This new handbook provides a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of the theoretical and empirical aspects of state recognition in international politics. Although the recognition of states plays a central role in shaping global politics, it remains an under-researched and widely dispersed subject. Coherently and innovatively structured, the handbook brings together a group of international scholars who examine the most important theoretical and comparative perspectives on state recognition, including debates about pathways to secession and self-determination, the broad range of actors and strategies that shape the recognition of states and a significant number of contemporary case studies. The handbook is organised into four key sections: Theoretical and normative perspectives Pathways to independent statehood Actors, forms and the process of state recognition Case studies of contemporary state recognition This handbook will be of great interest to students of foreign policy, international relations, international law, comparative politics and area studies. Chapter 19 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license https: //www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-State-Recognition/Visoka-Doyle-Newman/p/book/9780815354871

From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.

The Oxford ILDC online database, an online collection of domestic court decisions which apply international law, has been providing scholars with insights for many years. This ILDC Casebook is the perfect companion, introducing key court decisions with brief introductory and connecting texts. An ideal text for practitioners, judged, government officials, as well as for students on international law courses, the ILDC Casebook explains the theories and doctrines underlying the use by domestic courts of international law, and illustrates the key importance of domestic courts in the development of international law.

This book is a comprehensive study of secession from an international law perspective.

While a number of movements seek state secession, the majority never achieves internationally recognized statehood. Paradoxically, some movements that have succeeded have had weaker claims to statehood than many movements that have failed. Regional Politics and State Secession seeks to explain the variation in outcomes for secessionist movements and explores the reasons for why some movements succeed when so many fail. The author proposes a novel theory of secession based on the politics of the region, with the argument that only those secessionist movements that have the support of regional state and institutional actors will succeed in achieving internationally recognized statehood. Through an analysis of six movements across three regions, this book demonstrates why and how regional actors hold the key to understanding when a secessionist movement will find success. This work will appeal to an interdisciplinary academic audience. It lies at the intersection of international relations, international law, and comparative politics. While its core argument is based in international relations, its engagement with legal issues and its in-depth case studies, make it particularly relevant for those interested in international law and comparative politics.

Unrecognized states are places that do not exist in international politics; they are state-like entities that have achieved de facto independence, but have failed to gain widespread international recognition. Since the Cold-War, unrecognized states have been involved in conflicts over sovereign statehood in the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, South Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the South Pacific; some of which elicited major international crises and intervention, including the use of armed force. Yet they remain subject to many myths and simplifications. Drawing on a number of contemporary and historical cases, from Nagorno Karabakh and Somaliland to Taiwan, this timely new book provides a comprehensive analysis of unrecognized states. It examines their origins, the factors that enable them to survive and explores their likely future trajectories. But it is not just a book about unrecognized states; it is a book about sovereignty and statehood; one which does not shy way from addressing crucial issues such as how these anomalies survive in a system of sovereign states and how the context of non-recognition affects their attempts to build effective state-like entities. Ideal for students and scholars of global politics, peace and conflict studies, Unrecognized States offers a much needed and engaging account of the development of unrecognized states in the modern international system.

Recognition is a basic human need, but it is not a panacea to all societal ills. This volume assembles contributions from International Relations, Political Theory and International Law in order to show that recognition is a gradual process and an ambiguous concept both in theory and political practice.

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

This book presents novel theoretical and empirical findings on the issue of unrecognized states and secession. The first part of the book conceptualizes unrecognized states as entities with a national identity and which have achieved political independence, yet are not internationally recognized as independent states. It also addresses topics such as the role of superpowers in secessionist conflicts, ontological security in post-Soviet states, and factors influencing the legitimacy of secession referenda. In turn, the book’s second part presents selected case studies on various secessionist regions and territories, including Kurdistan, the Caucasus, Kosovo, and Bougainville.