Consensual Secession of Montenegro - Towards Good Practice?

Abstract

Allen Buchanan offered the first systematic account of secession, and contributed to the normative classification of the growing body of literature in this field of study. Apart from the unilateral right to secession, Buchanan acknowledges the ‘consensual’ type of secession, which ‘results either from a negotiated agreement between the state and the secessionists or through constitutional processes’. This sub-type of consensual secession may take the forms of, first, an explicit constitutional right to secession; and second, an implicit constitutional right to secession, recognised as such through the process of constitutional interpretation, by the respective constitutional tribunal, and subsequently legally spelled out through an adequate constitutional amending formula. Buchanan initially divides all normative theories into two groupRemedial Right Only Theory and Primary Right Theories. This chapter examines whether the recent case of the consensual secession of Montenegro can contribute to creating such practice.