The ethics of unilateral secession

Is unilateral secession (ala Kosovo) justified?

  • Always

    Votes: 12 28.6%
  • Yes, but with proviso's

    Votes: 25 59.5%
  • Never

    Votes: 5 11.9%

  • Total voters
    42

Tahuti

Writing Deity
Joined
Nov 17, 2005
Messages
9,492
A few years ago Kosovo was hot-topic. But what about unilateral secession in general? What about Abkhazia, South-Ossetia, Turkish Northern Cyprus, Nagarno-Karabakh or even the US Declaration of Independence?

Can unilateral secession be justified, even when it is in fact a vehicle for larger powers to expand? Or should states never be partitioned without consent of its respective legislatures?

Discuss
 
Unilateral secession is justified when the government of the United States supports it.
 
If unilateral secession serves Russian geopolitical goals well, it is perfectly ethical. Otherwise, it's plain wrong and unnecessary. We go all veto in the UN.
 
Consent of the people. If the people want out it is clearly justified.

But the people have to pay the price.

Every individual person on the planet has the right of self determination. But they have to have the means. It takes might to secure the right.
 
In the United States, whenever a state wants out. Read the tenth.

Anywhere else... If the government is either oppressive, or a concrete political entity within it leaves for some other reason.
 
I'm more or less with Rainsborough on this one,
Thomas Rainsborough said:
I desire that those that had engaged in it should speak, for really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly. Sir, I think it's clear that every man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that Government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under[.]
So my answer would that unilateral secession is always ethical, provided that you permit those in the propose area of secession every opportunity to secede themselves.
 
It's only acceptable when there is no legal remedy available that can be lived with, and all alternatives have been exhausted. And then only when the goal is to get away from oppression, not to get away with oppression.
 
Out of interest, what would people's opinions be on the unilateral expulsion of a given territory?
 
Morally, I have no problem with it, in ordinary cases.

Out of interest, what would people's opinions be on the unilateral expulsion of a given territory?

Expand. I, for one, would love the idea of kicking the blue states to the curb:p*

*Provided there's a clause allowing young people stuck in the Blue states to move back to the USA ASAP:)
 
Why? Won't they turn the 'USA' liberal?

I personally would want to get out:p

In all seriousness though, allowing unilateral expulsion would make it possible for Obama to kick out the conservative south, or a Republican President to kick out New England, or whatever. Political partisanship would reach UNBELIEVABLE levels:p

Secession doesn't do any of that inherently.
 
Same question as the OP, really, just in reverse. Rather than a partial region or sub-division of a nation deciding to go its own way, the rest of the nation cease to recognise that region as part of the nation. To take Park's example, imagine that during the Troubles, the United Kingdom decided that it had had quite enough of Ulster, withdrew all military and governmental personnel, and left them to their own devices as much as they would Norway or Belgium.
 
To take Park's example, imagine that during the Troubles, the United Kingdom decided that it had had quite enough of Ulster, withdrew all military and governmental personnel, and left them to their own devices as much as they would Norway or Belgium.
I'd pay to see that.
 
It's justifiable when the region in question has no representation in the governing body.
 
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