Secessionist Entities and International Law : The South Caucasus Disputes between Self-Determination, Territorial Integrity, and the Quest for a European Engagement Policy /

This book examines secessionist entities that arose during and after the dissolution process of the USSR and considers them as legal subjects in their own right. By employing a novel and more innovative approach, the agency of these subjects, otherwise often ignored or disregarded, is taken into acc...

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Main Author: C. Harzl, Benedikt (Author)

Format: eBook

Language: English

Published: Leiden ; Boston : Brill | Nijhoff, 2025.

Series: Human Rights and Humanitarian Law E-Books Online, Collection 2025.
Studies in Territorial and Cultural Diversity Governance ; 22.

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Call Number: PK6530

Table of Contents:
  • Abbreviations
  • 1   Introductory Remarks and Structure
  • 2   Approaching Secession
  • 1 Secession: Paradigms of Legality and Legitimacy
  • 2 Political Expediency as a Weak Argument
  • 3 The Two Main Objectives of This Work
  • 4 Definitions and Approaches
  •  4.1  Defining 'Secession'
  •  4.2  Situations beyond the Ambit of Secession
  •  4.3  Differentiation: Non-consensual Dissolution of States
  •  4.4  Expository and Evaluative Approaches
  •  4.5  A Methodology of 'Law Plus ...'
  •  4.6  'Law Plus ...' Applied
  • 5 Secession: A Play in Three Acts
  •  5.1  Secession and the Contentious Question of Territorial Integrity
  •  5.1.1 Undermining from Inside
  •  5.1.2 Undermining from Outside
  •  5.2  A  Right to Secession in International Law?
  •  5.3  Secession, Secessionist Entities, and State-Building
  • 3   The Object of Investigation: The Secessionist Entity
  • 1 Some Preliminary Notes on the Choice of Terminology
  • 2 The Dilemma of Political Framing
  • 4  De Facto Independence and Its Repudiation
  • 5 Formal Declaration of Independence and Authentic Grievance
  • 6 The Absence of Recognition
  • 7 Consolidated Existence over Significant Time
  • 8 Disputed Facts
  • 4   The Appeal of Statehood in the Context of Secessionist Conflicts
  • 5   The Appeal of Law: Articulation of Interests in Legal Vocabulary
  • 1 International Law as a Level Playing Field and Its Principles' Open-Endedness
  • 2 Legitimacy as Substructure of a Legal Claim: Territorial Grievance
  • 3 Scholarly and Political Coverage of the Problem
  •  3.1  Problematic Paradigms in Legal Scholarship
  •  3.2  Problematic Paradigms in  ir  Theory
  • 6   The Conflicts of the South Caucasus in Focus
  • 1 How these Conflicts Are Addressed by the Scholarly Community
  • 2 The South Caucasus Conflicts: A Short Biography
  •  2.1  On the Selection of Cases
  •  2.2  Abkhazia
  •  2.2.1 Selected Conflict Factors and Escalation
  •  2.2.2 Attempts at Conflict Management
  •  2.3  South Ossetia
  •  2.3.1 Selected Conflict Factors and Escalation
  •  2.3.2 Attempts at Conflict Management
  •  2.4  Nagorno-Karabakh
  •  2.4.1 Selected Conflict Factors and Escalation
  •  2.4.2 Attempts at Conflict Management
  • 7   The Self-determination vs. Territorial Integrity Paradigm
  • 1 Introductory Remarks: The Collision of Two Values
  • 2 The Deceptive Promise of Self-determination
  •  2.1  Introduction
  •  2.2  The 'Self' of the Secessionists
  •  2.3  Secessionist Entities Through the Prism of National Minorities
  •  2.4  The Substance of Self-determination: Imprecise Parameters
  •  2.4.1 Introductory Thoughts
  •  2.4.2 The National Minorities Avenue
  •  2.4.3 Secession as Primary or Remedial Right?
  •  2.5  The Fallacy of Remedial Secession
  •  2.5.1 The Perception of Intolerable Coexistence
  •  2.5.2 Insufficient Reflection in International Law and Arbitrariness
  •  2.6  Preliminary Conclusion: Self-determination and Secessionist Entities
  • 3 The Deceptive Promise of Territorial Integrity
  •  3.1  Introduction
  •  3.2  A Fuzzy Principle: Non-intervention in Secessionist Conflicts
  •  3.2.1 External Intervention in International Law: Procuring Secessionist Statehood
  •  3.2.2 Territorial Integrity and Secessionist Entities: Profound Limitations
  •  3.3  A Special Problem: Humanitarian Intervention
  •  3.4  A Special Problem: 'Confined to the Relations among States'? The Fallacy of Doctrinal Purity
  •  3.5  The Special Problem of  Uti Possidetis
  •  3.6  The Special Problem of Kosovo and Its Implications for the South Caucasus
  •  3.7  Preliminary Conclusion: Territorial Integrity and Secessionist Entities
  • 8   The South Caucasus Cases and the Self-determination vs. Territorial Integrity Paradigm: Selected Questions Problematized
  • 1 Introductory Thoughts
  • 2 Secession's Fertile Soil: (In)applicable Legal Provisions and the 'Soviet' West Virginian Concept
  • 3  Uti Possidetis : State Boundaries Amidst Conflicting Narratives
  • 4 The Timing of Applicability of Territorial Integrity in the South Caucasus
  • 5 Disputes about Violation of Territorial Integrity: Contentious Attribution
  • 6 The Profound Accusation of 'Puppet States'
  • 9   A Subject in Its Own Right: The Case for a European Engagement
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 Controversial but Existing Legal Status
  •  2.1  The Futility of the Declaratory vs. Constitutive Approach of Recognition
  •  2.2  Secessionist Entities and Their Discernible Existence
  •  2.3  Going beyond the Deadlock
  • 3 Conditions of Engagement
  •  3.1  Introduction: Setting the Stage for Engagement
  •  3.2  Inaccurate Dichotomies: State-Building vs. Non-state-building Measures
  •  3.3  Outer Boundaries in Two Directions
  •  3.4  Refugees and  idp  s
  •  3.5  Addressing Ethnic Diversity
  •  3.6  Democratic Governance: Internal Legitimacy
  •  3.7  Continued Dialogue with the Metropolitan State
  •  3.8  The Functionalist Philosophy behind Engagement without Recognition: Moving beyond the  Non Liquet Fallacy
  • 10   Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Case Law, Legislation, Other Legal Acts
  • Index.