Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Cornell International Law Journal

Abstract

The remainder of this article will be structured as follows. Section II will examine the five domains of discourse within which claims by non-state groups are typically expressed in international law. Section III will discuss the presently unsolved problem of how the principle of selfdetermination can be reconciled with the concern of states to maintain their territorial integrity and with the concern of the international community not to risk unlimited fragmentation of existing states. Section IV will use a recent case study relating to the three general domains of discourse to illustrate the difficulties of developing ad hoc responses to acute issues raised by non-state claims where no adequate normative or procedural framework has been established in advance. This case study is of the views of the Arbitration Commission, established by the Conference on Yugoslavia, on questions as to whether and on what terms the European Community should recognize the new states which had formerly been republics of Yugoslavia. Faced with the imperative to accede to demands for recognition of self-determination by some units, the EC was not able to establish effective minority rights and human rights guarantees that might (conceivably) have limited the pressure for revisionist forms of self-determination. It will be argued that the compliance- pull or legitimacy of the norms and procedures prescribed ad hoc was thus, almost inevitably, very limited. Section V will examine some of the implications for the normative development of international law of recent experience relating to claims by non-state groups, and will discuss problems arising from the separation of, and limitations of, the existing domains of discourse.

First Page

481

Volume

25

Publication Date

1992

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