Criminal law (2022): Crimes against the state: Secession (Part Two)

Explanations for the 20th century increase in secessionism.

According to University of California, Santa Barbara, political scientist Bridget L Coggins, there are four potential explanations in the academic literature for the drastic increase in state birth during the 20th century:

Ethnonational mobilization – Ethnic minorities have been increasingly mobilized to pursue states of their own.

Institutional empowerment – The growing inability of empires and ethnic federations to maintain colonies and member states.

Relative strength – Increasingly powerful secessionist movements are more likely to achieve statehood.

Negotiated consent – Home states and the international community increasingly consent to secessionist demands.

Other scholars have linked secession to resource discoveries and extraction. David B. Carter, H. E. Goemans and Ryan Griffiths find that border changes among states tend to conform to borders for previous administrative units.

Several scholars have argued that changes in the international system have made it easier to survive and prosper as a small state. Tanisha Fazal and Ryan Griffiths link increased numbers of secessions to an international system that is more favorable for new states. For example, new states can obtain assistance from international organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the United Nations. Alberto Alesina and Enrico Spolaore argue that greater levels of free trade and peace have reduced the benefits of being part of a larger state, thus motivating nations within larger states to seek secession.

Woodrow Wilson's proclamations on self-determination in 1918 created a surge in secessionist demands.

Rights to secession.

Most sovereign states do not recognize the right to self-determination through secession in their constitutions. Many expressly forbid it. However, there are several existing models of self-determination through greater autonomy and through secession.

In liberal constitutional democracies the principle of majority rule has dictated whether a minority can secede. In the United States Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that secession might be possible through amending the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court in Texas v White held secession could occur "through revolution, or through consent of the States". The British Parliament in 1933 held that Western Australia could secede from the Commonwealth of Australia only upon vote of a majority of the country as a whole; the previous two-thirds majority vote for secession via referendum in Western Australia was insufficient.

The Chinese Communist Party followed the Soviet Union in including the right of secession in its 1931 constitution in order to entice ethnic nationalities and Tibet into joining. However, the Party eliminated the right to secession in later years, and had anti-secession clause written into the Constitution before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China. The 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma contained an express state right to secede from the union under a number of procedural conditions. It was eliminated in the 1974 constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (officially the "Union of Myanmar"). Burma still allows "local autonomy under central leadership".

As of 1996, the constitutions of Austria, Ethiopia, France, and Saint Kitts and Nevis have express or implied rights to secession. Switzerland allows for the secession from current and the creation of new cantons. In the case of proposed Quebec separation from Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 ruled that only both a clear majority of the province and a constitutional amendment confirmed by all participants in the Canadian federation could allow secession.

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