Federalism is widely believed to be an efficient tool to quell ethnic conflict, yet recently there has been a pronounced global tendency among ethnic minorities to break away from larger nations. Iraqi Kurdistan, a region within the newly established Iraqi federation, also harbors plans to proclaim its own sovereign state. This volume analyses the factors that have caused the Kurds to change their minds about living in a federal Iraq, and the reaction of their neighbors and the international community at large. Using a broad theoretical framework of federal studies and secession theory, this book examines the causes for the breakup of ethnic federations fuelled by nationalism as well as the international regime of recognition of newly formed entities. It provides a first-hand account and theoretically informed interpretations of the Iraqi situation, showing that federalism is not always a universal remedy for ethnic and religious conflicts; it also emphasizes that the international recognition regime is a significant variable in peoples’ actions and aspirations to sovereignty. Enriching the ongoing debate on federalism and self-determination, this volume will appeal to scholars and students of politics, international relations, and comparative politics, as well as those interested in federalism, the Middle East and Kurdistan.

The Oxford ILDC online database, an online collection of domestic court decisions which apply international law, has been providing scholars with insights for many years. This ILDC Casebook is the perfect companion, introducing key court decisions with brief introductory and connecting texts. An ideal text for practitioners, judged, government officials, as well as for students on international law courses, the ILDC Casebook explains the theories and doctrines underlying the use by domestic courts of international law, and illustrates the key importance of domestic courts in the development of international law.

This book compares the involvement of Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine (Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip) in international relations from the viewpoint of their practical performance. In particular, it provides an overview over the current Kurdish and Palestinian paradiplomatic activities and their practical performance in terms of their capabilities, capacities and practical achievements. The contributing authors analyze the evolution of paradiplomacy, the domestic legal and institutional framework, the goals, instruments, and capabilities of Kurdish and Palestinian paradiplomacy, and selected foreign relations. The book identifies the similarities and differences between the paradiplomacy of Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine with regard to a set of guidelines: causes, legal foundations, institutionalization, predominant motives, practical implementation, and outcomes of paradiplomacy. It provides empirical explanations about how and why Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine develop and practice paradiplomacy and contributes to a better understanding of Kurdistan-Iraq’s and Palestine’s involvement in international affairs and their activities.

This book is a comprehensive study of secession from an international law perspective.

Secession and the Sovereignty Game offers a comprehensive strategic theory for how secessionist movements attempt to win independence. Combining original data analysis, fieldwork, interviews with secessionist leaders, and case studies on Catalonia, the Murrawarri Republic, West Papua, Bougainville, New Caledonia, and Northern Cyprus, Ryan D. Griffiths shows how the rules and informal practices of sovereign recognition create a strategic playing field between existing states and aspiring nations that he terms "the sovereignty game." To win sovereign statehood, all secessionist movements have to maneuver on the same strategic playing field while varying their tactics according to local conditions. To obtain recognition, secessionist movements use tactics of electoral capture, nonviolent civil resistance, and violence. To persuade the home state and the international community, they appeal to normative arguments regarding earned sovereignty, decolonization, the right to choose, inherent sovereignty, and human rights. The pursuit of independence can be enormously disruptive and is quite often violent. By advancing a theory that explains how sovereign recognition has succeeded in the past and is working in the present, and by anticipating the practices of future secessionist movements, Secession and the Sovereignty Game also prescribes solutions that could make the sovereignty game less conflictual.

Kurds and their Struggle for Autonomy: Enduring Identity and Clientelism is a comprehensive study of the roots of Kurdish identity, the processes of identity formation among the Kurds, and the Kurds’ seemingly never-ending struggle for self-determination. By relying on a hybrid theoretical model of identity politics, this book offers a thorough treatment of the origins, characteristics, and evolution of Kurdish culture in general, and political culture in particular. It also examines the historical explanations and nuances of Kurdish struggles for some form of autonomy, assesses economic imperatives that shape the potentials and challenges of Kurdish social and political life, and offers a critical review of the contemporary Kurdish institutional and policy dynamics in Iraq and Syria.

Looking at the growing use of federalism and decentralization as tools of conflict resolution, this book provides evidence from several case studies on the opportunities and challenges that territorial solutions offer when addressing internal conflicts within a variety of countries. Federalism has been used as a tool of conflict resolution in a number of conflict situations around the world. The results of this have been mixed at best, with some countries moving slowly to the paths of peace and recovery, while others have returned to violence. This volume looks at a number of case studies in which federalism and decentralization have been promoted in order to bring opposing groups together and protect the territorial integrity of different countries. Yet, it is demonstrated that this has been incredibly difficult, and often overshadowed by wider concerns on secession, de and re-centralization and geopolitics and geoeconomics. While federalism and decentralization might hold the key to keeping war-torn countries together and bringing hostile groups to the negotiation table, we nevertheless need to rethink under which conditions territorial autonomy can help to transform conflict and when it might contribute to an increase in conflict and violence. Federalism alone, so the key message from all contributions, cannot be enough to bring peace – yet, without territorial solutions to ongoing violence, it is also unlikely that peace will be achieved. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Ethnopolitics.