TOC | Key Points | Foreword | Introduction | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Notes | Acknowledgments | Author

Sovereignty after Empire Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union

Criteria for Self-Determination

As we have seen in the previous section's interviews, the respondents had a difficult time answering the question on self-determination, despite their years of experience with the complexities of international politics. This is not surprising. The documents of the United Nations and other instruments of international law pertaining to self-determination do not offer definitive guidelines that describe the procedures, criteria, and conditions for possible outside interventions to implement the right to self-determination.

     This fact alone suggests the need for further discussion of the conditions for self-determination, at least at the level of a common understanding among decision makers. The formulation and acceptance of a basis for recognizing a self-determination movement's "moral legitimacy" would certainly constitute a new foundation for constructing future principles of international law that reflect a much broader range of interests. While the following does not attempt to present a complete list of possible criteria for advancing this case, let us at least try to isolate and define some of the more important among them, keeping in mind that merely one or two conditions arbitrarily culled from this list would most likely fail the test for moral legitimacy. Only the entire set of criteria together would be likely to pass such hypothetical standards; even then, all of these criteria rarely apply in any one situation.

     Using such a set of universally recognized requirements would help avoid both the chaos of changing borders in areas of conflict and the attempts to settle issues of self-determination by violent means. The existence of clear international standards for the resolution of self-determination conflicts would give peoples the world over the hope that their aspirations for national identity can at least be addressed without threatening their own existence or damaging the sovereignty of their neighbors.

Intolerability

The legal formulation of a claim for self-determination should be based, first of all, on the "intolerability of existence" for a population of any territory, including those under the rule of a state with sovereignty over their territory. Of course, intolerability is a subjective notion, and its assessment can be more or less arbitrary. However, even the subjective claim of the further intolerability of central rule, independent of its objective character, must be taken into account when expressed in the decisions of a representative body or in a referendum by those who consider themselves to be persecuted. The majority of such documents issued during the period of decolonization express this spirit of defense, and the collapse of the USSR can be likened to a more recent period of decolonization.

Historical Right

Another criterion should be based on the "historical right" to a territory‹a right that is the least capable of definition among all the criteria under consideration for assessing the legitimacy of self-determination movements. Determining the earliest inhabitants of a region (at least in Europe and Asia) often requires the expert opinion of area specialists, historians, anthropologists, and linguists, among others, whose findings are almost always hotly contested. Determining the boundaries of a territory that contains a self-determination movement is also frequently problematic. Sometimes the territory is an autonomous region with administrative borders (typically characterized as "unjust" by the movement's leaders), and at other times the territory in question was once home to a diaspora ethnic group.

     Despite its vulnerability, the principle of historical right cannot be ignored completely in deciding self-determination claims. We have one noteworthy example of reestablishing national sovereignty on the same historical territory after the almost two-thousand-year absence of a sizable ethnic group: namely, the creation of the state of Israel in Palestine through a 1948 UN resolution. The creation of a Palestinian state on the basis of the same historic right entailed forty-five more years of struggle by Palestinians.

     In Latvia and Estonia, the presence of large ethnic Russian communities, which make up more than one-third of the population in both countries, is a pressing problem. Although Russians have lived there for two to three generations, they are not considered members of the indigenous population that has historical rights, a situation that makes it difficult for them to receive citizenship.

Ethnic Composition Of The Population

In principle, it is possible for multiethnic democracies to exist; yet scholars searching for concrete examples usually can go no further than the United States. While this particular country has its share of national and ethnic problems that constitute potential sources of domestic instability, differences among ethnic groups have played, and continue to play, a dynamic role in the country's political evolution nonetheless.

     Among the peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa, there are still seemingly insurmountable prejudices of "blood and belonging," in spite of the global mixing of cultures brought about by waves of migration, urbanization, and the spread of new communications technologies and "global culture."

     In Europe, to a higher degree than in other parts of the world, the principle of nationalism, "demanding that the political and ethnic boundaries should be congruent and also that the governed and the governing in a given political unit belong to one ethnos,"³¹ came to be embodied in the continent's politics. Accordingly, those states that are relatively more ethnically homogeneous, such as France, Austria, and Hungary, are regarded as having a higher degree of political stability.

     Obviously, the importance of a population's ethnic composition was taken into account in the various plans for settling the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which have all proposed‹in a variety of frameworks‹the creation of small, relatively ethnically homogeneous states (initially up to ten and currently three) as a solution to the ethnic and political strife that has plagued the former Yugoslavia since its disintegration.

     Taking into account the ethnic composition of a population, however, may contradict the principle of historical right, inasmuch as the contemporary ethnic composition of a country's population is almost always markedly different than it was one hundred, two hundred, or five hundred years ago. In the former USSR, this situation holds not only in the Baltics, but also in Nakhichevan, the Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and other territories. Indeed, under certain political conditions, an ethnic majority within any of the former USSR's regions might suddenly become an ethnic minority, and vice-versa.

Expression Of The People's Will

While criteria for assessing self-determination claims should take into account the territory's ethnic composition, a certain priority must be accorded to the democratic principle of the expression of the entire population's will. This can be done most clearly through a general referendum on the disputed territory's future status; or, if a referendum cannot be held, by the decision of democratically elected representatives.

     Such an expression of will should be confirmed after a certain period to ensure that it is not a fleeting reaction to some event, grievance, or advantageous proposal on the part of some third party. For this reason, the voting procedure, at least in the local legislative body, should be repeated not less than three to six months after the first decision has been registered. In addition, voting for the adoption of such weighty decisions cannot depend on a simple majority, especially in ethnically mixed communities. The poll's ground rules should stipulate that not less than two-thirds of the eligible voters of different nationalities should agree on one proposal concerning the future status of their territory or country, and not less than two-thirds of the elected representatives should subsequently ratify this decision.

Responsibility For Consequences

Under these conditions, self-determination movements will have more time to prepare themselves to assume the burden of charting their own political and economic future.

     The transitional period that is built into these criteria can be used to address possible contingencies that may arise prior to the transfer of authority. For example, in summer 1994, the very leaders of the Palestinian movement that had secured its future statehood requested the Israeli leadership to postpone temporarily the withdrawal of its armies from the Gaza Strip and Jericho, since the Palestinian Authority's police forces were not yet ready to assume the responsibility for maintaining order in these zones. Several years after obtaining its independence, Ukraine requested oil from Russia at the old Soviet discount prices because it was not yet ready to begin its own economic reform program.

     For an example of what can happen without established criteria for an orderly transition, one has to look no further than the British withdrawal from Palestine and the Indian subcontinent. In both cases, interethnic conflicts were inadequately addressed and were allowed to simmer for decades. Simply put, British officials did not allow sufficient time for the formation of stable statehood in these territories, although they did leave behind an important legacy, the civil service system.

     The same can be said of the Soviet Union's hasty and unorganized retreat from Transcaucasia and other troubled states around its southern rim plagued with their own internal secessionist movements and ethnic conflicts. Shortly thereafter, responding to requests from these newly independent states' leaders (i.e., in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan), the Russian Federation, acting as the legal successor to the USSR, was forced to introduce peacekeeping forces in an effort to safeguard the borders of these Soviet successor states. These moves were quickly interpreted in the West as Russia's quest to restore imperial rule, a step that would have brought neither economic nor political advantages.

     The ability to create a viable and vital economy and the ability to control a new sovereign territory and defend its borders must be evaluated in advance by the people who genuinely seek their own sovereignty. Otherwise, instead of a stable, independent state, there will arise only a new hotbed of tension. Standards for evaluating "responsibility for consequences" need to be worked out. Outside experts are not always capable of assessing the readiness of freedom-seeking peoples to undertake massive economic and political changes.

TOC | Key Points | Foreword | Introduction | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Notes | Acknowledgments | Author

Home  |  Jobs  |  FAQs   |  Contact Us  |  Directions  |  Privacy Policy  |  Site Map

United States Institute of Peace  --  1200 17th Street NW  -- Washington, DC 20036
(202) 457-1700 (phone)  --  (202) 429-6063 (fax)
Send Feedback