Sovereignty after Empire: Peaceworks: Publications: U.S. Institute of Peace

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Release Date:
June 1996

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

Conclusion

The case studies presented in this work are more than a catalog of the many grievances ethnic minorities have brought“and continue to bring“against central governments in Moscow and other capitals of the Soviet successor states. All these self-determination movements share many distinct elements, which can be used to construct a list of criteria the international community could rely on to judge the legitimacy of such movements and, even more, a way to crystallize the vague principle of self-determination in the corpus of international law.

Beyond this ambitious goal, however, lies the even greater challenge of reconciling these criteria with the formidable international legal principle of nonintervention. The spate of post-Soviet self-determination movements that can no longer be called ”internal matters’ suggests that the debate over these apparently contradictory principles has admitted a new class of political entities whose distinct features could allow the application of internationally accepted norms and procedures to satisfy their claims.

In posing a way to resolve this apparent contra diction, I do not suggest that these conditions universally obtain in each and every instance of a self-determination movement÷s claim for legitimacy. What I have described in this study are ethnic minority groups that have sought to preserve their identity during the volatile breakup of a multinational socialist federation, a peculiar and dwindling political configuration though it may be. Regarding the roughly similar breakup of Yugoslavia, we can see a certain similarity in the course of action among its various ethnic groups and those in the former Soviet Union. Whether one can expect a similar pattern in the People÷s Republic of China is, of course, a subject of great debate, but one for which this study intends to provide some basis for discussion.

Nor do I suggest that the existence of clear and definitive criteria for assessing the legitimacy of self-determination claims carries a similar weight in the international community÷s decisions on whether or not to intervene in such struggles to support movements it deems legitimate. As the interviews with political leaders demonstrate, regardless of any internationally accepted criteria, the decision to intervene is still a starkly political affair, determined more by public opinion and the national interest. On the other side of the equation are the states faced with internal wars and self-determination struggles. In ”failed states,’ such as Somalia, or ”rogue states,’ such as Iraq, the decision to intervene is much easier than the case of secessionist movements in the former Soviet Union, whose venues shifted practically overnight to newly independent states. That such movements are located either within or on the perimeter of a country that is still considered a world power makes the decision not to intervene much easier.

Yet the formulation of criteria for assessing the legitimacy of a self-determination movement÷s claims can at least reduce the ambiguity that surrounds the myriad factors influencing the decision to intervene. And with no shortage of such movements likely to appear in the future, such criteria may very well find wide acceptance in international society and finally provide the ”right to self-determination’ with the kind of definitiveness and moral authority it has been missing for so long.

Of course, international institutions are the appropriate venues for assessing the legitimacy of these types of claims and for providing the requisite authority for intervening in cases where such claims have been consistently and violently thwarted. In these cases, intervention need not pose a threat to an existing state÷s sovereignty. In fact, the intervention of the United Nations and other international organizations is the most appropriate means to settle, or at least effect a compromise over, the conflicting political and territorial claims of self-determination movements and the states that oppose them. Beyond their traditional role of mobilizing peacekeeping forces to halt mass violence, international organizations can also provide the appropriate forums for negotiating alternatives to outright secession between self-determination movements and central governments.

These criteria should not be construed as encouraging a permissive international legal environment in regard to self-determination movements. Establishing standards to assess the legitimacy of such a movement÷s grievances is a far cry from automatically setting it on the path toward statehood. As Sam Nunn noted, dividing up states on the basis of ethnicity would mean unparalleled chaos. But if the international community accepts such criteria as reverentially and as scrupulously as the international legal norms of human rights and nonaggression, it will not only go a long way in defining and supporting oppressed nationalities who seek the protection the right to self-determination can afford them, but it will also distinguish itself for the first time as working proactively to diminish new sources of tension and prevent their escalation to the level of mass violence and seemingly endless conflict.