POSSIBILITIES TO MANAGE THE SECESSION WITHIN CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

For certain international law theorists, secession is legitimate if it is constitutionally established. Only if the secession exists as an option in the constitution, which establishes the conditions under which it can be exercised, one can speak about legitimate secession. Although, few constitutions in the world envisage this possibility (for example Burma Constitution between 1947-74; Constitution of former SFRY, 1974; Constitution of the Former USSR, 1977; Constitution of Ethiopia, 1995), nevertheless, the ideas to integrate the provision for secession in the constitution is not new and constitutes a complex mix of legal arguments relating to justice, democracy, recognition and the right to self-determination. Whether those attempts are justified or not remains open to debate. Nonetheless, even in those cases where the provisions for secession exist in the constitution, they are often declarative, and the ways for their exercising are far from clear and thus do not have a substantial value.