Secessionist Entities and International Law

Benedikt C. Harzl is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Centre of East European Law and Eurasian Studies at the University of Graz. In 2024, he was the Botstiber Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published and co-edited on legal issues in the post-Soviet space, including Unrecognized Entities (Brill | Nijhoff, 2022).

• Abbreviations1 Introductory Remarks and Structure2 Approaching Secession1 Secession: Paradigms of Legality and Legitimacy2 Political Expediency as a Weak Argument3 The Two Main Objectives of This Work4 Definitions and Approaches4.1 Defining ‘Secession’4.2 Situations beyond the Ambit of Secession4.3 Differentiation: Non-consensual Dissolution of States4.4 Expository and Evaluative Approaches4.5 A Methodology of ‘Law Plus …’4.6 ‘Law Plus …’ Applied5 Secession: A Play in Three Acts5.1 Secession and the Contentious Question of Territorial Integrity5.1.1 Undermining from Inside5.1.2 Undermining from Outside5.2 A Right to Secession in International Law?5.3 Secession, Secessionist Entities, and State-Building3 The Object of Investigation: The Secessionist Entity1 Some Preliminary Notes on the Choice of Terminology2 The Dilemma of Political Framing4 De Facto Independence and Its Repudiation5 Formal Declaration of Independence and Authentic Grievance6 The Absence of Recognition7 Consolidated Existence over Significant Time8 Disputed Facts4 The Appeal of Statehood in the Context of Secessionist Conflicts5 The Appeal of Law: Articulation of Interests in Legal Vocabulary1 International Law as a Level Playing Field and Its Principles’ Open-Endedness2 Legitimacy as Substructure of a Legal Claim: Territorial Grievance3 Scholarly and Political Coverage of the Problem3.1 Problematic Paradigms in Legal Scholarship3.2 Problematic Paradigms in ir Theory6 The Conflicts of the South Caucasus in Focus1 How these Conflicts Are Addressed by the Scholarly Community2 The South Caucasus Conflicts: A Short Biography2.1 On the Selection of Cases2.2 Abkhazia2.2.1 Selected Conflict Factors and Escalation2.2.2 Attempts at Conflict Management2.3 South Ossetia2.3.1 Selected Conflict Factors and Escalation2.3.2 Attempts at Conflict Management2.4 Nagorno-Karabakh2.4.1 Selected Conflict Factors and Escalation2.4.2 Attempts at Conflict Management7 The Self-determination vs. Territorial Integrity Paradigm1 Introductory Remarks: The Collision of Two Values2 The Deceptive Promise of Self-determination2.1 Introduction2.2 The ‘Self’ of the Secessionists2.3 Secessionist Entities Through the Prism of National Minorities2.4 The Substance of Self-determination: Imprecise Parameters2.4.1 Introductory Thoughts2.4.2 The National Minorities Avenue2.4.3 Secession as Primary or Remedial Right?2.5 The Fallacy of Remedial Secession2.5.1 The Perception of Intolerable Coexistence2.5.2 Insufficient Reflection in International Law and Arbitrariness2.6 Preliminary Conclusion: Self-determination and Secessionist Entities3 The Deceptive Promise of Territorial Integrity3.1 Introduction3.2 A Fuzzy Principle: Non-intervention in Secessionist Conflicts3.2.1 External Intervention in International Law: Procuring Secessionist Statehood3.2.2 Territorial Integrity and Secessionist Entities: Profound Limitations3.3 A Special Problem: Humanitarian Intervention3.4 A Special Problem: ‘Confined to the Relations among States’? The Fallacy of Doctrinal Purity3.5 The Special Problem of Uti Possidetis3.6 The Special Problem of Kosovo and Its Implications for the South Caucasus3.7 Preliminary Conclusion: Territorial Integrity and Secessionist Entities8 The South Caucasus Cases and the Self-determination vs. Territorial Integrity Paradigm: Selected Questions Problematized1 Introductory Thoughts2 Secession’s Fertile Soil: (In)applicable Legal Provisions and the ‘Soviet’ West Virginian Concept3 Uti Possidetis: State Boundaries Amidst Conflicting Narratives4 The Timing of Applicability of Territorial Integrity in the South Caucasus5 Disputes about Violation of Territorial Integrity: Contentious Attribution6 The Profound Accusation of ‘Puppet States’9 A Subject in Its Own Right: The Case for a European Engagement1 Introduction2 Controversial but Existing Legal Status2.1 The Futility of the Declaratory vs. Constitutive Approach of Recognition2.2 Secessionist Entities and Their Discernible Existence2.3 Going beyond the Deadlock3 Conditions of Engagement3.1 Introduction: Setting the Stage for Engagement3.2 Inaccurate Dichotomies: State-Building vs. Non-state-building Measures3.3 Outer Boundaries in Two Directions3.4 Refugees and idp s3.5 Addressing Ethnic Diversity3.6 Democratic Governance: Internal Legitimacy3.7 Continued Dialogue with the Metropolitan State3.8 The Functionalist Philosophy behind Engagement without Recognition: Moving beyond the Non Liquet Fallacy10 ConclusionBibliographyCase Law, Legislation, Other Legal ActsIndex