REPORT FROM A ROUNDTABLE HELD IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE’S POLICY PLANNING STAFF SELF-DETERMINATION Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and the Right to Secession Patricia Carley UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE CONTENTS Summary v Preface ix 1 Introduction 1 2 A History of the Self-Determination Concept 3 3 The Rise of Contemporary Self-Determination Movements 5 4 The Self-Determination Principle: Legal Definitions and Obligations 8 5 A Specific Case: The Crisis in Chechnya 11 6 U.S. Interests and Possible Policy Options 13 7 Conclusion 18 About the Author 19 About the Institute 20 v Recognizing the challenge to peace posed by de- mands for self-determination (and governments’ responses to them), the United States Institute of Peace, working with the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State, assembled a group of policymakers and scholars to examine the origins, growth, and strategies of such movements, and to discuss whether universal principles can be devel- SUMMARY oped to inform international, and particularly U.S., responses. This report summarizes the discussions at that meeting. Self-determination as a political force in interna- tional society is a relatively recent phenomenon, emerging in the aftermath of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires as a demand of national groups seeking to divide territory. President Woodrow Wilson was the statesman most closely identified with the self- determination principle, though ironically the term does not appear in his “Fourteen Points” speech. While he referred to minority rights within a larger state, he rarely mentioned the establish- he right to self-determination has become ment of new, independent states. one of the most complex issues for U.S. for- Self-determination became officially sanctioned Teign policymakers and the international after 1945, when it was included in the United Na- community at large. Confusion over the issue tions Charter, though it applied to existing states, stems not so much from whether there exists a not to peoples or national groups. However, self- right to self-determination, which is included in determination quickly evolved from a principle to many international human rights documents, but a right, especially after the 1960 UN Declaration from the failure of those documents to define ex- on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Peo- actly who is entitled to claim this right—a group, a ples, when the term came to denote decoloniza- people, or a nation—and what exactly the right con- tion. Still, self-determination applied to territories fers. At the same time, the international system, and not to peoples. particularly in the post–World War II era, has Since the 1970s, there has been a move to com- steadfastly defended the inviolability of existing bine the ideas of minority rights and decoloniza- nation-states’ borders, regardless of how and when tion, and the result has been a tendency on the they were determined. part of some advocates to define self-determina- In recent years, many groups that constitute mi- tion as conferring the right to independent state- norities in their states have invoked the “right to hood on every distinctive ethnic group. self-determination” in their demands for auton- Many observers of this trend share the concern omy—or, in some cases, secession—and have re- that confusion about what the principle of self- sorted to violence to pursue their aims. These determination means and what putative rights it groups typically justify their demand for self-deter- confers is helping to fuel the violence characteriz- mination as a way to end years of repression and ing contemporary independence movements. Yet human rights violations by the majority ethnic the realities of the international system provide a group or the central government. The absence of a rationale of sorts for such movements, including precise definition of what the right to self-determi- the view that internationally recognized borders nation entails has left the international commu- are “artificial, arbitrary, and accidental” and that nity, and the states concerned, without guiding they in fact legitimize the combining of different principles with which to respond. peoples arbitrarily, and often against their will, vi within the same territory. Moreover, the growth of conclusion the international community is largely these movements is not a temporary phenome- unwilling to draw. Thus the question becomes, non, but the direct result of changes in the world Can a principle be developed that stands some- wrought by the universal application of Western where in between recognized human rights stan- ideas such as democracy and human rights. Most dards and the right to self-determination? of the world’s peoples have little experience with Somewhat ironically, the very propagation of the West’s long history of sovereignty and state- the idea of human rights intensifies demands for hood and are thus not prepared to adhere to the greater recognition among minority groups that in- Western insistence on the inviolability of existing voke claims of human rights violations to support borders. Those in the West who are alarmed by the their demands. However, the idea that human growth of these nationalist movements should rights and political stability are bound to clash is consider not whether these contemporary mani- tenuous, since states held together through terror festations of nationalism are legal or appropriate, and repression are rarely stable in most senses of but rather that they are happening—and that they the word. In the end, though, it may not be possi- very likely cannot be stopped. The potential for vi- ble to compel an oppressive government to end its olence and international instability becomes even unacceptable actions toward a minority group if more obvious when one considers that some still outside countries are unwilling to intervene with very large empires, such as Russia and China, are military force. likely to be affected by these movements. U.S. policy interests in the self-determination Unfortunately, turning to international legal debate beg a preliminary question: What exactly standards on the right to self-determination does does the United States care about with regard to not resolve the problem, since the right has never self-determination movements—the outcome of been explicitly defined. In any case, it is impracti- the struggle (i.e., the shifting of boundaries and the cal to assume that legal principles alone will re- proliferation of states) or the means used to obtain solve what are essentially territorial and political it (i.e., the violence that frequently accompanies disputes. Because the right has never been defined, such struggles)? Unfortunately, American diplo- the notion of self-determination typically embraces macy often cannot decide between these two inter- several different meanings, none of which ad- ests, making a response that much more difficult dresses the central issue of how to respond to a na- to formulate. Generally, though, the United States tional or other identity group’s aspirations for con- should be less concerned about outcomes in these trol over the lives of its members. struggles than about the means used; international Without a doubt, any new definition of self- political stability is more likely to be maintained by determination must include customary human focusing on the process than by trying to manipu- rights standards (e.g., respect for individual and late events to arrange a predetermined outcome. minority rights) and the right of an appropriate The options for a minority group waging a body to enforce those standards. In their later struggle for self-determination do not have to be stages, self-determination movements typically be- viewed in the zero-sum terms of independence or come the target of human rights violations, which assimilation, despite the fact that international law should be addressed before they reach the often in- tends to reinforce this approach. The United States tractable phase of organized struggle against the could encourage the practice of granting some in- state. However, the right to self-determination termediate status short of independent statehood must be separated from the right to secession and to unrecognized peoples or other distinct eco- the establishment of independent statehood, with nomic or political entities. Parallel or multiple rep- the understanding that there are intermediate cate- resentation for substate entities that function au- gories short of statehood that can address a minor- tonomously (such as Taiwan’s participation in the ity group’s interests and aspirations, such as mem- General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) can pro- bership in various international forums or regional vide outlets for what otherwise might be secession- organizations. Human rights violations are easy to ist pressures. Legitimate secessionist aspirations condemn; the dilemma is whether they justify the could be diverted to nonterritorial demands, thus persecuted group’s secession from the state, a avoiding a strictly territorial interpretation of vii self-determination. The United States might also States should not be willing to tolerate another consider advocating a change in the current sys- state’s repression or genocide in the name of terri- tem that allows the government to conduct its af- torial integrity. Secession can be a legitimate aim of fairs only with other states and not with subunits some self-determination movements, particularly within states. However, offering subgroups some in response to gross and systematic violations of sort of recognition or representation in interna- human rights and when the entity is potentially tional forums or organizations may ultimately lead politically and economically viable. to greater demands from smaller and smaller iden- Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to the tity groups for independence and UN representa- dilemmas presented by self-determination move- tion. ments in the world today.