The concepts of statehood and self-determination provide the normative structure on which the international legal order is ultimately premised. As a system of law founded upon the issue of territorial control, ascertaining and determining which entities are entitled to the privileges of statehood continues to be one of the most difficult and complex issues. Moreover, although the process of decolonisation is almost complete, the principle of self-determination has raised new challenges for the metropolitan territories of established states, including the extent to which 'internal' self-determination guarantees additional rights for minority and other groups. As the controversies surrounding remedial secession have revealed, the territorial integrity of a state can be questioned if there are serious and persistent breaches of a people's human rights. This volume brings together such debates to reflect further on the current state of international law regarding these fundamental issues.

Although most international lawyers assumed that the distribution of the land surface of the earth between States was more or less final after the end of decolonization, recent practice has disproved this assumption. Eritrea separated from Ethiopia and new States were created out of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia and the former Czechoslovakia. There is no reason to believe that these events form the end of the creation of new States. Numerous communities within existing States claim a right to full separate statehood on the basis of their entitlement to an alleged right to self-determination. However, in most cases, the international community rejected such claims to statehood, even if the territorial entity satisfied the traditional criteria for statehood. On the other hand, in other cases, including some of those mentioned above, the international community acknowledged the statehood of entities which clearly failed to meet these criteria. In the light of the above-mentioned developments, this book examines the modern law of statehood, and in particular the role of the law of self-determination in the process of the formation of States in international law. The study shows that the law of statehood has changed considerably since the establishment of the United Nations. It is argued that the law of self-determination is particularly relevant for explaining the international community's position regarding the general recognition, or the general denial, of statehood of different territorial entities under contemporary international law.

From the Madrid Invitation in 1991 to the introduction of the Oslo process in 1993 to the present, a negotiated settlement has remained the dominant leitmotiv of peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinian people. That the parties have chosen negotiations means that either side's failure to comply with its obligation to negotiate can result in an internationally wrongful act and, in response, countermeasures and other responses. This monograph seeks to advance our understanding of the international law of negotiation and use this as a framework for assessing the Israeli–Palestinian dispute, with the Palestinian people's unsuccessful attempt to join the United Nations as a Member State in autumn 2011 and the successful attempt to join the same institution as a non-Member Observer State in November 2012 providing a case study for this. The legal consequences of these applications are not merely of historical interest; they inform the present rights and obligations of Israel and the Palestinian people. This work fills a significant gap in the existing international law scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian dispute, which neither engages with this means of dispute settlement generally nor does so specifically within the context of the Palestinian people's engagements with international institutions. 'Based on primary research, this book explores materials that were not analyzed before. It treats a highly political issue with scientific objectivity that strikes a balance between various points of view. The book will be an essential reading to all those involved in peace studies, international negotiations and Israeli-Palestinian conflict'. Mutaz M Qafisheh, Associate Professor of International Law, Hebron University. 'A compelling and innovative account of the legal aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: a must read.' Efraim Karsh, King's College London and Bar-Ilan University, author of Palestine Betrayed. 'A superbly imagined and executed study on Palestine that puts the 'negotiation imperative' at the heart of its narrative, fully interrogating the involvement of public international law at each step of the long and layered history that is vigorously brought to life in these pages. A study that also promises texture, nuance, and depth to the legal analysis it offers-and it delivers handsomely on each of these fronts.' -Dino Kritsiotis, Chair of Public International Law & Head of the International Humanitarian Law Unit, University of Nottingham.

If the term were given its literal meaning, international law would be law between 'nations'. It is often described instead as being primarily between states. But this conceals the diversity of the nations or state-like entities that have personality in international law or that have had it historically. This book reconceptualizes statehood by positioning it within that wider family of state-like entities. In this monograph, Rowan Nicholson contends that states themselves have diverse legal underpinnings. Practice in cases such as Somalia and broader principles indicate that international law provides not one but two alternative methods of qualifying as a state. Subject to exceptions connected with territorial integrity and peremptory norms, an entity can be a state either on the ground that it meets criteria of effectiveness or on the ground that it is recognized by all other states. Nicholson also argues that states, in the strict legal sense in which the word is used today, have never been the only state-like entities with personality in international law. Others from the past and present include imperial China in the period when it was unreceptive to Western norms; precolonial African chiefdoms; 'states-in-context', an example of which may be Palestine, which have the attributes of statehood relative to states that recognize them; and entities such as Hong Kong.

A clear and accessible study of the principle of internal self-determination in international law.

A novel account of state creation in international law, applying normative philosophy and political theory as well as legal practice.

The present international order is characterized by the rapid globalization of economic activity, by systematic attempts to coordinate state responses to the outbreaks of violence and by unilateral military interventions against sovereign states either by the USA or by one of its regional allies. This collection explores the changes that the current international order has brought to the theory and practice of recognition of secessionist claims and to the conditions for secessionist mobilization. The volume examines how independence movements achieve legitimacy amongst both their target populations and outside states, and how the forces of increasing economic globalization and political interdependence impact on secessionist mobilization. It addresses how the outside states recognize the independence of new states and whether the claims to independent statehood can be justified within normative theories of secession and international law. These issues are explored both through comparative analysis within legal, international relations and political science frameworks and through an examination of several recent attempts at secession.

This book analyses the emerging practice in the post-Cold War era of the creation of a democratic political system along with the creation of new states. The existing literature either tends to conflate self-determination and democracy or dismisses the legal relevance of the emerging practice on the basis that democracy is not a statehood criterion. Such arguments are simplistic. The statehood criteria in contemporary international law are largely irrelevant and do not automatically or self-evidently determine whether or not an entity has emerged as a new state. The question to be asked, therefore, is not whether democracy has become a statehood criterion. The emergence of new states is rather a law-governed political process in which certain requirements regarding the type of a government may be imposed internationally. And in this process the introduction of a democratic political system is equally as relevant or irrelevant as the statehood criteria. The book demonstrates that via the right of self-determination the law of statehood requires state creation to be a democratic process, but that this requirement should not be interpreted too broadly. The democratic process in this context governs independence referenda and does not interfere with the choice of a political system. This book has been awarded Joint Second Prize for the 2014 Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship.

Although most international lawyers assumed that the distribution of the land surface of the earth between States was more or less final after the end of decolonization, recent practice has disproved this assumption. Eritrea separated from Ethiopia and new States were created out of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia and the former Czechoslovakia. There is no reason to believe that these events form the end of the creation of new States. Numerous communities within existing States claim a right to full separate statehood on the basis of their entitlement to an alleged right to self-determination. However, in most cases, the international community rejected such claims to statehood, even if the territorial entity satisfied the traditional criteria for statehood. On the other hand, in other cases, including some of those mentioned above, the international community acknowledged the statehood of entities which clearly failed to meet these criteria. In the light of the above-mentioned developments, this book examines the modern law of statehood, and in particular the role of the law of self-determination in the process of the formation of States in international law. The study shows that the law of statehood has changed considerably since the establishment of the United Nations. It is argued that the law of self-determination is particularly relevant for explaining the international community's position regarding the general recognition, or the general denial, of statehood of different territorial entities under contemporary international law.