UNILATERAL NON-COLONIAL SECESSION AND INTERNAL SELF-DETERMINATION: A RIGHT OF NEWLY SECECED PEOPLES TO DEMOCRACY?

Since the political unit known as the state first arose in Westphalian Europe, the world's geopolitical map has undergone a process of steady evolution. Indicative of this fact is that in the 20th and early 21st centuries, various states have been directly and indirectly created by unilateral non-colonial (UNC) secession, such as Bangladesh (Pakistan), Eritrea (Ethiopia), BosniaHerzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo (Yugoslavia), and South Sudan (Sudan). The present article chiefly devotes itself to the under-examined question of whether democracy is an integral aspect of UNC secessionist self-determination, such that any UNC secessionist entity created with a political system contrary to this requirement will be devoid of statehood. In essence, the article considers what, if any, ongoing governance requirements might be imposed by the law of self-determination upon states created by UNC secession. The article concludes that, de lege lata, there is no obligation for a state created by UNC secession to implement Western electoral democracy.