A World Elsewhere: Secession, Subsidiarity, and Self-Determination As European Values

Abstract

There is a strong animus against the idea of secession, which is seen as violating the integrative values of the European Union. This animus is misguided, which this essay demonstrates in two ways: first, that secession should be understood as an act of subsidiarity, and as such is fully consistent with European values; and second, that we have the means for realizing those values in international law and politics generally by using the language of self-determination – though not the contemporary doctrine, rather a radically democratic form: a right to secession. Beginning with a critique of a prominent attack on Catalan secession, this essay shows the problematic conceptual and moral underpinnings of the animus against secession; it then demonstrates the ethical and legal relationship between subsidiarity and secession, the usefulness of self-determination as a justificatory framework, the advantages of a radical right to secession, and the moral case for embracing secession as a European value.

Keywords

• Secession
• Subsidiarity
• Self-Determination
• European Union
• Spain
• Catalonia
• Independence
• Integration
• Nationalism
• EU Law;
• International Law