Secession in International Law: A New Framework

Secession in International Law argues that the effective development of criteria on secession is a necessity in today’s world, because secessionist struggles can be analyzed through the legal lens only if we have specific legal rules to apply. Without legal rules, secessionist struggles are dominated by politics and sui generis approaches, which validate secessionist attempts based on geo-politics and regional states’ self-interest, as opposed to the law. By using a truly comparative approach, Milena Sterio has developed a normative international law framework on secession, which focuses on several factors to assess the legitimacy of a separatist quest.

By comparing and contrasting various situations and cases of self-determination leading toward secession in different parts of the world, including the recent cases of Scotland, Crimea, and Catalonia, this book serves as an illuminating illustration of past and attempted secessions. Sterio approaches her novel framework with the goal of reconciling the international law norm of territorial integrity with the right to external self-determination, proposing specific and useable guidelines.

This unique book will appeal not only to academic audiences, but to state actors, politicians, government members and policy makers as well.