Michel Seymour
UK Lectures
Peoples, Self-determination and Secession
Peoples defined (+ contiguous diasporas and non
contiguous diasporas)
Some clarification and theoretical implications
Internal Self-determination : representation, selfgovernment or special status
External self-determination: primary and remedial
right only theories
Seven sorts of peoples
(based on different national self-representations)
•Ethnic : same ancestry, language, culture, history (some indigenous
peoples)
•Cultural : multiethnic, same language, culture and history, no
administrative unit (Acadian, Rom)
•Sociopolitical : possibly multiethnic, multicultural and multinational,
but same common public identity and same non sovereign administrative
unit (Nunavut, Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia)
•Civic : same mononational sovereign country (Iceland, Portugal,
Korea)
•Multisocietal : same multinational sovereign country (Great Britain,
Canada, Spain, Belgium)
•Multiterritorial : same culture equally spread on many continuous
sovereign territories, minorities on each of these territories (Mohawk in
Akwasasne and Kurds in Kurdistan)
•Diasporic : same culture equally spread on discontinuous sovereign
territories, minorities on each of these territories (old jewish diaspora
before the creation of Israel)
Minority fragments of peoples:
(i) Contiguous diasporas
Extensions of neighbouring national majorities
(often called ‘kin minorities’)
• From a different country (Russians in the Baltic
States, Palestinians in Israel)
• Within the same country (Catalans in Valencia
and Basque in Navarra)
• From a multiterritorial people (Kurds in Irak)
Minority fragments of peoples
(ii) Non contiguous diasporas
• Immigrant communities (not born in the country of
residence)
• Historical communities still identifying with a foreign
country (second generation of Pakistanese living in the
UK)
• Fragment of a diasporic peoples (New York Jews
before the creation of Israel)
Legitimacy of inclusive conceptions
• A civic conception is legitimate only if there are no minority
peoples on the territory (Korea, Iceland, Portugal : legitimate;
France : illegitimate because of Corsica) and if their other
minorities are recognized
• A sociopolitical conception is legitimate only if minority peoples
and other minorities are recognized (Quebec with its eleven
indigenous peoples, English Quebeckers, and immigrant
communities)
• A multisocietal conception is legitimate only if minority peoples
and other minorities are recognized (Canada, Spain: illegitimate?
Great Britain: legitimate)
• If peoples and other minorities are recognized, their selfexclusion is illegitimate.
Clarifications and Theoretical Implications
• The taxonomy is perhaps incomplete and not entirely accurate
• No circular definitions : national consciousness defined without
recourse to the concept of nation
• A national self-representation is not always legitimate : France
• No essentialism: allows for diversity, plural identities and change
• All peoples are societal cultures : basic institutional structure
realized in a character of culture
• All peoples have an institutional identity (language, institutions,
history) but not necessarily a governmental administrative unit
• We must distinguish the structure and character of the culture
• National consciousness: self-representation + the will to survive
• Multilingual peoples are possible but they are agregates of simple
societal cultures
Self-determination
• Internal self-determination: the right of a people
to develop its own economic, social and cultural
institutions and the right to determine its
political status inside the encompassing state
• External self-determination: the right to own a
state (for those who already have one), or
secession, violation of territorial integrity or
association with a different state, (for those who
have none)
The argument
for internal self-determination
• Political liberalism : considers all agents with an institutional
identity
• All institutional agents that respect others must also be
respected
• Peoples may be such institutional agents
• Among all the interests of peoples, those interests that
relate to the maintenance and development of their
institutions have a bearing on their very existence and thus
can be the subject of rights
• Peoples therefore have the right to secure the maintenance
and development of their institutions
• This is the right to internal self-determination.
Different interpretations
of internal self-determination
Substantial:
• Political representation of the people in the governmental
institutions of the encompassing state
• Self-government on a certain administrative unit (land,
republic, region, province, federated state, reserves)
• Special constitutional status : asymmetric federalism
Procedural:
• The right to participate in negotiation, conversation and
deliberation concerning constitutional changes
External Self-determination
• The right to keep one’s own sovereign state
• The right to revolution (if the people coincides with
the whole population of a sovereign state governed
by a tyrant)
• The right of stateless peoples to secede and violate
the territorial integrity of an existing sovereign state
• The right to association with a different country for
a people that no longer wishes to be governed by a
given state because it cannot survive on its own as a
sovereign state.
Different theories
of external self-determination
(A) (general, unilateral) Primary right theories :
• Choice theories: a majority in a given association of
persons on a given territory that wishes to secede is
entitled to do so, even if it is not subject to injustice
(Harry Beran, Christopher Wellman)
• Ascriptive theories : peoples have an intrinsic value
and for this reason have a primary right to secede,
even in the absence of injustice. (based or not on
the nationalist principle) (Joseph Raz and Avishai
Margalit)
Different theories of external
self-determination
(B) (General, unilateral) Remedial right only
theories (just cause theories)
A cultural group has the right to secede only if it
has been subjected to past injustice
a) Violation of human rights (Kurds in Irak)
b) Annexation of territory (Baltic States)
c) Systematic violation of intrastate autonomy
agreements (Kosovo) (Buchanan 2007)
Different theories of external
Self-determination
In addition to the previous three just causes, we must
add:
• The violation of the procedural right to Selfdetermination
• The violation of internal self-determination
(under at least one interpretation of that right)
This is my own theory (see my paper in Inquiry 2007)
My Differences with Buchanan
• Peoples are special (as opposed to other cultural groups) :
they are (along with persons) ultimate sources of valid
moral claims
• Peoples are bearers of collective rights
• They have a primary general right to internal selfdetermination
• They have a remedial right to external self-determination
if their right to internal self-determination is violated.
• No presumption in favour of existing states and
territorial integrity (sovereign peoples do not have a
primary right to own a state)
General Working Hypotheses
• Peoples are the primary subject of collective rights;
• There is a primary right to internal selfdetermination for all seven sorts of peoples;
• There is no primary right to external selfdetermination for any people, not even those that
already own a state;
• Contiguous and non contiguous diasporas are
fragments of peoples and are subject of a reduced
version of the right to internal self-determination,
excluding self-government, and no right to secede.
The institutionalisation
of the right to secede
Different criteria that demonstrate the feasability of a
particular set of norms governing secession:
•Compatibility with progressive elements of international law
•Acceptable in the near future by the international
community
•Not creating perverse incentives
•Morally accessible to different communities
•Able to deal with transition
•Able to make a valid claim on the territory.
(These are all Allen Buchanan’s criteria)
Self-determination in
International Law
• All peoples have the right to internal selfdetermination;
• Internal Self-determination is defined as the
right to develop its economic, social and cultural
institutions and the right to determine its
political status within the encompassing state;
• It is a primary right that only peoples have;
• No people has a primary right to secede;
Self-determination in
International Law
Remedial justifications for secession:
• Colonisation (African colonies);
• Oppression (China in Taiwan, USSR in Baltic
states);
• Violation of the internal right to self-determination
(Tibet within China, Catalonia within Spain
concerning the Statute of autonomy or Quebec
within Canada with the unilateral patriation of the
constitution and the rejection of Meech Lake
Agreement)
And the winner is: the just cause
(remedial right only) theory
• International law does not accept the primary right
to secede;
• The international community would never accept a
primary right to secede;
• A primary right to secession would create perverse
incentives: a domino effect;
• It isn an approach not morally accessible to all;
• It would imply chaos during transition;
• Endless territorial disputes.
Buchanan’s version
• Does not capture the progressive elements of
international law (peoples as special and owners of
a general primary right to internal selfdetermination);
• The international community will never accept
Buchanan’s suggestion that all cultural groups could
under certain conditions be entitled to secede;
• Perverse incentives: endless number of violations
of human rights as an incentives for the secession
of many cultural groups, if Buchanan is right.
My version of the just cause theory
• In perfect accordance with international law;
• Acceptable for multination states that want to
prevent the growing number of seceding groups;
already accepted in the 1970 Declaration on
Friendly relations among states
• Stability in multinational states;
• Political liberalism is morally accessible to all;
• Transition settled by negotiations;
• No territorial disputes : uti possidetis juris
Difficulties with Remedial Accounts?
Difficulty in establishing a supranational instance
responsible to adjudicate the moral justification
for secession of a particular group
Answer:
The UN assisted the self-determining process in
Eritrea, East Timor and Western Sahara. So the
UN could get more involved. In the meantime,
seceding peoples and and the encompassing
state could agree on creating an independent
body of international jurists and
constitutionalists