Laura Lo Coco (PhD student, King’s College, London) on the informative role of social normes.

1. TERRITORIAL RIGHTS
AND SECESSION
THE NORMATIVE ROLE OF SOCIAL NORMS

2. SECESSION AND SOVEREIGNTY
It seems essential to the modern conception of a State that its government should
exercise supreme dominion over a particular portion of the earth’s surface ... Indeed,
in modern political thought the connection between a political society and its territory
is so close that the two notions almost blend (Sidgwick, 1897, pp. 221­222).
National sovereignty does not necessarily entail full control over territory
and resources.
Sovereignty is divided and powers on territory and people may occur
disjunctively

3. SECESSION AND TERRITORY
When a group secedes from a state, what becomes relevant is whether the seceding
group has the most extensive titles on territory.
Who has the most extensive power to control that particular territory?
Who has the most extensive freedom to use the resources within it?
A group can secede from a state and exert territorial jurisdiction there if it can
legitimately acquire that particular territory, without violating the existing state’s titles
on the same territory and the demands of global justice.

4. THE LIMITS OF THE LITERATURE
Functionalist arguments: a group has exclusive jurisdiction because such power
is functional to the establishment and correct
functioning of minimally just institutions
Competing demands of territorial jurisdiction: one must deny that there is a right to
secede from minimally just states.
Attachment arguments: territorial jurisdiction protects some fundamental interest
of the group or its members, such as the interest in self­
government, collective self­determination, or happiness
The contraints of secession: unjustified advantage of some groups, or the
implausible right to individual secession.

5. LEGITIMACY-BASED
CONVENTIONALISM
Attachment argument: practices ground powers
a group may legitimately exert powers regarding territory ­ and thus
secede ­ when it upholds a system of practices that relies on the particular
territory that its members occupy.
Functionalist constraint: individual self­government grounds immunities
powers on territory are protected by immunities against others’ powers
on the same territory as long as, and to the extent that, the group’s social
norms sufficiently protect individuals’ interests in being self­governing.

6. OVERLAPPING JURISDICTIONS
Two or more groups that occupy a territory may uphold different
and competing practices regarding the territory at issue, and thus
run into conflict.
­ The functionality argument sets the extent to which the groups’
territorial jurisdiction is exclusive.
­ When overlapping jurisdictions are in conflict, the parties must
achieve a mutually satisfactory agreement.

7. COMPROMISE
­ the parties may have to set up systems of adjudication and
cooperation for mutual benefit.
­ If secession is an impediment to the survival of the parent state (if
legitimate), the seceding group may have to relinquish independence
for a less drastic option (federalism for example).
­ if the state from which the group secedes does not fulfill the
requirements of legitimacy, the seceding party has no duty to ensure
their proper functioning. It does, however, have some special duty of
reciprocity towards the members of the non­seceding community.

8. CONCLUSIONS
We can and should treat powers and immunities as divisible
normative incidents.
A hybrid approach that successfully does that is able to both
identify successfully and unequivocally the right­holder, and
to propose a convincing view on the limits of secession.