,
powers, and obligations this status entails. On the second view, there
are two distinct questions the international law of secession should
address: First, has *G* suffered large-scale and
persistent violations of basic human rights and second,
does *G* satisfy the conditions for recognitional
legitimacy, for being recognized as a legitimate state? The second view
would maintain that although the group's having suffered
large-scale and persistent violations of basic human rights is
sufficient for acknowledging its right to repudiate the state's
jurisdiction and attempt to set up its own state, something more is
required before international law should recognize the new entity as a
legitimate state; in particular, the new state should provide credible
assurances that it will respect the rights of minorities within its
territory.




Making recognition of legitimate statehood dependent in this way
upon satisfying basic requirements of justice coheres with the remedial
right only theory's approach to secession, which involves
rewarding states that respect rights. But there is much to be said for
distinguishing, regardless of which theory of the right to secede is
adopted, between *the* *right to secede* (understood as
the right to repudiate the state's authority over a portion of
its territory and to attempt to set up a new state there) and
*the* *right to recognition as a legitimate state*. New
entities created through secession typically are keen to receive
recognition of their legitimacy because of the benefits this confers,
including access to favorable trade regimes, loans and credits from
international agencies such as the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund, and the ability to participate as an equal with other
states in the making of international law. Distinguishing between
whether a group has the right to secede (to repudiate the state's
jurisdiction and attempt to establish its own state) and whether it has
the right to recognition as a legitimate state enables the
international legal system to impose normative conditions on
recognition in circumstances in which new states have strong incentives
to satisfy them.




A fully-developed philosophical theory of what the international law
of secession ought to be would be quite ambitious and complex. It would
have to include not only an account of the connection between the right
to secede and the right to recognition, but also a theory of justified
intervention in support of or against secession that would cohere with
a more general position on the legitimate use of force across
borders.


## 5. Conclusion




Philosophical work on secession falls into three main categories:
(1) attempts to develop an account of the moral right to secede
(understood either as a claim-right or as a mere liberty), (2)
investigations of the compatibility or incompatibility of secession
with constitutionalism, and (3) attempts to determine what posture
international law should adopt concerning secession. In each of these
areas of inquiry, as well as in the connections among them, exploration
of the moral issues of secession provides a powerful lens through which
to examine some of the most important issues of moral-political theory,
including perhaps the most fundamental issue of all: what gives a state
a valid claim to its territory?