Remedial secession

This monograph will first illuminate the restrictive nature of the doctrine of self-determination. It will then turn to relatively new concepts, such as constitutional self-determination and remedial secession. Finally, the remainder of the book will be devoted to the analysis of recent settlement practice in the area, addressing the question of whether this profusion of settlements has helped to overcome the damaging consequences of the restrictive doctrine of self-determination for the international system. 

In fact, Russia also invoked the second branch of the argument concerning remedial secession, referring to purported attacks by the Georgian military against the civilian population ... 

This argument suggests that active mistreatment or repression of a population gives rise to a right to remedial secession, although it is again doubtfiil whether the facts of the particular case supported its invocation. 

Other UN bodies have also referred to the right to remedial secession, such as the 1993 Report of the Rapporteur to the UN Sub-Commission Against the Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities on Possible Ways and Means of Facilitating the Peaceful and Constructive Solution of Problems Involving Minorities, and the General Recommendation XXI adopted in 1996 by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. ... 

Orenlichter, op. dt., p. 22 (concluding that the concept of remedial secession hinted at by the Commission of Rapporteurs continues to resonate in legal doctrine and political philosophy ). 

Arguably, Kosovo can be differentiated from East Timor because the latter represented a delayed exercise of self-determination in the decolonization paradigm, while the former constituted a case of remedial secession outside any decolonization context. Nonetheless, the role of the great powers and their influence in realizing the self-determination dream is very similar in Kosovo and in East Timor. 

Explicit in this message was that Kosovo could never be a model for any other separatist movement, and that Kosovo was not about remedial secession or external self-determination. Rather, Kosovo was simply unique—because the great powers had decided so. Kosovo illustrates the great powers rule at its best, as well as the evisceration of legal rules on self-determination in favor of political determinations and strategic factors. 

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