ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a characterisation of the remedial theory of secession, or just cause theory, according to which secession must be justified by a just cause that relates to past injustice. It recasts the remedial theory of secession in the broader context of the exercise by a people of its right to external self-determination. This chapter proposes that the remedial theory of secession should be reformulated to incorporate general normative conditions for having the right to determine one’s sovereign state. It would be an account saying that no people has a primary right to determine its own sovereign state, not even those who already have a state. Thus, all theories of secession must be formulated within the framework of a normative approach that also takes into account the rights and obligations of the encompassing people formed by all the citizens of the parent state. The chapter concludes that a prejudice in favour of existing nation states would be inconsistent, or at the very least imply a tension that must be resolved, with the idea that no people has a primary right to determine its own sovereign state.
