Search

How Did The End Of The Cold War Change Secession And Statehood? The end of the Cold War marked a profound change to the international system that had emerged after the end of the Second World War. The end of the bipolarity between the United...

How does recognition happen? Having gained independence, the priority for any new state is to join the international community. The first step in this process is obtaining recognition from other countries. In terms of the formal act of recognition, this can be done in a...

Can states cease to exist? Yes, although it is becoming increasingly unusual. While estimates vary considerably, it is thought that around 200 states have ceased to exist since the start of the nineteenth century. That means on average one state has disappeared a year. However,...

What makes a state? This question has attracted more and more attention in recent years with Catalan's illegal vote for independence from Spain and Palestine's ongoing search for international recognition. And while Scotland chose to remain with the United Kingdom, discussions of independence have only continued as the ramifications of the later Brexit vote begin to set in. As James Ker-Lindsay and Mikulas Fabry show in this new addition to the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, the road to statehood does not run smooth. Declaring independence is only the first step; gaining both local and global acceptance is necessary before a state can become truly independent. The prospect of losing territory is usually not welcomed by the parent state, and any such threat to an existing culture and its economy is often met with resistance–armed or otherwise. Beyond this immediate conflict, the international community often refuses to accept new states without proof of defined territory, a settled population, and effective government, which frequently translates to a democratic one with demonstrated respect for human rights. Covering the legal, political, and practical issues of secession and state creation, Ker-Lindsay and Fabry provide an essential guide to this timely topic.

When did modern states emerge? States, as we now understand them, began to emerge in Europe in the first half of the sixteenth century in a process closely tied to the rise of the Reformation in Western Christianity and the appearance of the concept of...

What is a state? While the concept of statehood has existed for hundreds of years, it is perhaps surprising to learn that the formally accepted definition of a “state” only emerged in 1933. The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States is generally...

How are new states created? The history of state creation over the past two and a half centuries shows that there are essentially six main ways in which a new state can come into existence. Two of these, original acquisition and gradual devolution, belong to...

In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has increased its engagement on the international stage. One area where it has been increasingly active is the Western Balkans. While its aid programmes were initially directed towards Albania, it has also started to invest in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. This paper focuses mainly on the last of these: UAE commercial investment in Serbia. As is shown, this activity has been focused on four key sectors: aviation, urban construction, military technology and agriculture, chosen to reflect different strategic imperatives. Whereas investments in agriculture and military technologies are part of a strategy of risk mitigation in respect of food security and military security, the investments in aviation and construction form part of a wider strategic policy of economic diversification in anticipation of the post-oil economy. Meanwhile, viewed from the Serbian perspective, these investments have not been without controversy because of their lack of transparency, allegations of corruption, and lack of public debate over plans to transform downtown Belgrade with a substantial new investment in urban regeneration. Serbia’s willingness to host strategic investment from the UAE is also surprising because of UAE support for Kosovo and claims that it has come with questionable political demands. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that UAE investments are a welcome boost to an ailing and crisis ridden economy.

De facto states have become an increasingly interesting topic for scholars and policy makers. Regarded as an anomaly in the international system, their increasing prevalence is raising serious questions about the nature of statehood and secession in the contemporary international system. But they present a number of definitional and conceptual issues. Quite apart from how they should be called, which is a debate that seems to be close to settlement, there have been debates about which territories should qualify as de facto states. More importantly, what hope do these territories have of being legalized or legitimized in the future? It seems that the strong aversion to recognizing unilateral acts of secession will remain in force. It is also worth noting that the very nature of the international system is now changing. The international system focused almost exclusively on states is disappearing rapidly. All sorts of bodies, organizations, and companies now interact on the world stage. In this sense, de facto states may well find that they find a place in their own right in an evolving and expanding international community.

Traditionally, the international community has rejected unilateral declarations of independence. As a result, de facto states—territories that have declared independence but are not members of the United Nations (UN)—have been stigmatised. However, not all secessionist de facto states are treated equally. Whereas some are wholly shunned, others enjoy a high degree of international interaction with the UN members that do not recognise them. This study explores why this is so and shows how levels of disapproval shape processes of engagement with non-recognising states. It notes that responses to cases of unilateral secession by states, and thus the stigma attached to de facto states, are shaped by three broad factors: systemic factors, contextual factors and national factors. Crucially, it is shown that the stigmatisation of individual de facto states can change over time and circumstance, and with it the degree of engagement without recognition enjoyed by that de facto state can vary.

Secessionist de facto states, by their very nature, sit outside of the international system. Having unilaterally declared independence from their parent state, they are invariably prevented from joining the United Nations, and thus taking their place as members of the community of universally recognised countries. While the reasons for such punitive approaches have a logic according to prevailing political and legal approaches to secession, it is also recognised that isolation can have harmful effects. Ostracising de facto can not only hinder efforts to resolve the dispute by reducing their willingness to engage in what they see as an asymmetrical settlement process, it can also force them into a closer relationship with a patron state. For this reason, there has been growing interest in academic and policy circles around the concept of engagement without recognition. This is a mechanism that provides for varying degrees of interaction with de facto states while maintaining the position that they are not regarded as independent sovereign actors in the international system. As is shown, while the concept has its flaws, it nevertheless opens up new opportunities for conflict management.

This article examines the United Kingdom’s approach to the question of European Union enlargement in the Western Balkans. It shows that while Britain had no traditional attachment to the region, it championed expansion as part of its long-standing aim to widen EU membership to prevent deeper political union. However, as immigration from the EU increased after the 2004 enlargement and a Eurosceptic Conservative-led government took charge in 2010, official support for enlargement began to decline. Britain ceded its place as the strongest supporter of EU expansion to Germany. Meanwhile, during the referendum campaign on EU membership, the prospect that future enlargement could further increase the number of migrants emerged as a central point of debate. Although this discussion was primarily focused on Turkey, the Western Balkans also played a part. Therefore, even had the United Kingdom decided to remain in the EU, there is an argument to be made that Britain could well have become more opposed towards future expansion. As it is, the decision to leave the EU (Brexit), has ensured that Britain has now lost its say over enlargement.

In June 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Although many issues shaped the Brexit campaign, the question of Turkey’s quest for EU membership emerged as an unexpectedly strong factor. This article examines how this happened and how the debate evolved. It shows that those who advocated leaving the EU not only distorted the prospect of Turkish membership, they also misrepresented British support for the country’s accession. While the UK had indeed been a strong advocate of Turkey’s EU integration in the past, support for enlargement in general had declined in recent years due to increasing voter concerns over immigration. However, the policy of supporting Turkish membership could not be wholly repudiated by the government, even in the name of campaigning to stay in the EU, as this would have damaged Britain’s strategic relationship with Turkey.

The role of great powers in processes of secession and recognition has attracted increasing attention from scholars in recent years. This article examines how Britain rallied international opposition to the November 1983 unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (“TRNC”). As is shown, the British Government tried hard to prevent the UDI. Once it occurred, Britain led efforts to condemn the move. This resulted in UN Security Council Resolution 541, which declared the “TRNC” to be illegal and called on states not to recognise it. As well as exploring the diplomacy behind the counter-secession efforts, the article also answers a long-standing question as to whether any countries aside from Turkey ever recognised the TRNC. It also challenges the widely-held view amongst Greek Cypriots that Britain invariably supports the Turkish Cypriots on the Cyprus Problem.

In recent years, the subject of recognition and engagement has gained greater attention amongst scholars of international relations. However, the relationship between these two concepts has been underexplored. Drawing on the case of Kosovo’s interaction with nine European Union member states, this chapter argues that the binary categorisations of recognition/engagement versus non-recognition/non-engagement need to be rethought. Instead, a far more complex and nuanced picture emerges of some states that recognise Kosovo, but have little to do with it, and others that do not recognise Kosovo, but interact with it extensively.

The United Kingdom was at the forefront of efforts to support Kosovo’s quest for independence. As well as being one of the first countries to recognize Kosovo, in 2008, it also led efforts to secure Kosovo’s acceptance on the international stage. However, while it still remains committed to an independent Kosovo, its lobbying efforts have declined in recent years. This has been due to growing frustration over the pace of recognitions, concern about political instability in Kosovo, changes to the internal environment and its focus on Brexit.

This article assesses the ways in which a British decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) would affects the United Kingdom’s relationship with the Western Balkans. In the first instance, it shows that it would almost certainly reduce its influence over Bosnia and Herzegovina and its ability to shape the process of engagement between Serbia and Kosovo. At the same time, the UK would find that it would gain no material advantage in terms of its ability to handles other regional issues that may have a direct or indirect effect on Britain, such as illegal migration and the flow of fighters from the Balkans into Syria. Meanwhile, other forms of influence, such as the United Kingdom’s major role in NATO or its permanent membership of the UN Security Council, would be diminished as a result of a ‘Brexit’.

European enlargement has often been viewed from an institutional perspective. The academic literature in the field has tended to focus primarily on how the Commission or the Council has addressed the issue of EU expansion. Relatively little attention has been paid to the role of individual member states. This article considers the way in which domestic political concerns and national politics affects the way in which EU members approach enlargement to the Western Balkans. It does this by examining studies conducted on seven countries: Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece and Cyprus. It shows that there are in fact a wide variety of factors that shape individual member state attitudes towards enlargement. These factors include economic and commercial goals, ties to the region and to individual accession states, concerns over immigration, general foreign policy priorities and national ideological approaches towards the future shape and orientation of the European Union.

There are few questions more interesting and more important for the international community than the issue of how new states are created and accepted into the wider global system through the process of recognition. While there are thousands of ethnic groups around the world, there are just 193 member states of the United Nations. And yet, for many years, the foreign policy aspects of secession and the recognition of seceding territories have received relatively little attention by scholars in the field of politics and international relations. This was largely because the subject was seen to be a marginal interest. Few territories managed to stage a credible attempt at secession. Almost none managed to gain widespread acceptance. However, over the past decade, there has been a significant growth in the attention given to secession and recognition in international relations. This has been particularly apparent since Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, in 2008, and because of heightened secessionist tensions in the former Soviet Union. To date, the question of de facto states—territories that are unrecognized or partially recognized—has been at the heart of studies into secession and recognition in the field of politics and international relations. Attention in this area has tended to focus on the nature, structure, and international interaction of unrecognized territories. However, the scope of research is now widening. As well as interest in the historical development of attitudes towards secession and recognition practices, scholars are now looking at the way in which parent states—as the territories they have broken away from are generally known—attempt to prevent de facto states from being recognized or otherwise legitimized by the international community. Meanwhile, increasing attention is also being given to the role of external parties, such as great powers, as well as to the efforts of secessionist territories themselves to find ways to encourage recognition, or at least to participate more widely in the international system. Therefore, while the community of scholars working in the field of secession and recognition is still relatively small, the subject itself is undergoing rapid growth.

It is now generally understood that climate change poses a grave threat to international security. Rising temperatures will lead to droughts in large parts of Africa, while many low-lying countries in Europe and Asia face the prospect of catastrophic flooding. This is likely to lead to massive popula- tion displacement, food shortages, resource competition and an increased risk of conflict. And for one group of countries, the effects of global warming will be nothing short of apocalyptic. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that oceans will rise between 26 and 82 centimetres by the end of this century. This means that, in the decades to come, there is a real chance that a number of island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans will be completely submerged. At present, the four countries most at risk are Kiribati, Maldives, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, with a combined population of around half a million people. The possible disappearance of these countries poses challenges to international policymakers on several levels. There are obvious and serious questions about what will happen to the populations of the countries at risk. Where will they live? What will be their status? Yet there are also pro- found, but less well understood, legal and political questions. As things stand, it is wholly unclear how the international community would handle the repercussions arising from the physical disappearance of these countries. In some instances, such uncertainty could lead to territorial tensions, and even conflict.

It has been argued that the decision of key Western states to support Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, in 2008, was driven by the fear that had this not happened there would have been a danger of renewed violence and instability. This begs the question as to whether this situation could have been averted had the United Nations taken a more active role in pacifying Kosovo following the intervention in 1999. This article argues that this was not in fact possible. For a variety of reasons, which will be explored, it was simply impossible to institute full-scale disarmament. Moreover, efforts to tackle the elements of organized resistance, which was built around former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, would have precipitated a conflict in the territory at a far earlier stage.

Although Kosovo has been recognized by most members of the European Union, there are still five states that refuse to accept its unilateral declaration of independence. Kosovo's ‘European perspective’ would therefore appear to be hampered by its contested status. However, this paper argues that while the dispute over its independence is significant, and certainly makes establishing relations with the EU more difficult than might otherwise have been the case, it is not as problematic as it may appear. For the meantime, Kosovo remains a long way away from meeting even the most basic requirements for formal EU integration. At this stage, the key task facing the EU is state building. Somewhat paradoxically, this has not required a united position on status. Even in the medium term, the question of status need not be an impediment to Kosovo's EU integration in a range of areas. Even in those instances where a formal relationship needs to be established, there are ways in which this can be managed. Indeed, this...

In an essay I wrote for Peace Review 22.1, I described a rather illuminating, if somewhat startling, conversation I had with Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland and Nobel Peace Prize ...

For 60 years, the international community has limited the right of territories to gain independence without the permission of the “parent state.” Such limits were, however, challenged when Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, in February 2008. As a result, Belgrade referred the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On 22 July 2010, it came back with its long-awaited decision. Taking a narrow view of the question, the majority argued that, in general, declarations of independence, as mere statements, do not violate international law unless stated otherwise by the Security Council. Thus, Kosovo's declaration of independence cannot be considered as being wholly “unique” – as those states that supported its statehood have claimed. On the key questions of whether Kosovo's secession is legal, or if it is even a state, they chose to avoid controversy. On these points, the international community is no clearer now than it was before the case.

This article explores the way in which the European Union (EU) attempted to forge a united position on the question of Kosovo over the course of the latter stages of the status process, which ran from late 2005 until the end of 2007. Following an overview of the development of EU foreign policy decision-making processes, the work analyses how these were applied in the case of Kosovo. It shows that while significant efforts were made to reach a united position on the question of recognition, these efforts eventually proved to be unsuccessful. The EU Member States ultimately agreed to the establishment of a law and order mission for Kosovo. To some, this was a success, but it cannot disguise the fact that procedural changes in the EU’s foreign policy decision-making do not cover up for diverging Member State interests and that the EU was unable to take charge of what was essentially a European issue.

Does process matter when it comes to mediating a solution to international conflict? The standard theory of peacemaking would offer a resounding yes to this question. It is a basic tenet of conflic...

Kosovo Liberation Army: the inside story of an insurgency, by Henry H. Perritt, Champaign, IL, University of Illinois Press, 2008, xi + 230 pp., £26.99 (hardback), ISBN 9780252033421 Contested stat...

This essay analyzes the views of the governments of Greece and Cyprus towards the question of Turkish membership in the European Union. Specifically, it shows that fundamental differences have emerged in the way in which the two perceive the benefits of Turkish engagement with the EU. For Greece, Turkish accession is seen as a transformative process. For the Greek Cypriots, the process of Turkish accession is viewed as a form of leverage. Moreover, and contrary to the prevailing view in certain quarters, there is no evidence of Greek collusion in Greek Cypriot thinking. Indeed, the ability of the Greek government to influence the Greek Cypriot leadership is rather limited.

PART I: THE ADVISORY PROCEEDINGS IN CONTEXT PART II: THE OPINION PART III: REACTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS PART IV: THE ROAD AHEAD BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

This article examines the extent to which states are able to interact at an official level with a contested or de facto state—a state that has unilaterally declared independence but is not a member of the United Nations—without being understood to have recognized it. This is an area of increasing interest and relevance to policy-makers as the number of contested states has grown in recent years. In many cases, interaction may be important for ongoing peace efforts. However, there are also instances when a state is prevented from recognizing the territory in question for specific domestic or foreign policy reasons and so has to find alternative means by which to cooperate. Drawing on several key examples, notably Kosovo and the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, but also with reference to Abkhazia, the article explores the limits of interaction across various different forms of bilateral and multilateral diplomatic activity. As is shown, albeit with some significant provisos, legal theory and historic practice suggest that diplomatic engagement does not constitute recognition if there is no underlying intent to recognize. This means that there is in fact a very high degree of latitude regarding the limits of diplomatic engagement with contested states. This is especially the case in bilateral contexts. Indeed, in some circumstances, the level of engagement can even amount to recognition in all but name.

This article examines the UN Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) following the failed attempt to reunite the island in April 2004. It reviews the post-referendum reduction in the size of the Force and analyses the prospects for further major changes to the mission in the future. Specifically, it argues that while any further significant alterations would appear unlikely in the near term, given the current positions of the main parties in the Security Council, a radical rethinking of the UNFICYP may well be possible, if not necessary, in the light of Turkey's progress towards EU membership.

This article examines the institution of the presidency in the Republic of Cyprus. Under the 1960 constitution, the president is both the head of state and the head of government and in this dual capacity wields considerable power. The position is also strengthened by the fact that the post of vice-president, the main check on presidential power, is currently in abeyance. At the same time, the president is also regarded by Greek Cypriots as the national leader, both in an historic cultural sense and in terms of handling the peace negotiations. This means that the office, which is vested with significant powers under the constitution, has also developed considerable political and moral authority. In overall terms, it is argued that the president of Cyprus exerts greater control over domestic political affairs than any other European Union (EU) leader.