The Complex Knot between Sovereignty of States and Secession in International Law: Evidence from Around the World

Abstract

It is interesting to note that international law doesn't talk about the secession of any group from the parent state in express words. However, at the same time, it doesn't deny people's right to self-determination too. Despite all this ambiguity about secession in international law, state dissolution hasn't stopped. This secession is justified on two strands of theoretical arguments. The first one suggests that it is everyone's fundamental right to live or not to live in a particular state by forming a state of their own. The second one suggests that if a state commits atrocities on a particular community, and the victims exhaust all legal and democratic means to emancipate themselves and their community, they can resort to secession and separation from the parent state in the last resort. However, secession on such grounds is covered by norms and provisions of international law in the post-colonial world.