A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This section of the book Self-Determination of Peoples and Plural-ethnic States in Contemporary International Law: Failed States, Nation-building and the Alternative, Federal Option contains a note on the author, Edward McWhinney. The author's interest in federalism and federal institutions and processes as means of harmonizing and reconciling otherwise disparate national, ethnic-culturally-based interests goes back to the early, post-World War II years when the issue was raised by serious political leaders in Continental Western Europe of whether federalism, viewed as an ongoing constitutional movement or process, could be used to bring together sovereign entities that only a few years earlier had been locked in mortal combat with each other.Keywords: Edward McWhinney; federalism; international law