Self-determination and statehood

The theory of self-determination is closely linked to the theory of statehood at the time of attempted state creation—when a self-determination-seeking entity asserts its right to form a new state. While self-determination does not 

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There is new movement in the discussion about self-determination and statehood. The contested declaration of independence by Kosovo will soon be subjected to review by the International Court of Justice. Russia s recognition of the purported independence of Abkhasia and South Ossetia has caused additional controversy. These developments may well put an end to the attempt by governments to keep in place the highly restricted doctrine of self-determination that has only been made available in the colonial context. 

For a full discussion of self-determination and statehood, see Chapter 3. 

Steve Allen, Statehood, Self-determination and the Taiwan question , 9 Asian Yearbook of International Law (2000). 

We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation, united by a common fate on our land, establishing human rights and freedoms, civic peace and accord, preserving the historically established state unity, proceeding from the universally recognized principles of equality and self-determination of peoples,. .. reviving the sovereign statehood of Russia,. .. 

Finally, it is necessary to refer briefly to cases where an entity cannot lay claim to any self-determination status, be it colonial, constitutional or remedial, but manages nevertheless to exhibit the criteria necessary for statehood (that is, territory, population and effective government). 

D. Raic, Statehood and the Law of Self-determination (The Hague Kluwer Law International, 2002). 

Despite these positive features, however, the nation-state approach associates statehood with both nationhood and self-determination. Since international order is understood as being based on states, and since not all minority groups presently possess or can feasibly obtain a state of their own, this approach explicitly acknowledges the entitlements of only certain groups and thereby violates Cl. Defining nationhood to imply a necessary connection between nations and states leads to (1)... 

In fact, even if the nation-state approach is taken as simply an account of how nations have formed historically, it is still incomplete, because it does not address those national groups that have not been completely assimilated and that make self-determination claims to this day. In my account of nationhood, I retain the three important features of the nation-state approach but disassociate statehood from nationhood, on the one hand, and from self-determination, on the other. 

Thus, we can retain the general meaning of self-determination as a group s control over its own political future but redefine the idea of self-determination as it applies to state institutions. This can be done if the basic organizational principles of multinational states and the basic principles for conflict resolution recognize, first, that self-determination does not require statehood, and, second, that all national groups deserve equal status with respect to self-determination by virtue of what they are. 

These two elements define the modified right to self-determination, which states that all national groups have an equal right to self-determination provided that the realization of self-determination does not require the acquisition of independent statehood. A claim to self-determination advanced by a substate group be first and... 

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