Legal Acts on the Independence of the Baltic Republics 1988–1990 As a Basis for Modeling the Secession Prevention Mechanism

Abstract

For modern states, secession is a radical way of resolving the accumulated contradictions between them and the “mother” states, into which they entered for one reason or another. Ever since the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, a kind of tradition of formalizing the secession with a special act of independence has emerged in international law, in which its creators describe the reasons that prompted such a radical decision, declares the supremacy of the legislation of the seceded entity and contains a request for recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed states from the international community. Analysis of such acts can provide valuable information on the reasons for secession and allow the development of legal mechanisms to prevent it. Within the framework of this work, the acts of independence of the Baltic republics of 1988 – 1990 are considered, adopted during the collapse of the socialist system of Eastern Europe. Being the flagships of this process, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in their acts substantiated their choice in the most detailed way, in connection with which the declarations they adopted are of undoubted interest for the researcher. Based on the method of modeling historical processes and the concept of “path dependence”, taking into account the material on the reasons for the secession obtained in the framework of the analysis of acts of independence, an attempt was made to develop a model of “peaceful secession” of the Baltic republics, which would be possible in the case of choosing a different option of behavior at the points bifurcation. The author names the development of a new Union Treaty, reforms of the perestroika period, the choice of the vector of ethno-national policy in the Union republics, the choice of the legal basis and the procedure of secession as the main points of “branching” that open “windows of opportunity” for the Baltic republics. The negative consequences of the current scenario of the development of relations between Russia and the Baltic republics and the advantages of a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the seceding and the “mother” state are described.

Keywords

• secession
• acts of independence
• reasons for secession
• the baltic countries
• collapse of the ussr
• “path dependence”