Secession and distributive justice

A cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession

“…Witness, for instance, the strife occasioned by Catalonia's 2017 secession vote, which involved police raids aimed at stopping the vote. 46 It is no use to wave away these 44 In addition to discussing these newer accounts of self-determination, a full examination of cosmopolitan instrumentalism would also contend with less common theories of secession, like those focused on nondomination and realist theories of secession (Catala, 2017;Perez-Lozano, 2022;Sanjaume-Calvet, 2020). The above-mentioned libertarian theories of secession are most usefully seen as versions of associationism, but to the extent they are distinct, they would be another set of theories to examine.…”

Toward a republican theory of secession

“…Other scholars, such as Caminal (2007) or Young (2005), have examined the relationship between republicanism and self‐determination, but these works have focused on multinational federalism, rather than on secession. Only Catala (2017) has outlined some ethical–political duties of potentially secessionist groups, concerning non‐domination, in one particular area (distributive justice). Thus, there is much work yet to be done in formulating a democratic republican TRS.…”

A defense of the moral and legal right to secede

“…On the one hand, condition ( 6) is usually taken to mean that the separation of a given region should be acceptable considering the economy of the larger state, the division of natural resources, and the like. This ensures that secession will not be too burdensome economically speaking for the old state (see Gauthier 1994 for a radical version of that claim; see also Dietrich 2014;Catala 2017). On the other hand, condition (7) guarantees that the newly formed state will not be a permanent and intractable threat to the old state.…”