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FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
CALLING A STATE A STATE: SOMALILAND AND
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
INTRODUCTION
The Republic of Somaliland declared its independence in 1991,1 presenting
the international community with the question of whether to recognize it as a
state. Since then, the nations of the world have consistently answered that
question in the negative.2 Yet, the Republic of Somaliland has survived to
become a relatively stable and democratic state.3 Its endurance continually
renews the question of recognition for Somaliland. Today, that question’s
answer must be in the affirmative: Somaliland meets the objective criteria of
statehood and its separation from Somalia represents the dissolution of a state
in conformity with international norms. Moreover, the international
community’s refusal to recognize Somaliland threatens the survival of that
state, and the modicum of stability and international security it represents—a
commodity that the international community cannot afford to treat cheaply in
the Horn of Africa.
While transitional entity after transitional entity has failed to take hold in
rump Somalia,4 threats to international security have festered in its ungoverned
space. For example, pirates based in rump Somalia have so proliferated5 that,
1 Ian Fisher, An Oasis of Peace in Somalia Seeks Freedom, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 26, 1999, at A1.
2 Somaliland declared its independence nearly twenty years ago on May 18, 1991. Id. It has not been
recognized by any other state. Background Note: Somalia, U.S. DEPT. STATE (Nov. 8, 2010), http://www.state.
gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2863.htm#%201/10. In stark contrast, Eritrea was rapidly recognized by many states and
admitted into the United Nations after its declaration of independence on May 24, 1993. See infra note 198 and
accompanying text. Likewise, though not immediately recognized, Croatia and Slovenia were recognized by
other states and admitted into the United Nations just two years after declaring independence. See infra note
207 and accompanying text.
3 Since 2000, Somaliland has held a national referendum on independence and a constitution, one
parliamentary election, and two presidential elections. See infra text accompanying notes 98–107.
4 The portion of a state left after partition or secession is referred to as the rump state. See WEBSTER’S
THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1987 (3d ed. 1993) (definition listing c). In this case, rump Somalia
refers to the portion of Somalia excluding Somaliland.
5 According to the International Maritime Bureau, Somalia-based pirates were responsible for 20 attacks
in 2006, 44 attacks in 2007, 111 attacks in 2008, and 218 attacks in 2009. Int’l Mar. Bureau, Int’l Chamber of
Commerce, Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships Report, at 5–6 (Jan. 2009); Mark McDonald, For Somali
Pirates, 2009 Is a Record Year, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 30, 2009, at A9.
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
778 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
in 2002, a multinational naval task force began patrolling the Gulf of Aden.6
Despite this international effort, pirates continue to attack ships and take
hostages. In 2008, there were 111 attacks by Somali pirates.7 In 2009, pirates
based in Somalia were responsible for 218 attacks.8 One ship, the Maersk
Alabama, was attacked and hijacked in April 2009. It was freed later that
month—only to be attacked again in November 2009.9 Pirates are not the only
security threat in rump Somalia, however.
In 2006, Osama bin Laden declared his intent to make the Horn of Africa
the next front in al-Qaeda’s global jihad.10
The al-Qaeda-affiliated group al-
Shabaab now controls south and central Somalia, including most of
Mogadishu.11
On July 11, 2010, al-Shabaab launched its first transnational
terror operation: two suicide bombers killed seventy-six people in Kampala,
Uganda.12
In Somaliland, though, pirates and suspected terrorists do not find
safe haven. Instead, Somaliland’s nascent coast guard pursues pirates,13
and its
police force investigates and captures terrorists.14
This Comment argues that Somaliland is a state and that the international
community should recognize it. Part I briefly explores the background of
Somaliland’s secession from the Republic of Somalia: its colonial history, its
6 The multinational naval task force is designated “Combined Task Force 150.” Australian Officer to
Head Coalition Gulf Naval Task Force, BBC MONITORING ASIA PAC., Dec. 7, 2009, at 1, available at
ProQuest, Doc. ID 1915974771. It operates in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Gulf of
Oman. Id. Naval vessels from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, among others, participate
in Combined Task Force 150. Id.
7 Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships Report, supra note 5.
8 McDonald, supra note 5.
9 See Alan Cowell, Somalia: Second Attack on U.S. Ship, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 19, 2009, at A12.
10 Octavia Nasr, Tape: Bin Laden Tells Sunnis to Fight Shiites in Iraq, CNN (July 2, 2006, 3:10 PM),
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/02/binladen.message/index.html?iref=allsearch. (“We swear to
God that we will fight their soldiers in Somalia and we reserve our right to punish them on their lands and
every accessible place at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner.”).
11 Mohammed Ibrahim, Rival Islamists Fight for Town in Somalia, N.Y. TIMES (Jan. 2, 2010),
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/world/africa/03somalia.html; see also Bloody Fighting Grips Somali
Town of Dhuusa Marreeb, BBC NEWS (Jan. 4, 2010, 9:12 AM), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8438645.
stm.
12 Police Confirm Suicide Attackers in Uganda Bombing, ABC NEWS (July 18, 2010), http://abcnews.go.
com/International/wireStory?id=11191831.
13 Edmund Sanders, A Small, Ambitious Corner of Africa, L.A. TIMES, May 17, 2009; Tristan
McConnell, Somaliland: The Pirate Hunting Coast Guard, PULITZER CENTER (June 23, 2009), http://
pulitzercenter.org/blog/untold-stories/somaliland-pirate-hunting-coast-guard.
14 See, e.g., Andrew McGregor, Somaliland Charges al-Shabaab Extremists with Suicide Bombings, 6
TERRORISM MONITOR 7, 7–8 (2008), available at http://www.jamestown.org/uploads/media/TM_006_023_01.
pdf.
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
2010] CALLING A STATE A STATE 779
union with Somalia as the Republic of Somalia, that union’s dissolution, and
the recent history of both Somaliland and rump Somalia. Part II discusses the
legal concepts that bear on Somaliland’s independence: statehood, recognition,
secession, and uti possidetis. Finally, Part III applies these legal concepts to
Somaliland and compares Somaliland to other instances of state creation.
I. BACKGROUND
This Part describes the history of British Somaliland, the unification and
eventual dissolution of Somaliland and Somalia, and the experiences of both
Somaliland and Somalia since the union's disintegration in 1991.
A. British Somaliland
British Somaliland had its origins in the British protectorate of Aden,15
a
way station integral to the Empire’s position in India. At the end of the
nineteenth century, Britain was unwilling to cede its domination of the Gulf of
Aden by allowing another power—regional or global—to establish itself in the
Horn of Africa.16
To secure its position in Aden, in 1881, Britain entered into
treaties of protection with the Somali clans on the coast of what would become
British Somaliland, across the Red Sea from Aden.17
The frontiers of British
Somaliland were delineated by an 1888 Anglo-French treaty and by an 1894
Anglo-Italian Protocol.18
Finally, in 1897, an Anglo-Ethiopian treaty
confirmed the British role in the Horn of Africa and established British
Somaliland.19
The British administration of Somaliland was relatively light. In the words
of I.M. Lewis, “[T]he [a]dministration’s aims were extremely modest, and
restricted in fact to little more than the maintenance of effective law and
order.”20
Lewis notes that the homogenous character of the population of
British Somaliland, comprised of only three Somali clans, facilitated the
maintenance of law and order.21
15 Colonial Aden is today’s Yemen. See WILLIAM L. CLEVELAND, A HISTORY OF THE MODERN MIDDLE
EAST 454 (2000).
16 I.M. LEWIS, THE MODERN HISTORY OF SOMALILAND 40–45 (1965).
17 Id. at 45–49.
18 Id. at 45–56.
19 Id. Despite the 1897 Anglo-Ethiopian treaty, the frontier between Ethiopia and British Somaliland was
not finally established until 1934. Id. at 61.
20 Id. at 104–05.
21 Id. The three Somali clans present in British Somaliland were the Dir, the Darod, and the Isaq. Id.
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780 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
At the outset of World War II, Italy conquered Ethiopia and captured
British Somaliland.22
By 1942, Britain had liberated Ethiopia and British
Somaliland, and captured Italian Somalia.23
While Britain established military
administrations in both Italian Somalia and British Somaliland, the two
territories were administered separately until Somalia was returned to Italy in
1949.24
After British Somaliland returned to civil administration in 1948, the
gradual process of decolonization began.25
This process accelerated in 1956
after the British withdrew from contested portions of neighboring Ethiopia.26
Beginning in 1958, Somalilanders began replacing British expatriates in
Somaliland’s administrative institutions.27
In the spring of 1960, Somaliland
held elections introducing ministerial government.28
The new Somaliland
legislative council passed a resolution requesting independence on April 6,
1960.29
Sixteen days later, representatives from British Somaliland and Italian
Somalia agreed in principle that the two states should be unified upon
independence.30
Despite the indigenous plans to unify, Britain focused on
preparing British Somaliland for independence as a solitary state.31
On June
26, 1960, a British Order in Council set out the constitution of the independent
state of Somaliland.32
That constitution entered into force at Somaliland’s
independence and defined its government’s structure.33
On June 26, 1960,
British Somaliland became an independent state.34
It was recognized by thirty-
five states, including the United States and Israel.35
22 Id. at 116.
23 Id. at 116–17.
24 Id. at 117–29.
25 Id. at 129–31.
26 Id. at 152. The British withdrawal from disputed territories in Ethiopia angered Somalis in British
Somaliland and Italian Somalia, as it had the effect of placing traditional grazing lands beyond their reach. Id.
at 151. It also stoked the fires of pan-Somaliism, which sought to unify the Somalis in Djibouti, British
Somaliland, Italian Somalia, Northern Kenya, and the Ethiopian Ogaden. Id. at 152.
27 Id. at 154–55.
28 Id.
29 PAOLO CONTINI, THE SOMALI REPUBLIC: AN EXPERIMENT IN LEGAL INTEGRATION 6 (1969).
30 Id. at 7.
31 Id. at 6.
32 Id.
33 Id.
34 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 162–64.
35 Int’l Crisis Group, Somaliland: Democratisation and its Discontents, ICG Afr. Report, No. 66, at 4 n.9
(2003) [hereinafter Democratisation and its Discontents] (citing former U.S. Ambassador David Shinn).
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
2010] CALLING A STATE A STATE 781
B. The Republic of Somalia: Union and Dissolution
On July 1, 1960, five days after Somaliland became independent, Italian
Somalia also emerged from colonial domination.36
That day, the legislatures of
both states met jointly in Mogadishu to officially unite as the Republic of
Somalia.37
Each state’s legislature enacted, separately, an Act of Union.38
Somaliland’s Act of Union consciously created a new state out of two distinct
states: converting each citizen of Somaliland and each citizen of Somalia into a
citizen of the “Somali Republic.”39
Likewise, the members of Somaliland’s
legislature and the members of Somalia’s legislature were all made members
of the “National Assembly” of the Somali Republic.40
While the constitution of
the Republic of Somalia labeled Somalia a unitary state,41
separate British and
Italian colonial administrations left Northern and Southern Somalia with
distinct administrative regimes.42
The Republic of Somalia held its last presidential election in June 1967,
bringing President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke to power.43
Shermarke’s
presidency was cut short when a member of his personal guard assassinated
him on October 15, 1969.44
Following President Shermarke’s assassination, a
cadre of Somali army officers took control of the country.45
Ultimately, Siad
Barre emerged as the leader of the newly renamed Somali Democratic
Republic.46
President Barre’s rule brought huge works projects, modernization
36 Id.
37 Id.
38 The two Acts of Union were not identical. The slight discrepancies between the two documents led the
Parliament of the unitary Republic of Somalia to enact another Act of Union with retroactive effect in January
1961. Eugene Cotran, Legal Problems Arising Out of the Formation of the Somali Republic, 12 INT’L & COMP.
L.Q. 1010, 1011–14 (1963).
39 Act of Union, § 3 (1960) (Somaliland), available at http://www.somalilandlaw.com/Somaliland_Act_
of_Union.htm.
40 Id. § 6.
41 CONSTITUTION OF THE SOMALI REPUBLIC Dec. 31, 1963, pmbl., available at http://www.
somalilaw.org/Documents/Constitution1960.pdf.
42 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 169; Democratisation and its Discontents, supra note 35, at 4 (“Although
officially unified as a single nation at independence, the former Italian colony and trust territory in the south
and the former British protectorate in the north were, from an institutional standpoint, two separate countries.
Italy and Britain had left them with separate administrative, legal and education systems where affairs were
conducted according to different procedures and in different languages. Police, taxes, and the exchange rates
of their separate currencies were also different. The orientations of their educated elites were divergent, and
economic contacts between the two regions were virtually non-existent.”).
43 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 202.
44 I.M. LEWIS, UNDERSTANDING SOMALIA AND SOMALILAND 37 (2008).
45 Id. at 38.
46 Id. at 38, 47.
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
782 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
efforts, and attempts to unify the Somali administration’s two components.47
It
also brought a disastrous war with Ethiopia as Barre attempted to satisfy
Somali irredentism.48
Heavy losses, an influx of refugees, and general
discontent with Barre encouraged the formation of armed opposition groups.49
Between 1981 and 1988, several such groups emerged, forming generally
along clan lines: the Somali National Movement (“SNM”), the Somali Patriotic
Movement, the Somali Salvation Defense Front, and the United Somali
Congress (“USC”).50
Despite their clan-based origins, these armed groups
nursed national rather than parochial ambitions.51
Throughout the 1980s, the
SNM and the other militant groups challenging the Barre regime pursued low-
level insurgencies.52
These insurgent activities, particularly the SNM’s
activities, provoked reprisals generally directed at the civilian population of
Somalia.53
As his regime weakened, Barre became more insular, relying more
on his own clan and lashing out against the rest of Somalia.54
Barre’s efforts to secure his regime in 1988 contributed directly to the
ultimate collapse of Somalia.55
Through a peace settlement, Ethiopia agreed to
shutdown the SNM bases it harbored.56
Denied their safe havens, the SNM
47 Id. at 38–42.
48 Irredentism refers to one state’s attempt to annex the territory of a neighboring state inhabited by the
first state’s co-nationalists. Peter Radan, Secession: A Word in Search of a Meaning, in ON THE WAY TO
STATEHOOD: SECESSION AND GLOBALISATION 17, 22–23 (Aleksandar Pavkovic & Peter Radan eds., 2008). In
the case of the Republic of Somalia, significant populations of Somalis existed in neighboring Djibouti,
Ethiopia, and Kenya. LEWIS, supra note 16, at 182–84. In pursuit of Greater Somalia—the unification of all
the Somali people into one state—Barre prosecuted wars with Kenya in the 1960s and Ethiopia in 1977. MARK
BRADBURY, BECOMING SOMALILAND 38 (2008).
49 ANNA SIMONS, NETWORKS OF DISSOLUTION: SOMALIA UNDONE 55–56 (1995); Democratisation and
its Discontents, supra note 35, at 5–6.
50 Democratisation and its Discontents, supra note 35, at 6.
51 Michael Walls, The Emergence of a Somali State: Building Peace from Civil War in Somaliland, 108
AFR. AFF. 371, 379 (2009) (“It had never been SNM policy to establish an independent state in the north, and
many members of the leadership were against the idea . . . .”); International Crisis Group, Somaliland: Time
for African Union Leadership, ICG Afr. Report, No. 110, at 6 (2006) [hereinafter Time for A.U. Leadership]
(“The SNM did not launch its campaign with independence as its goal; on the contrary, it sought to project
itself as national in character and discussed with its Southern allies a plan to introduce a form of federalism.”).
52 Walls, supra note 51, at 377 (dating the beginning of the Somali Civil War to 1982, when the SNM
moved from London to Ethiopia).
53 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 5.
54 See id. at 5.
55 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 262 (“In retrospect, the peace accord signed by the Ethiopian and Somali
heads of state in April 1988, obliging each party to terminate support for the other’s Somali dissidents, can be
seen as the final precipitant to the vicious civil war which, with the general collapse of governmental
institutions . . . effectively destroyed Somalia . . . .”); SIMONS, supra note 49, at 75–76.
56 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 262; SIMONS, supra note 49, at 69–70.
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
2010] CALLING A STATE A STATE 783
launched an offensive in the north of Somalia.57
At the same time, Ogadeni
Somali soldiers—recruited from within Ethiopia to pursue Greater Somalia
mutinied—believing Barre’s peace with Ethiopia to be an act of betrayal.58
In
1989, two additional armed opposition groups coalesced out of the Dolbahante
clan and Bantu peasants.59
The proliferation of opposition groups was emblematic of the Barre
regime’s declining control of Somalia.60
By January 1991, Somalia’s multi-
factional civil war had destroyed the institutions of the Somali state.61
While
the SNM established control over former British Somaliland, the USC drove
Barre from Mogadishu.62
Barre’s ouster did not return order to Somalia. On the contrary, the divided
opposition groups were no more able to unite in victory than they had been
during the anti-Barre struggle.63
In fact, on January 31, 1991, while
Mohammed Farah Aideed, commander of the USC forces, chased Barre
outside of Mogadishu, Ali Mahdi, USC financier, declared himself president.64
Not only did Mahdi’s declaration violate agreements between the USC and the
SNM, it divided the USC in two.65
In May 1991, Aideed attempted to form a
national reconciliation government at a conference in Djibouti, but the SNM
boycotted the conference and it failed to produce a new government.66
While
the USC hosted the reconciliation conference known as Djibouti I, the SNM
hosted a gathering of northern tribal elders at Burao.67
The Burao inter-tribal
conference resolved that Somaliland would “revert to the sovereign status [it]
held at independence from Britain on June 26, 1960 . . . .”68
Thus, on May 18,
1991, an independent Somaliland re-emerged with the same territorial extent as
57 SIMONS, supra note 49, at 69–70.
58 Id. at 69–76; LEWIS, supra note 16, at 130.
59 SIMONS, supra note 49, at 78.
60 See id. at 78–94. As 1989 drew to a close, Barre began to be referred to as “the Mayor of Mogadishu”
because he controlled so little of the country. Id.
61 JOHN DRYSDALE, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SOMALIA 14–19 (2001).
62 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 262; Democratisation and its Discontents, supra note 35, at 6.
63 SIMONS, supra note 49, at 76–79.
64 DRYSDALE, supra note 61, at 14–15.
65 Walls, supra note 51, at 380; LEWIS, supra note 16, at 264.
66 DRYSDALE, supra note 61, at 31–32.
67 Walls, supra note 51, at 380.
68 Id.
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
784 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
its predecessor some thirty years earlier.69
Unlike in 1960, though, no other
state recognized the Somaliland that declared independence in 1991.
C. Somalia Since 1991
Since Barre’s ouster in 1991, rump Somalia has had no effective
government.70
The collapse of the Somali state has been described as
“complete” and “unique.”71
At least fourteen separate attempts at national
reconciliation have failed.72
Several of these reconciliation efforts have
produced transitional governing entities sponsored by the United Nations
(“UN”).73
While supported and recognized by the international community,
these transitional governing entities have been wholly unable to establish
control over Somalia. For instance, the Transitional Federal Government
(“TFG”) never even entered Mogadishu.74
Instead, the TFG spent seven
months in Nairobi, Kenya, where it was constituted, before decamping to
Baidoa in Somalia.75
The TFG was never able to move from Baidoa to
Mogadishu because Mogadishu—and most of rump Somalia at the time—was
69 Fisher, supra note 1; Africa: In The Horn, Peace Hopes Evaporate, IPS-INTER PRESS SERVICE, May
20, 1991 (“According to SNM radio, monitored in Nairobi, all the northern clans now want to put back the
clock to 1960 and re-erect the colonial boundaries which demarcated British Somaliland.”); Interim
Government in North Somalia Promises Free Elections, GLOBE AND MAIL (Toronto), May 20, 1991
(“Ceremonies have taken place at Burco, [N]orthwest Somalia, to proclaim a new state in the area that formed
British Somaliland before it was merged with the adjoining Italian-administered area to form the Somali
Republic in 1960.”). See also CONSTITUTION OF THE SOMALI REPUBLIC Dec. 31, 1963, art. 2.
70 Ken Menkhaus, State Collapse in Somalia: Second Thoughts, 30 REV. OF AFR. POL. ECON. 405, 407
(2003). One interesting example of the absence of effective government is that Somalia has not issued any
passports since 1991. Mohammed Adow, Somali Passports for Sale, BBC NEWS (May 12, 2004, 7:27 AM),
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3704127.stm. This has not, however, prevented their distribution: “Abdifatah
Farah Yasin not only sells the passport but also ‘authenticates’ it by putting a seal of the Somali ministry of
foreign affairs and forging the signature of the last controller of passports before the break-up of the Somali
state.” Id.; see also IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE BD. OF CAN., SOMALIA: PASSPORTS AND OTHER
DOCUMENTATION THAT COULD ASSIST WITH IDENTIFICATION (2007).
71 Menkhaus, supra note 70, at 407.
72 Steve Kibble, Address at King’s College: Somalia/Somaliland: Territory, State, Nation (Feb. 13,
2007), available at http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2007/275/0280.shtml; Somalia: Prospects for Lasting
Peace and a Unified Response to Extremism and Terrorism Before the Subcomm. On Afr. And Global Health
of the H. Comm. On For. Affairs, 111th Cong. 9 (2009) (testimony of J. Peter Pham).
73 Such efforts produced the Transitional National Government in Djibouti (“TNG”) in 2000 and the
Transitional Federal Government in Kenya in 2004. Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 2 n.4, 14 n.61.
74 Ken Menkhaus, Governance Without Government in Somalia, 31 INT’L SECURITY 74, 74 (2007).
75 See, e.g., STEPHANIE HANSON, SOMALIA’S TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT (2008), available at
http://www.cfr.org/publication/12475/somalias_transitional_government.html (“Formed in late 2004, the TFG
governed from neighboring Kenya until June 2005. Parliament did not convene on Somali soil until February
2006, when it met in a converted grain warehouse in the western city of Baidoa because security concerns kept
the legislature from entering Mogadishu.”).
FARLEY GALLEYSFINAL 4/6/2011 7:48 AM
2010] CALLING A STATE A STATE 785
ruled by the Islamic Courts Union, a loose collection of Islamists attempting to
impose Sharicah on Somalia.
76 In 2006, Ethiopia invaded Somalia to drive the
Islamic Courts Union from power and install a newly reformed TFG.77
By
2009, the head of the reformed TFG was Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the Islamic
Courts Union’s leader at the time of Ethiopia’s invasion.78
Though the new transitional government is based in Mogadishu, it does not
control the city, let alone the rest of Somalia.79
The al-Qaeda-affiliated al-
Shabaab,80
a radicalized offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, controls most of
Mogadishu as well as South and Central Somalia.81
Al-Shabaab recently called
for jihad against Kenya,82
which neighbors Somalia, and launched an offensive
that has embroiled both the TFG and the African Union (“AU”) peacekeeping
force that props up the TFG.83
In July 2010, al-Shabaab launched its first
transnational terrorist attack—two suicide bombers struck Kampala, Uganda
during the World Cup final.84
The failure of a series of transitional governments in rump Somalia over
nearly twenty years has not only driven out international aid organizations,85
but has left rump Somalia a haven for pirates. Pirates based in Somalia have
become such a threat to international shipping that the multinational Combined
76 Sharicah is “the all-embracing sacred law of the Islamic community.” CLEVELAND, supra note 15, at
29. The Islamic Courts Union determined in 2005 that Somalia’s chaos was due to a lack of adherence to
Sharicah (also anglicized as Shari’ah). See Somali Conference Calls for Adoption of Shari’ah Law, BBC
MONITORING AFR., Sept. 29, 2005.
77 Napoleon A. Bamfo, Ethopia’s Invasion of Somalia in 2006: Motives and Lessons Learned, 4 AFR. J.
POL. SCI. & INT’L REL. 55, 55–65 (2010).
78 Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected by the Transitional Federal Parliament in 2009 at a meeting in
Djibouti. Somalia: Sharif Returns to Power as Militants Advance, AFR. NEWS, Jan. 31, 2009.
79 See, e.g., Daniel Wallis, WFP Suspends Operations in Much of Southern Somalia, REUTERS, Jan. 5,
2010, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6041GS20100105?pageNumber=1 (“While there
were hopes [Sharif Sheikh Ahmed] would be able to reconcile with the insurgents, he has made little headway
and his government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu.”).
80 Huma Yusuf, Somali Militant Group Al Shabab Aligns with Al Qaeda, CHRISTIAN SCI. MONITOR (Feb.
2, 2010), http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0202/Somali-militant-group-Al-Shabab-
aligns-with-Al-Qaeda.
81 Somali Threat Sparks Uganda Alert, BBC NEWS (Oct. 26, 2009, 6:52 PM), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
africa/8326840.stm.
82 Bill Roggio, Shabaab Calls for Jihad Against Kenya, LONG WAR J. (Feb. 8, 2010), http://www.
longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/shabaab_calls_for_ji.php.
83 Somali Rebels “Pour into Mogadishu,” BBC NEWS (Feb. 10, 2010, 4:01 PM), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/8508176.stm.
84 ‘Somali Link’ as 74 World Cup Fans Die in Uganda Blasts, BBC NEWS (Jul. 12, 2010, 9:02 AM),
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10593771. Uganda contributes soldiers to the AU mission supporting the TFG. Id.
85 See, e.g., Wallis, supra note 79.
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786 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
Task Force 150 has patrolled the Gulf of Aden since 2002.86
Despite the
presence of Combined Task Force 150, attacks by pirates based in Somalia
nearly doubled from 111 in 200887
to 218 in 2009.88
The International
Maritime Bureau noted that though overall attacks have increased, successful
attacks have decreased mainly due to the employment of private security on
board vessels,89
driving up international shipping costs.90
Underscoring their
freedom of action, Somali pirates have established a stock exchange in
Haradheere that allows investors to buy shares in various Somalia-based pirate
crews.91
By September 2009, a UN report estimated that 1.55 million Somalis were
internally displaced—the report noted that measuring internal displacement in
Somalia is particularly difficult because most Somalis have been displaced at
least once in their lives.92
An October 2009 Report on Somalia described
Somalia’s refugee situation as the worst in twenty years.93
Hundreds of
thousands of Somalis live in refugee camps in neighboring Kenya and
Yemen,94
and nearly 70,000 have resettled in Somaliland.95
In the nineteen years since the state collapsed, Somalia has been in near-
constant conflict, producing “an entire generation without the slightest clue of
what a stable republic looks like.”96
86 See, e.g., Deterring Piracy at Sea, NAVY.MIL (Jan. 15, 2009, 4:40 PM), http://www.navy.mil/search/
display.asp?story_id=41854; Jeffery Gettleman, Somalia’s Pirates Flourish in a Lawless Nation, N.Y. TIMES,
Oct. 30, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/world/africa/31pirates.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all.
87 Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships Report, supra note 5, at 5–6.
88 McDonald, supra note 5.
89 See Int’l Mar. Bureau, Int’l Chamber of Commerce, Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships Report,
at 23 (Oct. 2009).
90 Raymond Gilpin, Counting the Costs of Somali Piracy 11–12 (U.S. Inst. of Peace Working Paper,
2009), available at http://www.usip.org/files/resources/1_0.pdf; John W. Miller, Piracy Spurs Threats to
Shipping Costs, WALL ST. J. (Nov. 19, 2008), http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122701864743437147.html.
91 See Mohamed Ahmed, Somali Sea Gangs Lure Investors at Pirate Lair, REUTERS, Dec. 1, 2009,
available at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B01Z920091201.
92 SOMALIA: Record Number of Displaced at 1.5 Million, IRIN (Sept. 7, 2009), http://www.irinnews.
org/report.aspx?ReportID=86034; SOMALIA: Shift Aid Base to “Safe” Areas In-country, Urges UN Official,
IRIN (Oct. 21, 2009), http://ww.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86676.
93 October 2009: Somalia, SECURITY COUNCIL REP., http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/site/c.
glKWLeMTIsG/b.5471337/k.F4E1/October_2009brSomalia.htm (last visited Nov. 21, 2010).
94 Somali Refugee Conditions “Appalling,” CNN (Sept. 4, 2009, 5:46 AM), http://edition.cnn.com/2009/
WORLD/africa/09/03/somalia.refugee.conditions/; Some 74,000 Africans Cross Gulf of Aden to Yemen in
Record-Breaking Year, UNHCR (Dec. 18, 2009), http://www.unhcr.org/print/4b2bac179.html.
95 Operation in Somalia: Fact Sheet: July 2010, U.N. High Comm’n on Refugees (July 29, 2010),
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4c566f202.html.
96 Robert Draper, Shattered Somalia, NAT’L GEOGRAPHIC, Sept. 2009, at 76.
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D. Somaliland Since 1991
Since Somaliland declared its independence in 1991, the Republic of
Somaliland has evolved from a traditional Somali tribal mode of governance to
a representative democracy.97
In 1993, a meeting of Somaliland’s clans at
Borama approved a transitional charter.98
Another conference in 1997
established a provisional constitution.99
In 2001, ninety-seven percent of the
ballots cast in a Somaliland-wide referendum approved the provisional
constitution and approved Somaliland’s independence.100
In December 2002,
Somaliland held its first local municipal elections, followed by its first
presidential election in 2003.101
Notably, the winner of the 2003 presidential
election was decided by just seventy-two votes and, while “the opposition
initially cried foul . . . after exhausting its appeals [it] accepted the result.”102
Somaliland held its first parliamentary election in 2005.103
In June 2010,
Somaliland finally held its long-delayed second presidential election.104
Judged
“free and fair” by international election observers,105
the opposition candidate,
Ahmed Mohammed Silanyo, defeated incumbent President Dahir Rayale
Kahin.106
On July 27, 2010, power was peacefully transferred between Kahin
and Silanyo—making Somaliland just the fourth state in Africa to witness a
peaceful transfer of power from a defeated incumbent president to a victorious
challenger.107
Since Somaliland’s declaration of independence, the militiamen that spent a
decade fighting the Barre regime have been demobilized or incorporated into
Somaliland’s armed forces.108
Somaliland has successfully resolved internal
97 See Democratisation and its Discontents, supra note 35 at 8–13.
98 Walls, supra note 51, at 382–84 (2009); Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 6.
99 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 6.
100 Id.
101 Democratisation and its Discontents, supra note 35, at i.
102 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 8.
103 Id.
104 Democracy Triumphs with Somaliland’s Second Peaceful Election, USAID FRONTLINES (Sept. 2010),
http://www.usaid.gov/press/frontlines/fl_sep10/p05_somaliland100911.html.
105 Somaliland Election Free and Fair: Observers, SOMALILANDPRESS (June 28, 2010), http://
somalilandpress.com/somaliland-election-free-and-fair-observers-16757; see also Somaliland Holds Credible
Presidential Election, INT’L REPUBLICAN INST. (June 27, 2010), http://www.iri.org/news-events-press-center/
news/somaliland-holds-credible-presidential-election.
106 William Wallis, Election Victor Takes Power in Somaliland, FIN. TIMES (July 27, 2010, 4:40 PM),
http://www.ft.com.
107 Id.
108 Democratisation and its Discontents, supra note 35, at 6.
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conflicts without resorting to internal armed conflict.109
In 2003, the
International Crisis Group reported that the government of Somaliland could
boast “basic civil administration across roughly eighty per cent of the
territory.”110
The UN High Commission for Refugees described Somaliland’s
central administration as
maintain[ing] functional control over the national army; the police force and courts maintain public order; customs officials collect taxes at the port; the two houses of the legislature convene and debate bills; and at least some of the ministries are making serious attempts to play a constructive role in their assigned sector.
111
The government of Somaliland also issues currency and passports.112
In stark contrast to Somalia, Somaliland’s central government proactively
confronts both transnational terrorism and piracy. In 2005, Somaliland
interdicted an al-Qaeda cell trying to establish itself in Hargeisa.113
Following
an investigation, the government of Somaliland tried members of that cell:
In December 2006, a major trial ended in Somaliland in which 15 suspects were charged (six in absentia) with conspiracy to commit terror, illegal importation of arms and explosives and the wounding of three policemen in September/October 2005. Most of the suspects were convicted and sentenced to 20 - 25 years in prison. . . .
Surprisingly, both Shaykh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Aden Hashi Farah “Ayrow,” an Afghanistan veteran and military commander of al-Shabaab, were acquitted due to a lack of evidence.
114
The government of Somaliland has also embarked on an anti-piracy campaign,
establishing a small coast guard and arresting pirates caught in its waters.115
As part of a concerted effort to garner recognition, Somaliland has
cultivated international relationships, including an agreement with Ethiopia,
109 Id.
110 Id. at 7.
111 KENNETH MENKHAUS, SOMALIA: A SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS AND TREND ASSESSMENT 25 (2003),
available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/3f7c235f4.pdf.
112 See Somalia Country Specific Information, TRAVEL.STATE.GOV (Jan. 19, 2010), http://travel.state.gov/
travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1023.html.
113 Trying to Behave Like a Proper State: Breakaway Somaliland Has Impressed the Americans by Hitting
al-Qaeda, ECONOMIST, Sept. 29, 2005, http://www.economist.com/node/4466050 [hereinafter Trying to
Behave Like a Proper State].
114 McGregor, supra note 14, at 7, 8.
115 See Sanders, supra note 13.
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granting Ethiopia overland access to Somaliland’s port of Berbera.116
That
agreement also formalized trade relations between Somaliland and Ethiopia,
and included an agreement to establish customs offices along Somaliland’s
border with Ethiopia.117
Somaliland has opened liaison offices in Ethiopia,
Djibouti, the United States, and the United Kingdom.118
It has hosted
delegations from states like Pakistan, and from international organizations like
the World Bank and the African Union.119
In 2005, Somaliland submitted its
application for membership to the AU.120
Though the AU has yet to act on
Somaliland’s application for membership, a 2005 AU fact-finding mission
reported favorably on Somaliland, recommending that the AU “find a special
method for dealing with” Somaliland and urging that recognizing Somaliland’s
independence “not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a [P]andora’s box.’”121
Yet, the AU has not found a special method for dealing with Somaliland,
and no other state or non-governmental organization has recognized its
independence. To understand whether Somaliland should be recognized as an
independent state, the legal issues that concern secession must be examined.
II. LEGAL ISSUES GOVERNING SECESSION
Secession, when successful, results in the emergence of a new state
recognized by the international community.122
The legal issues implicated by
the creation of a state through its separation from a preexisting state are
statehood, recognition, secession, and uti possidetis.
116 Trying to Behave Like a Proper State, supra note 113.
117 Dilemma of the Horn: The West Pushes for Somaliland Recognition, 34 DEF. & FOREIGN AFF.
STRATEGIC POL’Y 7 (2006).
118 See, e.g., Hassan Ali, Ethiopia Appoints New Representative to Somaliland, Upgrades Its Office,
SOMALILANDPRESS (Oct. 30, 2009, 6:25 AM), http://somalilandpress.com/ethiopia-appoints-new-
representative-to-somaliland-upgrades-the-office-9356; The Contacts and Addresses of the Somaliland
Representative Offices Around the World, SOMALILAND OFFICIAL WEBSITE, http://www.somalilandgov.com/
contacts.htm (last visited Nov. 20, 2010).
119 See, e.g., Hassan Ali, Pakistani Delegation Arrives in Somaliland, SOMALILANDPRESS (Nov. 8, 2009),
http://somalilandpress.com/pakistani-delegation-arrive-somaliland-9531; Isahaq Hashi & Abdiqani Baynah,
Somaliland: International Donors Tour Hargeisa’s Main Water Storage, SOMALILANDPRESS (Oct. 12, 2010),
http://somalilandpress.com/somalilandinternational-donors-tour-hargeisa%E2%80%99s-main-water-storage-
18680.
120 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 2.
121 AFRICAN UNION, AU FACT-FINDING MISSION TO SOMALILAND 4 (2005) (emphasis omitted); see also
Iqbal Jhazbhay, Somaliland has Strong Case for Recognition, SUNDAY INDEP. (S. Afr.), Apr. 2, 2006; Time for
A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 2 (“[The AU fact-finding mission] reported favourably in 2005, on both the
situation in Somaliland and the territory’s sovereign status.”).
122 DAVID J. BEDERMAN, INTERNATIONAL LAW FRAMEWORKS 60–62 (2d ed. 2006).
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A. Statehood
Statehood is a notoriously vexing concept in international law.123
Though
states have been the fundamental unit of the international system for nearly
four hundred years,124
there remains no generally accepted definition of
statehood.125
The classical criteria of statehood, enumerated in the Montevideo
Convention on the Rights and Duties of States of 1933 (“Montevideo
Convention”), declare that “[t]he State as a person of international law should
possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined
territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with other
States.”126
The so-called Badinter Commission echoed the Montevideo criteria
in its opinions concerning the dissolution of Yugoslavia: “[A] State [is] a
community which consists of a territory and a population subject to an
organized political authority [and] is characterized by sovereignty.”127
However, the Montevideo Convention criteria are not exclusive. In
practice, whether an entity is effective is central to the question of statehood.128
The effectiveness of an entity turns on whether the entity is in fact independent
123 See, e.g., JAMES CRAWFORD, THE CREATION OF STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 31 n.1 (1979);
THOMAS D. GRANT, THE RECOGNITION OF STATES 83–84 (1999).
124 The modern international system is usually described as being born with the Peace of Westphalia of
1648. See, e.g., DOUGLAS HOWARD & LUISE WHITE, THE STATE OF SOVEREIGNTY: TERRITORIES, LAWS,
POPULATIONS 3 (2008). That treaty both ended the Thirty Years War and ushered in the European state
system. See id.; see also THOMAS H. GREER & GAVIN LEWIS, A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WESTERN WORLD 398
(2005).
125 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 31.
126 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, art. 1, Dec. 26, 1933, 165 L.N.T.S. 21031
[hereinafter Montevideo Convention].
127 Conference on Yugoslavia, Arbitration Commission, Opinion No. 1, 92 I.L.R. 162, 165 (1991)
[hereinafter Badinter Opinion 1]. See generally Alain Pellet, The Opinions of the Badinter Arbitration
Committee: A Second Breath for the Self-Determination of Peoples, 3 EUR. J. INT’L L. 178 (1992).
128 Gerhard Erasmus, Criteria for Determining Statehood: John Dugard’s Recognition and the United
Nations, 4 S. AFR. J. HUM. RTS. 207, 215 (1988). In fact, Crawford considers the capacity to enter into
international relations to be a conflation of the governance and independence criteria. CRAWFORD, supra note
123, at 47–48. Crawford likewise considers effectiveness to embrace both governance and territory—that is,
that a state has territory by exerting government control over it, thereby being effective. Id. at 42. Finally,
Crawford writes:
It is clear that “government” and “independence” are closely related criteria—in fact they may be
regarded as different aspects of the requirement of effective separate control . . . . [G]overnment
is treated as the exercise of authority with respect to persons and property within the territory
claimed; whereas independence is treated as the exercise . . . [of] authority with respect to other
international persons.
Id. at 42 n.54.
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and whether its government exerts control over its territory.129
Entities that
have not been in fact independent or entities that do not exercise effective
control over the territory that purportedly constitutes the state have been denied
statehood. For example, the League of Nations refused to recognize
Manchukuo, the entity that the Empire of Japan established in Manchuria after
Japan’s 1931 invasion, because it was a puppet of Japan and not formed
through “a genuine and spontaneous independence movement.”130
On the other hand, failure to satisfy the Montevideo Convention criteria
does not conclusively prevent an entity from achieving statehood. The process
of decolonization in Africa resulted in the emergence of several entities
recognized as states despite their failure to satisfy one or more of the
Montevideo criteria.131
The former Belgian colony, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, provides the best example of a state emerging from colonial
dominion that substantially failed to meet one or more of the Montevideo
criteria.132
For example, at independence, the Congo did not possess an
effective government.133
Instead, the UN and the state’s former colonial power
propped up the new state.134
Despite its inability to govern itself and thus its
failure to satisfy one of the four Montevideo criteria of statehood, the Congo’s
“application for United Nations membership was approved without dissent.”135
Thus, while the statehood criteria, especially the governance and
independence criteria, suggest that effectiveness is the primary determinant of
statehood, effectiveness is not conclusively determinative.136
It is possible that
an ineffective putative state will receive international recognition.137
Moreover,
even effectiveness operates only as a predicate for the creation of a new state.
A putative state must additionally conform to existing international norms of
state creation.138
In the case of a state created by its separation from a prior
existing state, this means that the putative state’s separation must conform to
129 Georges Abi-Saab, Conclusions, in SECESSION: INTERNATIONAL LAW PERSPECTIVES 475 (Marcelo G.
Kohen ed., 2006) (“[For an effective state to exist,] the population and territory must be well-defined and ruled
(or controlled) by a sovereign government that depends on no other.”).
130 Report of Lytton Commission of Enquiry, League of Nations Doc. C.663M.320 1932 VII, at 97 (1932).
131 See, e.g., CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 42–44.
132 See id. at 42–44.
133 Id.
134 Id. at 44.
135 Id. at 43.
136 Id. at 43–44.
137 See id. at 43.
138 See id. at 42.
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state practice regarding secession or dissolution, including the principle of uti
possidetis.
B. Recognition
Much of the literature dedicated to the question of statehood focuses on the
legal effect of recognition.139
Traditionally, there are two schools of thought
regarding the legal impact of recognition on a putative state.140
The
constitutive school holds that recognition is a fundamental criterion of
statehood—that an entity only becomes a state once it has been recognized.141
The declaratory school, on the other hand, holds that recognition has no legal
effect; recognition merely announces what is already fact—that the entity in
question is a state.142
However, there is another view—one that regards the traditional
constitutive-declaratory dichotomy as overly simplistic.143
The question from
this perspective is not when a state is a state, but rather to whom is a state a
state. That is, a state may be a state internally but not externally:
Though political communities . . . can without recognition continue to operate as states within the four walls of their domestic (territorial) enclave, they cannot enter into relations with any other state unless that other state expressly, or by putting up with such relations, impliedly recognize[s] that political community as a subject of international law.
144
A state may also be a state vis-à-vis one state but not the international
community generally, as is the case with the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus.145
In some sense, this view treads a middle ground between the
constitutive-declaratory dichotomy.
Regardless of whether a state is a state with international personality absent
recognition, unrecognized states suffer a disability in the modern international
system:
139 See, e.g., JOHN DUGARD, RECOGNITION AND THE UNITED NATIONS (1987); GRANT, supra note 123; H.
LAUTERPACHT, RECOGNITION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW (1948).
140 See LAUTERPACHT, supra note 139, at 38–42.
141 Id. at 38–41.
142 Id. at 41–42.
143 See Johan D. van der Vyver, Statehood in International Law, 5 EMORY INT’L L. REV. 9, 10 (1991).
144 Id. at 99.
145 Id.
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[R]ecognition is more than a mere formality in the contemporary international system. Its denial places real constraints on the capacity to function as a modern state, both domestically and internationally. The government has no access to international financial institutions or direct bilateral assistance; trade . . . is handicapped by the lack of recognised regulatory controls; foreign investors—among them banks and insurance companies—are reluctant to invest in a territory that is still legally part of a failed State and a designated war zone.
146
It is little wonder, then, that “virtually every community lacking recognition”
between 1415 CE and 1987 CE lost its independence.147
Moreover, recognition
is particularly important to secessionist entities.148
Recognition has been the
primary pursuit of states newly created through secession.149
Failure to gain
widespread recognition has consigned many secessionist entities—including
both Katanga and Biafra—to failure.150
More than sixty years ago, Lauterpacht argued that recognition is of such
import to states and the international system that there is a legal duty
incumbent upon existing states to recognize qualifying entities:151
[E]xisting States are under the duty to grant recognition. In the absence of an international organ competent to ascertain and authoritatively to declare the presence of the requirements of full international personality, States already established fulfil that function in their capacity as organs of international law. In thus acting they administer the law of nations. This legal rule signifies that in granting or withholding recognition States do not claim and are not entitled to serve exclusively the interests of their national policy and convenience regardless of the principles of international law in the matter.
152
Despite the impact that recognition or non-recognition has on a state,
Lauterpacht’s view has not taken hold and recognition remains a political act at
the discretion of existing states: “Third-party states normally do not pronounce
146 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 12.
147 GRANT, supra note 123, at 27 (quoting David Strang, Anomaly and Commonplace in European
Political Expansion: Realist and Institutional Accounts, 45 INT’L ORG. 143, 154–58 (1991)).
148 Radan, supra note 48, at 20; CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 252.
149 Radan, supra note 48, at 20.
150 Id.
151 LAUTERPACHT, supra note 139, at 6.
152 Id.
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on the issue [of recognition] until they perceive it in their national interest to
do so, and then their pronouncements are colored by that interest.”153
Nauru recently exemplified the political nature of state recognition. Nauru
is a small, impoverished, island state in the Pacific Ocean.154
On December 15,
2009, Nauru became the fourth state to recognize the independence of
Abkhazia, a breakaway province of the Republic of Georgia.155
Nauru, which
had its national airline’s only Boeing 737 repossessed in 2005,156
received $50
million in aid from Russia in exchange for recognizing Abkhazia.157
Nauru is
an extreme example, but it should not be surprising that states decide to extend
recognition to new states based on considerations of their own interests. The
Cold War is rife with examples of states being recognized by the NATO bloc
only to be denied recognition by the Warsaw Pact countries, or vice versa.158
Even today, the mostly East-West divide over whether to recognize Kosovo as
an independent state is mirrored in the conflict over recognition for
Abkhazia—a principled approach to recognition would likely dictate the same
treatment for both territories.159
More recently, some scholars have argued that existing states have a duty
of non-recognition.160
The duty of non-recognition obliges existing states not
to extend recognition to putative states whose creation violated a peremptory
norm of international law.161
Under this regime, recognition of a would-be
state created in violation of the prohibition on aggression, the prohibition on
the acquisition of territory by means of force, the prohibition of systematic
racial discrimination or suppression of human rights, or the prohibition of the
153 Erasmus, supra note 128, at 216–17; Alfred P. Rubin, Secession and Self-Determination: A Legal,
Moral, and Political Analysis, 36 STAN. J. INT’L L. 253, 261 (2000).
154 Ellen Barry, Nauru, a Pacific Island Nation, Establishes Relations with Faraway Abkhazia, N.Y.
TIMES, Dec. 16, 2009, at A8.
155 Id.
156 Cameron Stewart, Nauru Begs US for Plane, AUSTRALIAN, Dec. 20, 2005.
157 Barry, supra note 154.
158 For example, the United States recognized Taiwan as a state until 1979. Gerrit van der Wees, Taiwan
Is as Much a Nation-State as the US, TAIPEI TIMES (June 18, 2007), http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/
editorials/archives/2007/06/18/2003365794/2.
159 Kosovo has already been recognized by sixty-five states, including the United States. See Nicholas
Kulish & C.J. Chivers, U.S. and Much of Europe Recognize Kosovo, Which Also Draws Expected Rejection,
N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 19, 2008, at A10.
160 See, e.g., JOHN DUGARD, INTERNATIONAL LAW: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE 99–100 (Lucienne
Walters ed., 3d ed. 2005).
161 Id.
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denial of self-determination would be illicit,162
violating the duty of non-
recognition.163
Like the duty of recognition, the duty of non-recognition has
been criticized for treading on what has traditionally been a state’s political
prerogative—it is not yet widely accepted.164
C. Secession
Secession is the “creation of a State by the use or threat of force and
without the consent of the former sovereign.”165
Secession is characterized by
the “separation of part of the territory and population of an existing State.”166
In general, secession results in the creation of one or more new states and the
continued existence of the parent state from which those states seceded.167
Dissolution, like secession, is a non-consensual separation of territory and
population giving rise to new states.168
However, unlike secession generally,
dissolution is characterized by the extinction of the parent state and its
replacement by two or more newly created states.169
Dissolution is also marked
162 Dugard uses Katanga and Rhodesia as examples of states created in violation of the right to self-
determination. Id. at 101. Katanga’s establishment violated the right to self-determination because the “right of
self-determination is to be exercised within existing borders and that the United Nations will oppose the claim
to statehood of an entity that comes into existence in violation of this principle.” DUGARD, supra note 139, at
89–90. Rhodesia offended the principle of self-determination because its regime systematically denied
segments of its population the right to participation in its government. Id. at 97.
163 DUGARD, supra note 160, at 100–01.
164 LAUTERPACHT, supra note 139, at 434.
165 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 247. Radan defines secession as “the creation of a new state upon
territory previously forming part of, or being a colonial entity of, an existing state.” Radan, supra note 48, at
18. The original state from or on which the new state is created is referred to as the parent or metropolitan
state. Cf. id. (referring to the originating state as the “host state”).
166 Marcelo G. Kohen, Introduction, in SECESSION: INTERNATIONAL LAW PERSPECTIVES 3 (Marcelo G.
Kohen ed., 2006). Many scholars distinguish secession, the non-consensual creation of a new state, with
devolution, the creation of a new state with metropolitan consent. See id.; CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 215,
247 (“The crucial distinguishing feature is the presence or absence of metropolitan consent.”). Some scholars
also enlarge the concept of secession to include both consensual and non-consensual separation of territory.
See, e.g., Johan D. van der Vyver, The Right to Self-Determination and Its Enforcement, 10 ILSA J. INT’L &
COMP. L. 421, 429 (2004). But see LEE C. BUCHHEIT, SECESSION: THE LEGITIMACY OF SELF-DETERMINATION
97–99 (1978).
167 Kohen, supra note 166, at 3.
168 See id. Contra John Dugard, A Legal Basis for Secession: Relevant Principles and Rules, in SECESSION
AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 89, 89 (2003) (defining “[s]ecession as the unilateral withdrawal of part of an
existing State from that State without the consent of the government of that State. Secession by agreement is
better described as dissolution of a State”).
169 KOHEN, supra note 129, at 3. For this reason, secession and dissolution are sometimes treated as
distinct concepts. However, because both involve the non-consensual separation of territory and population
from a prior existing state, resulting in the creation of one or more new states, the better view is to treat
dissolution as a subset of secession.
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by the breaking apart of a composite state along the boundaries of its
constituent units.170
Groups claiming a right to self-determination have frequently pursued
secession, but self-determination and secession are not necessarily
coextensive.171
Even a group that does not qualify as a people, and is therefore
not vested with the right to self-determination, may pursue secession.172
When
a putative secession does not implicate self-determination, however, the critical
criterion of statehood is the “maintenance of a stable and effective
government” to the exclusion of the metropolitan state.173
The secessionist
entity’s independence must also either not be disputed, or it must be
“manifestly indisputable.”174
As a threshold matter then, secessionist entities
must be, in fact, independent and effective.
The international system is a state-centric system.175
As such, it is
“understandable that a community composed of States and a legal system that
purports only to regulate the rights and duties of States would react adversely
to any threat to the present State-centered order.”176
Secession, because it
results in the “dismemberment of a previously unified, independent State,”177
necessarily threatens the state-centered order. It is for this reason that
secessionist entities are usually described as illegitimate when they attempt to
secede.178
However, secession is not prohibited under international law.179
170 Rodoljub Etinski, Has the SFR of Yugoslavia Ceased to Exist as a Subject of International Law?, in
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CHANGED YUGOSLAVIA 32–34 (Ranko Petkovic ed., 1995).
171 See, e.g., van der Vyver, supra note 166, at 427 (“The right to self-determination vests in a people,
while a new State created through secession is essentially territorially defined.”). Often, secession is discussed
in terms of a “right to secession.” Normally, the right to secession vests in a people denied self-determination.
From this conception springs the notion of remedial secession. See generally SECESSION AND SELF-
DETERMINATION (Stephen Macedo & Allen Buchanan eds., 2003).
172 van der Vyver, supra note 166, at 427, 429. Bosnia-Herzegovina provides a good example of secession
occurring outside the context of self-determination. Unlike Croatia or Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a
multiethnic state; its secession from Yugoslavia did not result in the creation of a national-state, and was not in
pursuit of national self-determination. See PETER RADAN, THE BREAK-UP OF YUGOSLAVIA AND
INTERNATIONAL LAW 187 (2002) (explaining that Bosnia-Herzegovina’s successful plebiscite on
independence required majority support of two of its ethnic constituencies).
173 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 266; RADAN, supra note 172, at 210 (“What is crucial ‘is the notion of
control . . . which concerns the de facto authority exercised by the government over the people.’” (quoting
M.C.R. Craven, The European Community Arbitration Commission on Yugoslavia, 66 BRIT. Y.B. INT’L L. 333,
367 (1995)).
174 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 266.
175 BUCHHEIT, supra note 166, at 13.
176 Id.
177 Id.
178 See id. at 13–14.
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While Lauterpacht wrote that “[s]uccessful secession from the parent State is a
fact not contrary to international law,”180
other scholars have gone further,
arguing that “[s]ecession is . . . sanctioned by international law—not under the
rubric of a right to self-determination but as a permissible political strategy in
its own right.”181
In the eighteenth century, a secessionist entity was regarded as valid only
when the metropolitan state extended recognition to that secessionist entity—
under this regime, extending recognition to a seceding territory before its
parent state recognized it as a state would be illegal or at least premature.182
From the nineteenth century though, secession was successful not when or if
the metropolitan state recognized the secessionist entity, but merely when the
metropolitan state gave up the struggle to retain the territory:
[W]hen a sovereign State, from exhaustion or any other cause, has virtually and substantially abandoned the struggle for supremacy it has no right to complain if a foreign State treat[s] the independence of its former subjects as de facto established; nor can it prolong its sovereignty by a mere paper assertion of right.
183
Recently, secession generally has been described as valid in only two
scenarios—consensual separation of territory (devolution) and the redrawing
of national boundaries through a peace treaty following an armed conflict.184
Restricting secession’s validity to secession through a peace treaty effectively
restricts legitimate secession to instances of metropolitan accession, as was the
case in the eighteenth century.185
Dissolution, however, requires no such
metropolitan accession. The nature of dissolution is such that, unlike secession,
179 Dugard, supra note 168, at 91 (“While international law does not, as Stated by U Thant, prohibit
secession, it does recognize rules which put a brake on secession.”); see Christian Tomuschat, Secession and
Self-Determination, in SECESSION: INTERNATIONAL LAW PERSPECTIVES, supra note 129, at 23–25; Jorri
Duursma, Preventing and Solving Wars of Secession, in STATE, SOVEREIGNTY, AND INTERNATIONAL
GOVERNANCE 352 (Gerard Kreijen ed., 2002).
180 LAUTERPACHT, supra note 139, at 6.
181 van der Vyver, supra note 166.
182 Mikulas Fabry, Secession and State Recognition in International Relations and Law, in ON THE WAY
TO STATEHOOD: SECESSION AND GLOBALISATION, supra note 48, at 51, 54.
183 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 256 (citation omitted).
184 van der Vyver, supra note 166, at 429–30.
185 Mikulas Fabry, Secession and State Recognition in International Relations and Law, in ON THE WAY
TO STATEHOOD: SECESSION AND GLOBALISATION, supra note 48, at 51, 54 (“According to [the eighteenth
century] norm, the dominion of a legitimate monarchy was in principle inalienable. The only valid change of
title to sovereignty or territory was through freely given consent of the affected monarch.”); CRAWFORD, supra
note 123, at 11.
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the former metropolitan state ceases to exist. Its extinction means that a parent
does not continue to accede to its components’ newfound statehood.186
During the Biafran War, UN Secretary-General U Thant claimed that “the
United Nations attitude is unequivocable [sic] . . . . [T]he United Nations has
never accepted and does not accept . . . the principle of secession of a part of
its Member State.”187
His declaration better reflects the general reluctance of
states to admit secession in the abstract than it reflects actual state practice.188
In fact, since U Thant made that statement, at least forty states created through
secession have become member states of the UN.189
These forty examples of
secession provide a general survey of secession scenarios. They also provide a
good guide to state practice regarding—and therefore the norms governing—
secession. The experiences of Eritrea, Yugoslavia, and the United Arab
Republic are particularly instructive. Whereas Eritrea represents a
straightforward secession, both Yugoslavia and the United Arab Republic
underwent dissolution.190
1. Eritrea’s Secession
In the case of Eritrea, an armed movement prosecuted a thirty-year war of
secession against Ethiopia, its metropolitan state. Eritrea was an Italian colony
until the British occupied it during World War II.191
Following World War II,
instead of gaining independence through decolonization,192
Eritrea became
federated with Ethiopia by the United Nations.193
Ethiopia abrogated this UN-
imposed federal arrangement by annexing Eritrea in 1962, extinguishing
186 Radan, supra note 48, at 26.
187 Dugard, supra note 168, at 90 (citation omitted).
188 See Kohen, supra note 166, at 3 (pointing out that states go so far as to refer euphemistically to the
“separation of part of the state” in the 1978 Vienna Convention on State Succession); see also Dugard, supra
note 168, at 91 (describing Thant’s statement on secession as “a gross exaggeration”).
189 Dugard, supra note 168, at 91; Kohen, supra note 166, at 2. Since the end of the Cold War, the
constituent states of Yugoslavia and Eritrea have all successfully seceded and subsequently joined the UN. See
Press Release, Department of Public Information, United Nations Member States, U.N. Press Release
ORG/1469 (July 3, 2006).
190 See, e.g., Badinter Opinion 1, supra note 127, at 166 (determining that “the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia is in the process of dissolution”); Rep. of the Int’l Law Comm’n, 27th Sess, May 2–July 2,
1972, U.N. Doc. A/8710/Rev.1 (1972), reprinted in 2 Y.B. INT’L L. COMM’N 220, 286–93 (1972); Kohen,
supra note 166, at 2.
191 RUTH IYOB, THE ERITREAN STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE: DOMINATION, RESISTANCE, NATIONALISM
1941–1993 61–63 (1995).
192 Id.
193 Id.
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Eritrea’s autonomy.194
Ethiopia’s annexation sparked the armed Eritrean
secessionist movement.195
Ultimately, Eritrea’s secession from Ethiopia was facilitated both by the
success of its armed struggle and by a revolution within Ethiopia.196
Rather
than continuing the struggle to retain Eritrea, Ethiopia’s revolutionary
government endorsed Eritrean independence.197
Eritrea emerged as an
independent state within its former colonial borders on May 24, 1993,
following a plebiscite conducted with the support of Ethiopia,198
and monitored
by observers from both the UN and the Organization for African Unity
(“OAU”).199
Eritrea was then rapidly recognized by governments around the
world and admitted to the UN.200
Eritrea’s secession was thus legitimated
when its parent state gave up the struggle to retain Eritrea and acceded to its
independence.
2. Yugoslavia’s Dissolution
In the case of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(“SFRY”) began the process of dissolution when two of its constituent
republics, Slovenia and Croatia, declared independence in 1991.201
By the end
of 1991, three of the SFRY’s republics had held referendums approving
independence and one had adopted a “sovereignty resolution.”202
The Badinter
Commission emphasized the collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal apparatus in
determining that “the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is in the
process of dissolution.”203
Specifically, the Badinter Commission noted “that
194 Id. at 94–97.
195 Id. at 104–05.
196 See TEKESTE NEGASH, ERITREA AND ETHIOPIA: THE FEDERAL EXPERIENCE 166–68 (1997).
197 Id. at 168; IYOB, supra note 191, at 138–39.
198 IYOB, supra note 191, at 143. Ethiopia had actually recognized Eritrea as an independent state on May
3, 1993, before Eritrea officially declared its independence. Ethiopia Accepts Eritrea Vote, N.Y. TIMES, May
4, 1993, at A3.
199 IYOB, supra note 191, at 137.
200 For example, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Denmark recognized Eritrea on May 4, 1993. Eritrea is
Recognized by Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Denmark; Applies to Join OAU, BBC SUMMARY OF WORLD
BROADCASTS, May 6, 1993, at 4(B). Israel recognized Eritrea on May 6, 1993. Israel Recognised Officially the
Independence of Eritrea on 6th May, BBC SUMMARY WORLD BROADCASTS, May 8, 1993, at 4(B). The United
Kingdom recognized Eritrea on May 19, 1993. Eritrea Recognized, GUARDIAN (London), May 19, 1993, at 8.
The United Nations admitted Eritrea as a member state on May 28, 1993. U.N. Welcomes Monaco, Eritrea,
L.A. TIMES, May 29, 1993, at A12.
201 Badinter Opinion 1, supra note 127.
202 Id.
203 Id. at 166.
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in the case of a federal-type State . . . the existence of the State implies that the
federal organs represent the components of the Federation and wield effective
power.”204
Putting aside the type of government structure used in Yugoslavia,
it becomes clear that the state’s existence is tied to its ability to “wield
effective power.”205
Therefore, when the SFRY’s constituent units began to
exercise authority over their declared territory to the exclusion of Yugoslavia’s
central government, the state of Yugoslavia began to dissolve. With dissolution
came the emergence of Yugoslavia’s constituent units as independent states.
Importantly, statehood for the component states of Yugoslavia was not
dependent on recognition by the state claiming to be Yugoslavia’s successor.206
The non-Serbian constituent units of Yugoslavia were widely recognized as
states and were even admitted to the UN well before they were recognized by
Serbia.207
For example, Croatia was admitted to the UN on May 22, 1992,208
but it was not recognized by Serbia until 1996.209
Instead of metropolitan—or
purportedly metropolitan—accession, the validity of the secessions of
Yugoslavia’s constituent units turned on their independence, effectiveness, and
satisfaction of the objective criteria of statehood.
3. The United Arab Republic’s Dissolution
The United Arab Republic provides another example of dissolution. In
1958, the “total union of Egypt and Syria into a single state” resulted in the
creation of the United Arab Republic (“UAR”).210
The unification of Egypt
204 Id. at 165 (emphasis added).
205 Craven highlights that the dissolution question turns not on representativeness of government but on
whether the government can exercise control. Craven, supra note 173, at 367.
206 While the Badinter Commission determined Yugoslavia to be in the process of dissolution, Serbia
maintained that it was in fact the successor state to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. See Oberster
Gerichtshot [OGH] [Supreme Court] Dec. 17, 1996, docket No. 4 Ob 2304/96v (Austria), translated and
reprinted in 36 I.L.M. 1520 (1997) (determining that the SFRY had dissolved and that it had been succeeded
by five states, and not solely by Serbia as Serbia claimed).
207 Member states of the European Community and Canada recognized Croatia and Slovenia on January
15, 1992, while Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina were admitted to the United Nations as member
states on May 22, 1992. ANA S. TRBOVICH, A LEGAL GEOGRAPHY OF YUGOSLAVIA’S DISINTEGRATION 280–81
(2008). Admission to the United Nations followed a string of negotiations involving Yugoslavia’s component
republics, the European Commission, the Badinter Commission, and various European states, particularly
Germany. Id. at 239–81.
208 Id. at 280–81.
209 The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia did not recognize Croatia until 1996. Yugoslavia-Croatia Ties,
N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 10, 1996, at A4.
210 CLEVELAND, supra note 15, at 314; Eugene Cotran, Some Legal Aspects of the Formation of the
United Arab Republic and the United Arab States, 8 INT’L & COMP. L.Q. 346, 347–48 (1959) (“The texts of
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and Syria was voluntary on the part of both states, was approved by the
legislatures of both states,211
and was ratified by plebiscites held in both Egypt
and Syria.212
A single executive branch and a single national assembly
governed the UAR, drawing equal members from both formerly independent
states.213
Additionally, within the UN, one mission singularly representing the
UAR replaced the separate UN member states of Egypt and Syria.214
Similarly,
the United States recognized the UAR and the United States Senate confirmed
an ambassador to the United Arab Republic.215
In September 1961, a coup d’etat in the Syrian region of the UAR, led
Syria to declare its independence.216
The UAR violently resisted Syria’s non-
consensual separation from the unitary state.217
The Syrian coup forces quickly
established their authority at the exclusion of the UAR.218
In doing so, Syria’s
secession dissolved the UAR, leading Gamal Abdel Nasser, the UAR
President, to describe himself as “the captain of a ship which has split in two in
the middle of the sea.”219
Despite Egypt’s persistent use of the label “United
Arab Republic” in the wake of the UAR’s dissolution, Nasser remarked to the
U.S. Ambassador that the dissolution would allow him to focus on Egypt’s
affairs.220
Syria and Egypt resumed their separate representation at the UN and,
by 1962, the Egyptian who held the post before unification in 1958 replaced
the sole Syrian member of the UAR’s delegation.221
[the provisional constitution of the UAR and the unification proclamation] indicate clearly that there is now
one State and one international person where formerly there were two.”).
211 JAMES JANKOWSKI, NASSER’S EGYPT, ARAB NATIONALISM, AND THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC 113
(2002).
212 Cotran, supra note 210, at 347–48.
213 JANKOWSKI, supra note 211.
214 Cotran, supra note 210, at 348; see also ELIE PODEH, THE DECLINE OF ARAB UNITY: THE RISE AND
FALL OF THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC 145–46 (1999).
215 See PIERRE MICHEL EISEMANN & MARTTI KOSKENNIEMI, STATE SUCCESSION: CODIFICATION TESTED
AGAINST THE FACTS 222 (1996).
216 Richard Young, State of Syria: Old or New, 56 AM. J. INT’L L. 482, 482 (1962).
217 Within twenty-four hours of the coup d’etat, President Nasser launched an abortive armed mission to
preserve the single state. Nasser called off the operation after it became clear that the coup forces had
solidified their control over Syria. PODEH, supra note 214, at 150–51.
218 PODEH, supra note 214, at 150–51. Interestingly, Nasser immediately recognized the ramifications of
Syrian secession, stating on September 28, 1961, as he deployed UAR forces to put down the coup, that it was
not in his power to dissolve a union based on the will of the Arab people. JANKOWSKI, supra note 211, at 169.
219 JANKOWSKI, supra note 211, at 170 (quoting cABD AL-LATIF BAGHDADI, MUDHAKKIRAT cABD AL-
LATIF AL-BAGHDADI 124 (1997)).
220 Id. at 171.
221 L.C. Green, The Dissolution of States and Membership of the United Nations, 32 SASK. L. REV. 93, 109
(1967).
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Secession is the creation of a new state through the separation of territory
and population from a parent state.222
Dissolution, though, occurs when
components integral to a state secede, generating new states and extinguishing
the erstwhile metropolis.223
A secessionist entity, like Eritrea, is valid once its
parent state accedes to its independence.224
Products of dissolution, however,
are validly independent not when the metropolis accedes to their
independence—indeed, dissolution means there is no metropolis to accede to
such independence225
—but when those products wield effective authority to
the exclusion of the former metropolitan state and satisfy the criteria of
statehood, so long as they do not violate the limiting principle of uti
possidetis.226
D. Uti Possidetis
Uti possidetis is a principle that governs the international frontiers of a
newly emergent state.227
The principle evolved in the context of decolonization
in South America and Africa.228
In Africa, uti possidetis has meant the
conversion of colonial boundaries into international borders: “[T]he
primary . . . application of uti possidetis was . . . of ‘securing respect for the
territorial boundaries at the moment when [a state’s] independence is
achieved.’”229
Thus, the boundaries that delineated separately administered
territories became international frontiers at the moment of decolonization.
The combination of uti possidetis and the principle of territorial integrity
have worked to preserve Africa’s post-colonial territorial status quo despite
many ethnically heterogeneous states, and tribal groups that straddle borders.
Fears of territorial fragility drove the member states of the Organization for
African Unity to “pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their
achievement of national independence,” because “border problems constitute a
222 See Radan, supra note 48, at 18; supra text accompanying notes 165–67.
223 Radan, supra note 48, at 26 (noting the creation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia after the
dissolution of Yugoslavia); see supra text accompanying notes 168–70.
224 See supra text accompanying notes 197–200.
225 Radan, supra note 48, at 26; see supra text accompanying note 186.
226 See infra text accompanying notes 227–36 (addressing the proposition that uti possidetis is a
requirement for secession).
227 RADAN, supra note 172, at 121–22; TRBOVICH, supra note 207, at 269.
228 RADAN, supra note 172, at 121–22.
229 Id. at 123 (quoting Frontier Dispute (Burk. Faso v. Mali), 1986 I.C.J. 554, 565 (Dec. 22)).
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grave and permanent factor of dissention.”230
Yet, the permanence of Africa’s
post-colonial borders has not been absolute. Several states, including the
Republic of Somalia, are amalgamations of former colonial possessions that
achieved independence separately.231
Moreover, in at least two examples, the
African Union has recognized states that, following decolonization, were
amalgamated into larger states only to later re-emerge as independent states
within their boundaries at decolonization.232
In the Frontier Dispute Case, the International Court of Justice elevated the
principle of uti possidetis to a general principle of international law designed
“to prevent the independence and stability of new states being endangered by
fratricidal struggles provoked by the challenging of frontiers following the
withdrawal of the administering power.”233
Uti possidetis has since evolved
into a limitation on the validity of secession. In its arbitration of the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, the Badinter Commission not only applied uti possidetis in a
European context for the first time, it used the doctrine to define which
territorial units could legitimately emerge as new states through Yugoslavia’s
dissolution.234
In this way, the Badinter Commission explicitly generalized the
principle of uti possidetis from decolonization scenarios to dissolution:
[O]nce the process in the [Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] leads to the creation of one or more independent States, the issue of frontiers . . . must be resolved in accordance with the following principles: . . . [T]he former boundaries become frontiers protected by international law. This conclusion follows from the principle of respect for the territorial status quo and, in particular, from the principle of uti possidetis. Uti possidetis, though initially applied in
230 Org. of African Unity [OAU]. Resolutions Adopted by the First Ordinary Session of the Assembly of
Heads of State and Government Held in Cairo, UAR, from 17 to 21 July 1964, AHG/Res. 16(I) (July 21,
1964).
231 In fact, the word Tanzania is a portmanteau of its two parent states: Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Tanzania, INT’L LABOUR ORG. (Oct. 24, 2010, 1:37 PM), http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/afpro/
daressalaam/countries/tanzania.htm.
232 Eritrea was fused to Ethiopia in 1952 before it successfully concluded a war of independence in 1993.
Senegal and Gambia were joined as one state from 1982 to 1989. For a discussion on Eritrea’s secession, see
supra text accompanying notes 191–200; for a discussion on Senegal and Gambia, see infra text
accompanying note 344.
233 Frontier Dispute, 1986 I.C.J. at 565.
234 See Conference on Yugoslavia, Arbitration Commission, Opinion No. 3, 92 I.L.R. 170 (1993)
[hereinafter Badinter Opinion 3].
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settling decolonization issues in America and Africa, is today recognized as a general principle.
235
Despite criticism of its approach, the Badinter Commission has been described
as “creat[ing] a precedent by using the uti possidetis juris principle to select the
territorial units that would become eligible for recognition.”236
The Badinter Commission was not alone in its novel application of uti
possidetis juris. A 1992 report on Québécois secession commissioned by the
government of Québéc found that
in the case of secession or dissolution of States, pre-existing administrative boundaries must be maintained to become borders of the new States and cannot be altered by the threat or use of force, be it on the part of the seceding entity or the State from which it breaks off.
237
Scholars and modern state practice, then, suggest that secession is valid so long
as the seceding territory is a distinct, cohesive, and recognizable unit. Support
for this position is also found in the Aaland Islands Case. The Commission of
Rapporteurs determined that Finland, even when subsumed within the Russian
Empire, had retained its territorial integrity: “[P]roperly speaking, from a
geographic point of view, this State had possessed frontiers which were clearly
defined for over a hundred years.”238
Importantly, the Rapporteurs’ opinion
demonstrates that an independent state might disappear into another state only
to reappear at some later date within its historical borders. Ultimately, the
Council of the League of Nations endorsed the Rapporteurs’ position,
recognizing that Finland had seceded from the Russian Empire as a coherent
territorial unit, within its original borders.239
Likewise, Eritrea resumed its distinct and separate character after having
been subsumed within Ethiopia.240
Unlike Finland, however, Eritrea had not
been an independent state before its subsumption within Ethiopia. Instead, it
235 Id.
236 TRBOVICH, supra note 207, at 272.
237 T.M. Franck et al., The Territorial Integrity of Québec in the Event of the Attainment of Sovereignty
(May 8, 1992), reprinted in SELF-DETERMINATION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: QUEBEC AND LESSONS LEARNED
241, 273 (Anne Bayefsky ed., 2000).
238 Report Presented by Comm. of Rapporteurs on the Aaland Islands Question, League of Nations Doc.
B7.21/68/106, at 24 (1921).
239 See JAMES MINAHAN, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF STATELESS NATIONS: ETHNIC AND NATIONAL GROUPS
AROUND THE WORLD: S-Z 71 (2002).
240 See supra text accompanying notes 195–96.
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had been a separately administered colonial possession.241
Still, because
independent Eritrea emerged within its colonial boundaries, its secession
conformed to the African application of uti possidetis.242
Uti possidetis, therefore, applies not only to decolonization but to secession
and dissolution. In the post-colonial period, uti possidetis has functioned to
deny validity to entities—like Katanga or Biafra—that sought independence
without regard for colonial boundaries.243
In this way, uti possidetis is a
limiting principle that restricts the creation of new states in Africa. A new
African state may only be valid if its territorial extent matches that of a
colonial unit.
III. THE REPUBLIC OF SOMALILAND
The Republic of Somaliland is a state. It meets the objective criteria of
statehood and its emergence through the dissolution of the Republic of Somalia
conforms to international norms. Here, the legal concepts described in Part II
are applied to Somaliland.
A. Somaliland and Statehood
Somaliland meets the statehood criteria set out in the Montevideo
Convention. It has a permanent population, defined territory, a government,
and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Somaliland claims a
population of approximately 3.5 million people.244
Since its secession in 1991,
“hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced [Somalilanders]
have returned home.”245
In contrast, persons displaced by ongoing conflict in
rump Somalia have taken refuge in Somaliland’s capital.246
Somaliland has fixed and clearly determined borders, satisfying the
territory criterion of statehood.247
At secession, the Republic of Somaliland
explicitly declared its territory as that comprising the British Protectorate of
241 See supra text accompanying note 191.
242 See RADAN, supra note 172, at 127; supra text accompanying note 198.
243 See supra text accompanying notes 150, 162, 187.
244 Republic of Somaliland: Country Profile, SOMALILAND OFFICIAL WEBSITE, http://www.
somalilandgov.com/cprofile.htm (last visited Oct. 18, 2010).
245 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at i.
246 AMNESTY INT’L, HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGES: SOMALILAND FACES ELECTIONS 10 (2009).
247 Cf. CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 36–40 (“It is suggested then that a new State may exist despite
claims to its territory, just as an existing State continues despite such claims.”).
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Somaliland.248
Though there are examples of states satisfying the defined
territory criterion by exerting control over only a portion of the territory they
claim,249
this is not the case for Somaliland. Somaliland exerts control over the
whole territory it claims: Somaliland collects customs duties from ships that
enter the port of Berbera; Somaliland’s coast guard patrols its territorial waters
to prevent piracy; and Somaliland’s armed forces have even engaged in an
armed conflict to defend its borders.250
It is true that the semi-autonomous
region of Puntland claims a portion of Somaliland.251
However, competing
territorial claims and boundary disputes historically have not denied a state’s
satisfaction of the territory prong of statehood, so long as the state effectively
governs a certain coherent territory.252
Somaliland possesses an “organized political authority,”253
satisfying the
government criterion of statehood. It is responsible for national defense.254
It
maintains law and order. It even engages in those auxiliary activities of
government such as the printing of currency, operating a central bank, and
issuing passports.255
Somaliland’s central government is so effective that
several Western nations refuse to grant Somalilanders asylum because
Somaliland is “safe and secure.”256
Somaliland’s government has even
managed to demilitarize its population without outside support or funding.257
Additional indicators of the effectiveness of Somaliland’s government are
found in its dealings with pirates and Islamist militants. In stark contrast to
rump Somalia, where pirates operate with impunity,258
Somaliland’s
248 Fisher, supra note 1; Interim Government in North Somalia Promises Free Elections, GLOBE & MAIL
(Can.), May 20, 1991 (“Ceremonies have taken place at Burco, northwest Somalia, to proclaim a new state in
the area that formed British Somaliland before it was merged with the adjoining Italian-administered area to
form the Somali Republic in 1960.”).
249 See, e.g., CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 42–43 (discussing the ineffectiveness of the Congo).
250 McGregor, supra note 14, at 8–9. Like Somaliland, Puntland is autonomous. Regions and Territories:
Puntland, BBC NEWS (Apr. 28, 2010, 10:15 AM), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/
4276288.stm. Unlike Somaliland, Puntland does not claim outright independence. See id. Also unlike
Somaliland, Puntland’s secession would not conform to international norms—it would fail the test of uti
possidetis. See Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 8–10.
251 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 8.
252 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 40.
253 Badinter Opinion 1, supra note 127, at 163.
254 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 11 (noting the criteria of army and police forces).
255 Id. at 7, 11.
256 Id. at 12.
257 LEWIS, supra note 44, at 93–94 (2008) (“[T]he UN made no contribution to Somaliland’s tough and
largely successful demilitarisation programme. Instead it supported the essentially fantasy demilitarisation
campaigns in Mogadishu.”).
258 See, e.g., Gettleman, supra note 86 (discussing Somali pirates based in Puntland).
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2010] CALLING A STATE A STATE 807
government operates a coast guard that actively pursues pirates,259
freeing
hijacked ships and capturing pirates based in rump Somalia.260
For example, in
February 2010, a Somaliland court sentenced eleven pirates captured in
December 2009 to fifteen years imprisonment for piracy and kidnapping.261
Moreover, while rump Somalia is overrun with al-Qaeda-affiliated militants,262
Somaliland exerts sufficient control over its territory that, in 2005, it
successfully disrupted a terrorist cell in Hargeisa.263
Somaliland then tried
fifteen individuals accused of involvement with that terrorist cell, convicting
and punishing thirteen of them.264
Further, when two British nationals were
shot and killed by Islamic militants in 2003,265
those responsible were tried and
convicted of murder.266
In contrast, at its emergence from the dissolution of
Yugoslavia, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, deemed effective, did not
control its territory; even its capital, Sarajevo, was under siege by sniper and
artillery fire—the longest siege in modern history—at the time of its
recognition as an independent state.267
Over its nearly twenty years of self-rule, Somaliland’s government has
transitioned from a traditional, clan-based system to a representative
democracy.268
The people of Somaliland have gone to the polls four times this
259 Sanders, supra note 13; McConnell, supra note 13; Pirates Aboard Libyan Vessel Fire on Somaliland
Forces, SOMALILANDPRESS (Feb. 4, 2010), http://somalilandpress.com/pirates-aboard-libyan-vessel-fire-on-
somaliland-forces-11411 (“A shoot-out erupted Thursday between pirates who seized a North Korean-flagged,
Libyan-owned ship and coast guards in Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland region, leaving one soldier dead,
police said.”).
260 Somaliland Forces Help Free Yemeni-Flagged Ship, XINHUANEWS (Jan. 11, 2010, 4:47 AM),
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/11/content_12787234.htm; McConnell, supra note 13 (noting that
Somaliland’s coast guard has captured three dozen pirates); Daniel Howden, Somaliland: Africa’s Best-Kept
Secret, INDEPENDENT (May 6, 2009), http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/somaliland-africas-
bestkept-secret-1679731.html.
261 SOMALILAND: Somali Pirates Get 15-Year Sentences: Official, SOMALILANDPRESS (Feb. 14, 2010),
http://somalilandpress.com/somaliland-somali-pirates-get-15-year-sentences-officials-11721.
262 Supra note 11 and accompanying text.
263 Trying to Behave Like a Proper State, supra note 113.
264 Id.
265 Two Britons Killed in Somaliland, BBC NEWS (Oct. 21, 2003, 7:59 PM), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
africa/3210432.stm.
266 LEWIS, supra note 44, at 98 (2008); Gus Selassie, Supreme Court Passes Death Sentence Against
Suspects for Murder of Aid Workers in Somaliland, GLOBAL INSIGHT, Apr. 20, 2007; Foreign Office Statement
on the Sentencing in Somaliland of the Eyeington Family’s Murderers, SOMALILAND TIMES (Apr. 23, 2007),
http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2007/275/0280.shtml.
267 Charlie Connelly, The New Siege of Sarajevo, TIMES (Oct. 8, 2005), http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
news/world/europe/article575571.ece.
268 See CATHOLIC INST. FOR INT’L RELATIONS, VERY MUCH A SOMALILAND-RUN ELECTION, March 2003
(grading the December 2002 local Somaliland elections); INT’L REPUBLICAN INST., SOMALILAND
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century: once for local municipal elections; once to elect a parliament, and
twice to elect a president.269
Those elections have been graded absent of undue
influence,270
free of “systemic fraud,”271
and “largely free and fair” by
observers and monitoring organizations.272
Finally, though it remains unrecognized by any other state, Somaliland not
only has the capacity to enter into foreign relations, it in fact enters into foreign
relations. Somaliland maintains a Minister of State for Foreign Affairs—
currently, that post is held by Abdirahman Osman Aden.273
Somaliland also
operates diplomatic missions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy,
and Ethiopia.274
Somaliland has even entered into agreements with Ethiopia.
For example, in 2006, the Republic of Somaliland and Ethiopia agreed to give
Ethiopia access to the port of Berbera.275
That agreement also called for the
formalization of trade relations and the establishment of customs offices at the
Ethiopia-Somaliland border.276
In the last year, Somaliland has hosted
delegations and from Pakistan and Djibouti,277
and had ministerial meetings
with the World Bank.278
The United States has even transferred former
Guantánamo detainees into the custody of Somaliland’s government.279
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION ASSESSMENT REPORT, Sept. 29, 2005 (grading the September 2005 parliamentary
elections); Kibble, supra note 72.
269 Kibble, supra note 72.
270 INT’L REPUBLICAN INST., supra note 268, at 3.
271 CATHOLIC INST. FOR INT’L RELATIONS, supra note 268, at 21.
272 Kibble, supra note 72.
273 New Minister of Foreign Affairs Appointed, SOMALILAND TIMES (Jan. 23, 2010), http://www.
somalilandtimes.net/sl/2010/417/8.shtml.
274 The Contacts and Addresses of the Somaliland Representative Offices Around the World, supra note
118.
275 Trying to Behave Like a Proper State, supra note 113 (“[A]greement was concluded between the
Ethiopian Customs Authority and its counterpart in Somaliland on the use of the Port of Berbera on the basis
of international conventions. They added that any business organization, governmental and non-governmental
office can now safely use the port.”).
276 Somaliland, Ethiopian Officials Upbeat About Launch of Trade Corridor, BBC MONITORING AFR.,
Nov. 22, 2005.
277 Djibouti Delegation Visits Somaliland in Bid to Establish Better Ties, BBC MONITORING AFR., June
20, 2009; Somaliland’s Minister Meets Pakistani Delegation to Discuss Bilateral Ties, BBC MONITORING
AFR., Nov. 17, 2009.
278 Somaliland Delegation Leaves for Djibouti to Attend World Bank Meeting, BBC MONITORING AFR.,
May 20, 2009.
279 Adam Brickley, Gitmo Detainees Sent to Country that Does Not Exist, WKLY. STANDARD (Dec. 21,
2009, 9:57 AM), http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/gitmo_detainees_sent_to_countr.
asp.
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Somaliland qualifies for statehood even if the measure is effectiveness
rather than the Montevideo Convention criteria. The question of the
effectiveness of a putative state turns on whether that putative state is
independent and exercises control over its territory.280
Somaliland’s
government exercises control over the territory it occupies.281
Somaliland is
likewise independent. Unlike Manchukuo, Somaliland was not an entity
established by a foreign invader to serve as the invader’s alter-ego or puppet.
Rather, Somaliland is an indigenous creation—established by the clans of
Somaliland in the wake of the Somalia’s civil war.282
Those clans came
together for a reconciliation conference at Borama without outside assistance
or funding.283
That conference produced an interim constitution and set out the
process that, in 2001, resulted in a national referendum approving both
independence and a permanent constitution.284
Indeed, in stark contrast to
entities like Manchukuo and arguably the Turkish Republic of Northern
Cyprus—which enjoy recognition solely by the foreign state responsible for
the entities’ creation—Somaliland is not recognized by any other state.
B. Somaliland and Recognition
Somaliland’s independence and statehood are not recognized by any other
state.285
When a state or non-governmental organization explains its non-
recognition of Somaliland, its reasons are typically that it prefers the
preservation of a unitary Somali state,286
that the peace process in rump
Somalia must take precedence,287
or that the African Union should determine
whether Somaliland is an independent state.288
Given the political nature of
280 Supra text accompanying notes 123–38.
281 Supra text accompanying notes 245–58.
282 LEWIS, supra note 44, at 73–74.
283 I.M. Lewis notes, “UNSOM [the United Nations mission in Somalia] . . . did not provide any
assistance, despite its proclaimed concern for democracy.” Id. at 93.
284 Id. at 94; Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 6.
285 See, e.g., LEWIS, supra note 44, at ix; Kibble, supra note 72.
286 See, e.g., LEWIS, supra note 44, at 93 (“UNOSOM [was] committed to a unified Somali state.”).
287 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 19.
288 See, e.g., Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 1 (“The broader international community is
largely willing to follow the AU’s lead. Whether the organisation does engage, and how it chooses to do so,
will have profound consequences for peace and security in the Horn of Africa.”); US Department of State:
Taken Question Office of the Spokesman January 17, 2008, M2 PRESSWIRE, Jan. 18, 2008, available at
ProQuest, Doc. ID 1414702731 (“While the United States does not recognize Somaliland as an independent
State, and we continue to believe that the question of Somaliland’s independence should be resolved by the
African Union, we continue to regularly engage with Somaliland as a regional administration and to support
programs that encourage democratization and economic development in the Somaliland region.”).
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recognition, it is unsurprising that the reasons underlying Somaliland’s non-
recognition are political rather than legal.
The desire to see rump Somalia and Somaliland reunified is driven in part
by fears of opening a Pandora’s box289
and in part from the African Union’s
internal politics.290
Since decolonization, Africa has been preoccupied with the
fragility of its inherited borders:291
most African states are ethnically
heterogeneous,292
and tribal and ethnic groups, like the Somali, straddle many
of Africa’s borders.293
Recognizing Somaliland would encourage ethnic
conflict and irredentism across the continent, or so goes the argument against
recognition.294
It is not clear, however, that recognizing Somaliland will inspire ethnic
separatist movements or encourage the widespread disruption of African
borders. It is worth noting that Somaliland’s separation from rump Somalia is
not ethnically driven. The now-defunct Republic of Somalia was one of the
most ethnically homogenous states in Africa.295
The majority of the
populations of both Somaliland and rump Somalia are Somali.296
Somaliland’s
independence would therefore not provide justification for ethnic separatist
movements. Further, one need only look to Eritrea’s secession from Ethiopia in
289 The Pandora’s box that the African Union fears is the unlimited fragmentation of its heterogeneous
states, whereas, in Europe, “[n]ations defined borders . . . . [i]n Africa, borders defined nations.”
Kathryn Sturman, New Norms, Old Boundaries, in ON THE WAY TO STATEHOOD: SECESSION AND
GLOBALISATION, supra note 48, at 67, 70; see also Matt Bryden, State-Within-a-Failed-State, in STATES-
WITHIN-STATES 167, 178–79 (Paul Kingston & Ian S. Spear eds., 2004).
290 Bryden, supra note 289, at 178–79.
291 AFRICAN UNION, AFRICAN UNION CONSTITUTIVE ACT art. 4(b) (2000); ORG. OF AFRICAN UNITY,
CAIRO DECLARATION ON BORDER DISPUTES AMONG AFRICAN STATES (1964); ORG. OF AFRICAN UNITY,
CHARTER arts. 3(2)–3(3) (1960).
292 See, e.g., Sturman, supra note 289; Pierre Englebert & Rebecca Hummel, Let’s Stick Together:
Understanding Africa’s Secession Deficit, 104 AFR. AFF. 399, 400 (2005).
293 Case Concerning Arbitral Award of 31 July 1989, 83 I.L.R. 2, 408 (1989); see, e.g., Pierre Englebert,
Stacy Tarango & Matthew Carter, Dismemberment and Suffocation, 35 COMP. POL. STUD. 1093 (2002); David
Newbury, Irredentist Rwanda: Ethnic and Territorial Frontiers in Central Africa, 44 AFR. TODAY 211 (1997);
Ali Mazrui, The Bondage of Boundaries, ECONOMIST, Sept. 11, 1993, at 28.
294 Dan Simpson, The Ghost of Somalia, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE (July 12, 2006), http://www.post-
gazette.com/pg/06193/705096-108.stm (“The argument against recognition of [Somaliland’s] independence is
that to accept its successful separation is to accept the dissolution of Somalia as a country. Africa and the
world do not wish that to happen. Not only is it messy, worst of all from the point of view of other African
countries it risks encouraging separatist movements across the continent to seek independence for their own
pieces of real estate. Countries vulnerable in that regard are numerous.”).
295 David Carment & Patrick James, Third-Party States in Ethnic Conflict: Identifying Domestic
Determinants of Intervention, in ETHNIC CONFLICT AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS 11, 28 (2004).
296 See, e.g., MARK BRADBURY, BECOMING SOMALILAND 9 (2008).
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1993 for an example of African secession unaccompanied by rampant
dissolution of African states.297
Moreover, unlike Somaliland, Eritrea’s
secession was ethnically driven298
and therefore more likely to inspire the
dissolution of Africa’s ethnically heterogeneous states. Eritrea’s example
notwithstanding, Somaliland’s independence is unlikely to encourage the
forcible alteration of post-colonial borders because Somaliland conforms to the
borders it inherited at decolonization. In this way, Somaliland is
distinguishable from entities like Katanga or Biafra—entities that, had their
secessions been successful, would have offended principles of territorial
integrity and violated uti possidetis.299
In 2001, though, the African Union (then, the Organization for African
Unity) gave the Republic of Somalia’s seat to the Transitional National
Government.300
Both the Transitional Federal Government and the TNG before
it have asserted claims over Somaliland.301
In admitting the TNG as the
representative of Somalia, the AU has implicitly recognized the TNG’s claims
to Somaliland.302
It is understandable, then, that a body so concerned with the
territorial integrity of its member states would be loath to endorse what it
views as the carving up of one of those states.303
However, deference to rump Somalia’s claims has not alone prevented AU
action. A number of African states have an interest in delaying resolution of
the Somaliland question. For example, Egypt has an interest in supporting any
strongly nationalist Somali entity likely to pursue irredentism.304
Such an entity
would threaten Egypt’s historic rival Ethiopia, which possesses a large Somali
population.305
Somaliland, given its amicable relations with Ethiopia and its
explicit opposition to involvement in rump Somalia—and its apparent lack of
297 See IYOB, supra note 191.
298 Id. at 134–46.
299 See supra text accompanying notes 227–43.
300 Bryden, supra note 289, at 176.
301 Id.
302 Id. at 173; David H. Shinn, Somaliland: The Little Country that Could, AFR. NOTES, Nov. 2002, at 4–
5. When the Transitional Federal Government replaced the Transitional National Government, it took over
Somalia’s representation in both the African Union and the United Nations. Bryden, supra note 289, at 176.
303 J. Peter Pham, The U.S. and Somaliland: A Road Map, WORLD DEF. REV. (Feb. 28, 2008),
http://worlddefensereview.com/pham022808.shtml (“The AU is simply unable to actually address the matter
as long as it continues to seat the utterly ineffectual ‘Transitional Federal Government’ . . . which asserts
sovereignty over the entire territory of the defunct Somali Democratic Republic despite being unable to so
much as safely police its putative capital.”).
304 Bryden, supra note 289, at 176.
305 Id. See also supra note 49.
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interest in Greater Somali claims—does not satisfy Egyptian strategic goals in
the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia, on the other hand, worries that recognition of
Somaliland will antagonize its Somali population and damage its relations with
the Arab League.306
The parochial strategic interests of these two states are just
examples of the interests that prevent both the states themselves and the AU
corporally from recognizing Somaliland’s independence.
In contrast to state-specific strategic goals, treating reconciliation in rump
Somalia as a necessary predicate to resolving the Somaliland question stems
from the international community’s earnest desire to see peace and stability in
Somalia.307
Yet, as the International Crisis Group points out, it is not apparent
that “raising the Somaliland issue could destabilise the peace process in the
South. . . . The Somaliland government has not participated in any Somali
peace talks since 1991, including the conference that led to the formation of
the TFG.”308
Nor is it clear that any disruption to the peace process in rump
Somalia would be measurable. The current product of international
reconciliation efforts has not brought peace or stability to Mogadishu, let alone
to the rest of Somalia.
Western aversion to preempting the AU stems from a desire not to meddle
in Africa’s affairs. During a visit to Somaliland’s capital in 2000, a French
diplomat asked Somaliland government officials “to consider what might have
happened had African states rushed to recognize Croatia, Slovenia, or Bosnia
before European states were ready to [do] so.”309
The United States has
explicitly relegated the Somaliland question to the African Union.310
Likewise,
306 Bryden, supra note 289, at 177.
307 See, e.g., Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Op-Ed., The World’s Duty to Somalia, WASH. POST, July 20,
2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/19/AR2009071901759.html; Khadija
O. Ali, Force Won’t Bring Peace to Somalia, FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS (Jan. 19, 2007), http://www.fpif.org/
articles/force_wont_bring_peace_to_somalia (“The United States and the international community have a
moral obligation to play a positive role in helping Somalis help themselves.”); Speedy Financial Support for
Somalia Vital to Give Peace a Chance, UN Warns, UN NEWS CENTER (Oct. 8, 2009), http://www.un.org/apps/
news/story.asp?NewsID=32463&Cr=somali&Cr1.
308 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 19.
309 Bryden, supra note 289, at 175.
310 USA Reportedly Concerned About Political Deadlock in Somaliland, BBC MONITORING AFR., Sept. 5,
2009 (“[Former Ambassador Yamamoto] said the United States has nothing to do with the issue of recognition
adding that it concerns the United Nations, the African Union, and even Somalis. The envoy said the United
States would like to have relations with Somaliland but that it is most appropriate that Hargeysa first of all
focuses its efforts on the African Union and the United Nations.”); U.S. Department of State: Taken Question
Office of the Spokesman, supra note 288 (“While the United States does not recognize Somaliland as an
independent State, and we continue to believe that the question of Somaliland’s independence should be
resolved by the African Union, we continue to regularly engage with Somaliland as a regional administration
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the United Kingdom has stated that it is waiting for African countries to
recognize Somaliland.311
While it is admirable that non-African states, particularly former colonial
states, are reluctant to impose political changes on Africa, the African Union—
and the Organization for African Unity before it—has had nearly twenty years
in which to resolve the Somaliland question.312
In 2005, Somaliland officially
applied for membership in the African Union.313
Yet, despite its application,
and despite a favorable report from an AU fact-finding mission,314
the African
Union has not acted on Somaliland’s application.315
In that period, though,
rump Somalia has only become more unstable and more of a threat to
international security: a haven for both al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists that
threaten transnational terrorism and pirates that disrupt international shipping
in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean.316
Continued non-recognition has deleterious consequences for Somaliland.
Non-recognition denies Somaliland access to “bilateral donor development
assistance or the support of international financial institutions.”317
It also
imperils Somaliland’s survival.318
The goal of non-recognition may be the
termination of the secessionist entities that seek recognition.319
In this case,
however, non-recognition ignores the benefits generated by Somaliland. As
discussed above, Somaliland does not share rump Somalia’s instability or rump
Somalia’s abundance of Islamic militants and pirates.320
The most probable
outcome of extinguishing Somaliland is an increase in the threats to
international security that Somalia currently represents: pirates currently kept
at bay by Somaliland’s coast guard would be able to expand their base of
operation around the Horn of Africa; Islamist militants affiliated with al-Qaeda
would find even more lawless territory in which to hide, train, prepare, and
eventually launch transnational terrorist acts.
and to support programs that encourage democratization and economic development in the Somaliland
region.”).
311 Lobbyist Urges UK to Recognize Somaliland, BBC MONITORING AFR., Jun. 20, 2009.
312 Sturman, supra note 289, at 78.
313 Id.
314 Id. at 78–79; See Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 20.
315 See Sturman, supra note 289, at 81–82.
316 See supra text accompanying notes 5–14, 85–91.
317 Kibble, supra note 72.
318 See supra text accompanying notes 114–17.
319 See, e.g., DAVID RAIC, STATEHOOD AND THE LAW OF SELF-DETERMINATION 114 (2002).
320 See supra text accompanying notes 258–66.
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On the other hand, recognizing Somaliland would afford it access to
bilateral aid, international financial institutions, and development assistance.
Recognition would likely encourage foreign direct investment, including the
development of offshore oil and gas fields.321
Outside investment and
economic development are in turn likely to contribute to Somaliland’s survival,
preserving the international security largesse it provides. In light of the
political nature of recognition, states can be expected to choose recognition
when it serves their interests. With regard to Somaliland, its contribution to
international security as a bulwark against piracy and al-Qaeda-affiliated
militants suggest that it is in the interest of Western states to see it preserved,
irrespective of the interests of regional actors like the African Union, Ethiopia,
or Egypt. Western states should therefore extend recognition to Somaliland.
Additionally, recognition of Somaliland would not violate the proposed
duty of non-recognition. Somaliland’s creation, and its statehood, does not
offend the four peremptory norms that impose on the international community
a duty to decline to recognize a state. Somaliland is not the product of an
illegal act of aggression or the acquisition of territory by means of force. It is
not the product of, or subject to, a racist regime. Its creation does not disrupt
existing frontiers or principles of territorial integrity like both Katanga and
Biafra—disruptions that violated the peremptory norm of self-determination
within existing borders, imposing a duty of non-recognition on the rest of the
international community.322
Nor does Somaliland violate norms of self-
determination by denying segments of its population participation in
government.323
Because Somaliland declared independence unilaterally, without a
Somalia-wide referendum approving its separation from the rest of Somalia,
Somaliland arguably violated the right of self-determination.324
However, it is
not clear that such an approval requirement attaches to instances of dissolution,
which Somaliland surely represents.325
Certainly, in the case of Yugoslavia,
there was no requirement that the whole population of Yugoslavia approve the
independence of Croatia, Slovenia, or Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was sufficient
321 See M.Y. Ali, Hydrocarbon Potential of Somaliland, 24 FIRST BREAK 49 (2006). Currently, foreign
investors are reluctant to invest in Somaliland because of its uncertain status and the risk that its potential
demise—due to non-recognition—poses. See, e.g., Sturman, supra note 289, at 82.
322 Cf. DUGARD, supra note 139, at 89–90.
323 Cf. id. at 97.
324 See generally Franck, supra note 237.
325 Supra text accompanying note 249.
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that the polity of each territory emerging as an independent state from
Yugoslavia’s dissolution approved of that individual territory’s
independence.326
The population of Somaliland has already approved
independence—in fact, it has done so at least twice: in 1993, the traditional
clan-based structure approved independence and then, in 2001, 97% of
Somalilanders approved independence in a referendum.327
C. Somaliland and Secession
There is no right of secession in international law. However, there is
likewise no prohibition against secession. Accepting this, and recognizing that
secessions do occur, we are left to compare Somaliland’s secession with those
secessions that have been successful—that is, those secessionist entities that
have been recognized by the international community and admitted into the
community of nations.
Like Yugoslavia, the United Arab Republic, and Ethiopia, from 1960 until
1991, the Republic of Somalia was the product of the merger of multiple
independent states.328
Whereas in the case of Ethiopia and Eritrea, Eritrea did
not achieve statehood through decolonization, Somaliland briefly enjoyed
statehood before voluntarily merging with Somalia.329
In this way, Somaliland
is more like Croatia and Syria in that those two states also enjoyed independent
statehood before subsumption within another state.330
Further, whereas
Ethiopia was a state unto itself before it subsumed Eritrea,331
Yugoslavia and
the United Arab Republic were created by the merger of their constituent
states.332
Likewise, the Republic of Somalia was the product of the merger of
independent Somaliland and the newly decolonized Italian Somalia.333
It was
326 See Badinter Opinion 1, supra note 127, at 165–66.
327 Time for A.U. Leadership, supra note 51, at 6.
328 See supra text accompanying notes 36–39.
329 LEWIS, supra note 16, at 160–62.
330 See JANKOWSKI, supra note 211, at 73–78; TRBOVICH, supra note 207, at 83–88.
331 While Ethiopia and Eritrea were initially federated in 1952, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea in 1962. IYOB,
supra note 191, at 82–86. This annexation did not result in the creation of a new state; rather, Ethiopia
swallowed Eritrea. Id. at 87–88. Eritreans were so dissatisfied with this arrangement that it sparked an armed
secessionist movement. Id. at 98–101.
332 See supra text accompanying notes 201–21.
333 That fact is plainly demonstrated by the history of unification. Somalia and Somaliland came together
in an act of unification—Somaliland did not cede itself to Somalia nor did Somalia annex Somaliland. In fact,
to underscore that the Republic of Somalia was a new creation and not the continuation of the newly
decolonized territory of Somalia, the Act of Union set out, inter alia:
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only through the Act of Union, passed by the legislative bodies of both
Somaliland and Somalia, that the Republic of Somalia was born.334
It is clear, however, that at least since Siad Barre’s ouster in 1991, the
Republic of Somalia has been without a government able to wield effective
authority over its territory. The various transitional governing entities which
claim the Republic of Somalia’s former territory have not been able to exercise
even the most basic authority over Mogadishu, let alone the rest of the territory
ascribed to them.335
If the Yugoslav state apparatus could be described as
unable to “wield effective power” even though it functioned sufficiently
The State of Somaliland and the State of Somalia do hereby unite and shall forever remain united
in a new, independent, democratic, unitary republic the name whereof shall be the Somali
Republic.
. . . All persons who upon the date of this Union possess the citizenship of Somaliland and
Somalia respectively shall by this Union now become citizens of the Somali Republic.
. . . All persons who hereafter would, but for this Union, have become citizens of Somaliland or
Somalia respectively under the law of either of the two uniting States as presently subsisting,
shall hereafter become citizens of the Somali Republic.
. . . Upon this Act being made the presently subsisting Legislative Assemblies of Somaliland and
Somalia respectively shall cease as such to subsist: but the existing elected members of the said
Legislative Assemblies shall constitute the first National Assembly of the Somali Republic.
Immediately upon the National Assembly of the Somali Republic being constituted under these
provisions, the members thereof shall each before the person presiding over the National
Assembly make an oath of allegiance to the Somali Republic.
Act of Union, supra note 39, §§ 1(a), 3(1), 3(2), 8(1). By way of comparison, consider M.C. Setalvad’s
discussion of secession with regard to India:
The real distinction may lie not in the use of the word “Union” but in the antecedent, historical
background which establishes that the constituent states were at no time independent or
autonomous states which entered into a voluntary compact to surrender some of their powers to
the general government. The States constituting the Indian Union were thus at no time
“indestructible states.” Having no existences as states anterior to the Constitution they could
never claim a right to secede.
BUCHHEIT, supra note 166, at 98 n.220.
334 The Act of Union also required a popular referendum confirming unification. This referendum took
place on June 20, 1961 and was approved by more than 90% of the vote. LEWIS, supra note 16, at 172.
Notably, only 100,000 people voted in former Somaliland and, of these, half rejected unification. LEWIS, supra
note 44, at 35. For this reason, some have argued that the Union between Somalia and Somaliland was
defective and, therefore, Somaliland’s secession should be given effect and it should be recognized as an
independent state. See, e.g., Brad Poore, Comment, Somaliland: Shackled to a Failed State, 45 STAN. J. INT’L
L. 117, 140 (2009). However, the Republic of Somalia operated as a unitary state from 1960 until 1991. See
supra text accompanying notes 36–69. It was also recognized as a state by both the United States and the
United Soviet Socialist Republic, among others, and seated as a member state in the United Nations. Press
Release, United Nations, United Nations Member States, U.N. Press Release ORG/1469 (July 3, 2006)
(reporting Somalia’s date of admittance to the UN as September 20, 1960).
335 See supra text accompanying note 74.
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enough that its Constitutional Court was still able to issue opinions,336
then
certainly the Republic of Somalia, described as an example of complete state
collapse, is unable to wield effective power. When forces loyal to the coup
plotters took control of the state—by arresting officials loyal to the UAR,
taking control of Radio Damascus, and securing its territory to the exclusion of
any other authority—the UAR ceased to wield effective power over Syria.337
The government of Somaliland, however, exercises control and effective
authority over the territory that it claims. Somaliland maintains a police force,
a judiciary, armed forces, and a civil administration,338
in contrast to—and to
the exclusion of—the Transitional Federal Government, or any other entity
laying claim to the former Republic of Somalia. In so doing, Somaliland has
re-emerged as an independent state. Its re-emergence has, therefore,
necessarily dissolved the Republic of Somalia.
Dissolution of the Republic of Somalia—like the dissolution of Yugoslavia
or the dissolution of the United Arab Republic—extinguished the Republic of
Somalia. As such, as was the case in Yugoslavia and the UAR, there exists no
metropolitan state to recognize the re-emergence of Somaliland and Somalia.
Moreover, following Yugoslavia’s example, no such recognition is needed for
Somaliland and Somalia’s independence to be valid. In contrast, Eritrea
seceded from Ethiopia—Ethiopia did not dissolve—and it was only with
Ethiopia’s accession that Eritrea became independent.339
From this viewpoint, statements by the various transitional governments of
rump Somalia rejecting Somaliland’s independence are best viewed in the
same manner as Serbia’s claims to be the SFRY’s successor state.340
Those
transitional governments could only claim Somaliland if they were in fact
336 TRBOVICH, supra note 207, at 261.
337 See supra text accompanying notes 216–21.
338 See supra text accompanying notes 108–12.
339 Crawford holds that secession is valid when the metropolitan state has ceased struggling for control of
the seceding territory and the state cannot “prolong its sovereignty by a mere paper assertion of right.”
CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 256–57.
340 See, e.g., Somalia: Government Urges Arab League to Reject Somaliland Referendum, BBC
WORLDWIDE MONITORING, June 13, 2001, available at ProQuest, Doc. ID 74075035; Somali Leader Denies
Plan to Recognize Somaliland, BBC MONITORING AFR., Sept. 5, 2009, available at ProQuest, Doc. ID
1853756061 (“Speaking to the media in UAE, President Sharif dismissed the report, saying that Somaliland is
a region in Somalia and cannot be recognized as independent state. The president described the report as
baseless and stressed that the country cannot be divided, adding that Somalia is one country. He said that both
Puntland and Somaliland regions are part of the TFG.”); Three Somali Groups Against Secession of Northern
Somalia, XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERV., Jan. 11, 1993, available at 1993 LEXIS 0111009.
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818 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
successors to the Republic of Somalia. However, since the Republic of
Somalia dissolved in 1991, those claims, like Serbia’s, must be rejected. Even
if the transitional governments could claim succession from the Republic of
Somalia, their claims over Somaliland amount to “mere paper assertion[s] of
right”341
—insufficient to preserve title over the secessionist entity and prevent
dissolution. Somaliland has in fact maintained its independence for nineteen
years and no transitional government has even attempted to establish control
of—let alone wield effective power over—Somaliland. The Republic of
Somaliland must therefore be regarded as an independent state.
Somaliland’s re-emergence as an independent state following the
dissolution of the Republic of Somaliland follows the pattern laid down by
both Yugoslavia and the UAR. Its secession is therefore in line with modern
state practice.
D. Somaliland and Uti Possidetis
Somaliland’s independence conforms to the doctrine of uti possidetis as it
has been applied in Africa. Though uti possidetis began as a principle defining
which territories could gain independence through decolonization, in the post-
colonial era it has defined what territorial units could emerge as new states
through secession or dissolution.342
In Africa, uti possidetis operates to limit
emergent states to those territories that existed as colonially administered
units.343
Somaliland, like Eritrea and in opposition to Katanga or Biafra,
existed as a separate colonial possession.344
Somaliland’s independence,
therefore, conforms to uti possidetis.
In fact, Somaliland has an even better claim to satisfaction of uti possidetis
than its neighbor Eritrea. Unlike Eritrea, Somaliland underwent the process of
decolonization before losing its international personality to a larger entity.345
In
this way, Somaliland is more like Syria following the UAR or, arguably,
Senegal following the dissolution of Senegambia.346
Each of those states
341 CRAWFORD, supra note 123, at 256–67.
342 See supra text accompanying notes 233–43.
343 See supra text accompanying notes 185–89.
344 See supra text accompanying notes 22–36.
345 See supra text accompanying notes 22–36.
346 Senegal and Gambia were briefly united as Senegambia from 1982 to 1989. Henry Hale, DIVIDED
WE STAND: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and Collapse, 56 WORLD POL. 165, 184
(2004). Though intended to produce unified administration of the two states, including a single currency,
market, and military, perennial Gambian reticence to consummate the union eventually led Senegal to
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existed as independent states by virtue of decolonization before losing their
international personality to some larger entity. In both cases, the larger entity
subsequently dissolved and the component states re-emerged within their
colonial boundaries, satisfying uti possidetis. There is no question that both
Senegal and Syria are independent states. Further, both Senegal and Syria’s
UAR cognate, Egypt, are member states of the African Union—as is Eritrea.347
Somaliland’s adherence to its colonial boundaries, then, satisfies the doctrine
of uti possidetis as it has been applied in Africa, in post-colonial secessions.
CONCLUSION
Somaliland is a state that merely lacks recognition. Recognition, however,
is a political act and its validity turns on whether the creation of the state to be
recognized satisfied norms of international law. Somaliland’s creation
conforms to those norms: it satisfies the four Montevideo Convention criteria
of statehood; it gained its independence through dissolution, a species of
secession; and its secession conforms to the limiting principle of uti possidetis,
requiring territorial adherence to colonial boundaries.
Recognizing Somaliland would not violate any imagined African norm that
precludes secession. Africa has already witnessed a handful of secessions and
dissolutions in the post-colonial era. Moreover, because Somaliland regained
its independence in the context of dissolution and in adherence to uti
possidetis, its recognition would neither set a new precedent nor justify tribal
fragmentation of African states. The only groups that could possibly point to
Somaliland as precedent or justification would be those that seek independence
for former colonies currently amalgamated in larger states. Such groups, if they
exist at all, would hardly open the feared African Pandora’s box. Rather, the
greatest impact they could have is to return Africa to its status at the very
instant of decolonization.
Another rejoinder may be that recognition for Somaliland will legitimize an
entity like al-Shabaab or another radical al-Qaeda affiliate that exercises de
facto control over rump Somalia. Yet, there is little reason to worry over this
outcome. The only indigenous Somali entities that have exercised anything
approximating de facto control over rump Somalia in the last decade have been
unilaterally withdraw from the project, dissolving Senegambia in 1989. Tijan M. Sallah, Economics and
Politics in the Gambia, 28 J. MOD. AFR. STUD. 621, 639–44 (1990).
347 AU Member States, AFR. UNION, http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/memberstates/map.htm (last
visited Nov. 7, 2010).
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820 EMORY INTERNATIONAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24
these sorts of al-Qaeda affiliates, but they have not gained legitimacy. Instead,
the international community has sanctioned the Transitional National
Government and Transitional Federal Government with legitimacy irrespective
of their abilities to exercise de facto control over Somalia. It is likely that after
recognizing Somaliland—and thereby acknowledging that rump Somalia is a
separate state—the international community will continue to spurn radical
indigenous groups operating in rump Somalia, granting legitimacy to its
moderate groups that work with the international community.
On balance, then, recognizing Somaliland is likely to contribute to
international security and stability by preserving the Republic of Somaliland’s
bulwark against piracy and terrorism without encouraging either ethnic
separatism or legitimization of al-Qaeda affiliates. On the other hand, non-
recognition threatens the modicum of international security that Somaliland
provides in the Horn of Africa. It does the international community no good to
allow rump Somalia’s lawlessness to spread. Doing so would only exacerbate
piracy that already harries international commerce and afford al-Qaeda
affiliates yet more freedom of action. These, though, are the likeliest fruits of
non-recognition for Somaliland.
BENJAMIN R. FARLEY*
* Editor-in-Chief, Emory International Law Review; J.D. Candidate, Emory University School of Law
(2011); M.A., The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University (2007); B.S.,
cum laude; B.S., University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2005). The author would like to thank Professors
Johan D. van der Vyver and Laurie R. Blank, as well as the staff of the Emory International Law Review, for
their help and guidance throughout the comment-writing process. The author additionally thanks his family
and friends for their support, particularly Parul Nagar, Jason S. Kennedy, Steven J. Merrill, and Brett E.
Sterling.