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Research seminar public international law - Assignment 1
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Research seminar public international law - Assignment 1 - Memorandum Topic: Remedial secession as right of self-determination Grade: 8
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MemorandumAssignment 1
Name…
Student number: ….
Date: 21 April 2020
Course: Research Seminar International Law (working group 3)
Lecturer: Dr A. Tsampi.
Word count: 995 (excluding front-page, footnotes and bibliography)
, Remedial secession as right of self-determination
Bangladesh’s secession from Pakistan in 1971, Eretria’s secession from Ethiopia in 1993 and
the dissolution of Yugoslavia into Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia- Herzegovina and
Macedonia are success stories of remedial secession and are often used as a basis for asserting
the legitimacy of secessionist struggles. The question that still remains is whether remedial
secession of a people in pursuit of self-determination is accepted under contemporary
international law?
Self determination
The Articles 1 and 55 of the UN Charter mention that people have the right to self-
determination, but they did not give an explanation of the term people. Until 1989, the right to
self-determination was granted only in colonial context. Resolution 1514 and especially
Resolution 2625 provides a better definition of the term people. It states that all people have
the right to self-determination, so not only in colonial context. Self-determination has been
pronounced a right, erga omnes1 and forms an integral part of human rights law which has a
universal application.2
Remedial secession
Remedial secession is a ‘right’ of peoples to separate a part of the territory from the parent
state on the basis of a breach of that people’s right to self-determination.3
The Åland Islands case was the first case about secession. In its second report, it stated that
the separation of a minority from the State of which it forms a part can only be considered as
a last resort when the State lacks either the will or the power to enact and apply just and
effective guarantees.”4
Furthermore, in the Reference re Secession of Quebec case, the Supreme Court of Canada
decided that:
“The recognized sources of international law establish that the right to self-determination of
a people is normally fulfilled through internal self-determination.5 A right to external self-
determination6 arises in only the most extreme of cases and, even then, under carefully
1
Case concerning East Timor (Portugal v. Australia) (Merits) [1995] ICJ Rep 1995, para 90.
2
‘Self-determination’ (UNPO, 21 September 2017) <https://unpo.org/article/4957> accessed 18 April 2020.
3
Miriam McKenna, ‘Remedial Secession: Emerging Right of Hollow Rhetoric?’ (Master thesis, Lund University 2010) 8.
4
Report Presented to the Council of the League of Nations by the Commission of Rapporteurs, League of Nations Doc.
B.7.21/68/106 (1921), para 28.
5
Internal self-determination is a people's pursuit of its political, economic, social and cultural development within the
framework of an existing state, as mentioned in Reference re Secession of Quebec, Supreme Court of Canada [1998] 2 SCR
217, para 126.
6
External self-determination is the establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration
with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of
implementing the right of self-determination by that people, as mentioned in UNGA Res 2625 (XXV) (24 October 1970) UN
Doc A/RES/2625 (XXV).
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