Self-Determination

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Democratic Statehood in International Law

August 6, 2013

In the book Democratic Statehood in International Law, I develop an argument that state creation is a political process of overcoming a competing claim to territorial integrity. The emergence of a new state is not an automatic or factual occurrence upon meeting the statehood criteria. The process requires some democratic procedures to be followed. It often also runs in parallel with an internationalised attempt at imposition of a democratic political system. The post-Cold War practice and the effects of the right of self-determination have led some writers to proclaim that under contemporary international law a newly-emerged state needs to be democratic. Others have rejected this view by holding that democracy has not become a statehood criterion. My argument is that the first statement is exaggerated and the second one wrongly-focused. Non-democratic states can emerge in contemporary international law, but so can states that do not meet the statehood criteria. In the process of state creation, the adoption of democratic institutions is equally as relevant or irrelevant as ‘Montevideo’. Considerations…

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Discussion of Jure Vidmar’s Democratic Statehood in International Law

August 5, 2013

This week we will be hosting a discussion of Jure Vidmar’s book Democratic Statehood in International Law: The Emergence of New States in Post-Cold War Practice recently published by Hart. Jure is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Law Faculty at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford.

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Democracy, Peoples’ Uprising and Unconstitutional Change of Government in Egypt: The African Union Principles and Responses

July 8, 2013

Zeray Yihdego is Senior Lecturer in International Law at the University of Aberdeen. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the UN Expert Group on the Firearms Protocol, which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime 2000. In addition to serving as an expert, Dr Yihdego also acts as a consultant for the Vienna…

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A Shared Responsibility Trap: Supplying Weapons to the Syrian Opposition

June 17, 2013

Syrian Opposition Flag (Wikipedia) Cross-posted at the SHARES Blog In the last few weeks, a shared responsibility trap has arisen in relation to the conflict in Syria. On 4 June 2013, the Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic documented that anti-government forces…

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P.S. Catalonia

June 6, 2013

My Editorial on Catalan independence certainly put the cat among the pigeons – or perhaps more accurately, the pigeon (or dove) among the cats.  Reactions were ferocious and some unpleasantly ad hominem, even by some authors who should know better. I read with care all reactions, including those removed by…

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