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Breaking Up: An Essay on Secession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Gauthier
David Gauthier*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA
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Extract

Current discussion of the normative issues surrounding secession is both helped and hindered by the existence of but one philosophic treatment of these issues sufficiently systematic and comprehensive to qualify as a theory of secession - Allen Buchanan’s. He provides the unique focal point, and so simplifies the task of those who seek to begin from the present state of the art. But in providing the unique focal point, Buchanan complicates the task of those who view, or think they view, secession rather differently than he does. He defends ’a moral right to secede’ but a very qualified right, focusing on state-perpetrated injustice, the preservation of group culture and, in extreme cases, the literal survival of group members (152-3). And Buchanan further insists that where preservation of group culture is at stake, ’Neither the state nor any third party has a valid claim to the seceding territory’ -or such a claim is waived so that ’secession in order to preserve a culture is permissible if both parties consent to it’- a condition that he thinks may come to apply to the situation of Quebec.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 357 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1994

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References

1 See Allen Buchanan, Secession (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1991). This paper was first presented at a symposium of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, with Buchanan as lead symposiast. Buchanan notes a very few philosophic discussions that touch on secession; perhaps the most important is by Harry Beran, who defends a right to secede in The Consent Theory of Political Obligation (London: Croom Helm 1987), 37-42. One of the referees for this journal drew my attention to what, so far as I know, is the only book-length work on secession other than Buchanan's: Buchheit, Lee C. Secession: The Legitimacy of Self-Determination (New Haven: Yale University Press 1978Google Scholar). Buchheit focuses on the claim to secede within the framework of international law and includes several case studies, but deals only briefly with moral and philosophic issues.

2 l leave also to one side the existence of groups who fall outside the legitimate order —certainly Blacks in the ante-bellum United States, conceivably the first peoples —Amerindians and Inuit— today in Canada.

3 Thomas, Hobbes Leviathan (London: Andrew Crooke 1651), 114Google Scholar

4 But perhaps not an overwhelming majority. A study reported in the British press in the autumn of 1992 suggested only 53% of Northern Irish Catholics preferred a united Ireland, while 38% preferred association with the United Kingdom.

5 Indeed an overwhelming majority. The study referred to in n.4 suggested that 92% of Northern Irish Protestants preferred association with the United Kingdom.

6 Llivia is a Spanish enclave surrounded by France, Campione d'ltalia an Italian enclave surrounded by Switzerland.

7 David, Gauthier Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986), 201-5Google Scholar

8 The second stanza of ‘The Maple Leaf,’ which in my youth rivalled ‘O Canada’ as the national song, begins ‘At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane I Our brave fathers fought and died’ — it was the United States they fought.

9 But see n.ll.

10 I say ‘normally’ because, for example, it might be the case that the actual inhabitants had recently and unjustly expelled other persons.

11 One of the referees for this journal suggested that the secession of Québec might undermine the economic viability of the Atlantic provinces even if their access to the rest of Canada were assured. Since secession would not be overtly redistributive, this questions my claim that any loss of viability resulting from secession would in practice involve a redistributive violation of the proviso. However, the referee suggests, plausibly, that the most adverse effects for the Atlantic region would arise should the secession of Québec precipitate the break-up of the remainder of Canada. Certainly were that to occur, Ontario and the Western provinces, seeking to better their own situation, would have the obligation to avoid any redistribution costly to the Atlantic region. If honoring this obligation would permit the continuing viability of the Atlantic provinces, then the referee's real worry should be that the obligation would be ignored. While this is a legitimate political concern, it would not tell against my claim.

12 I say ‘related to’ because there are complications here arising from the demands of first peoples for some form of autonomy.