Cold stress

Since individuals have the right to free association, which includes the right to establish territorial communities on territory they legally occupy, they have the right of habitation. A territorial community is a social group that has a common habitat, is made up of many families and is able to maintain itself as an entity. The members of this group should have a sense of belonging, they should feel like they are one and unique from other communities. They can be small social groups, such as villages, or large ones such as nations. This definition of a territorial community does not necessarily flawlessly depict the very meaning of the concept of community; this concept is not a matter of either/or and thus it is not easy to identify which groups actually classify as communities.²⁵ Nonetheless, this abovementioned definition best suits the needs of this research.

What does self-determination require? The practical answer to this would be: a community which is capable of becoming an independent political entity. It must be noted that in order to be entitled to a right, there needs to be a degree of exercisability. Thus, an independent political entity should be able to govern itself,

22Lehning (n 1) 7.

23 Ibid.

24CH Dodd, The Political, Social and Economic Development of Northern Cyprus (Eothen Press 1993)

25 Beran (n 4) 37.

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economically maintain itself and potentially defend itself in a war. It goes without saying that the Turkish Cypriot community fulfils all three of these categories as they have been independently functioning since 1983 (with the help of Turkey).

The idea that in order for a community to have the right to self-determination it needs to be able to sustain itself economically is debatable. A community should be able to meet the basic prerequisites of its people if it is going to be a viable independent political entity; what does this mean exactly? And how can this be tested? The test cannot be that the community can support its present population even if it had to be economically self-sufficient. This test is far-fetched as international trade and investment gives communities the opportunity to develop much larger populations than they could possibly support if they were to solely rely on their own resources. Furthermore, the test cannot be that the community can self-sufficiently support some of its population as this renders the test insignificant;

surely, if a community has some territory and a water resource then it can support some of its community self-sufficiently. Similarly, no State can support its ever-growing community solely with its own resources; communities grow as a result of international trade, investments and membership to organisations such as the EU.

According to Beran, it is unrealistic to

suggest the test be that the community can meet at least the basic needs of its present population with the kind of foreign trade and investment it already has. This is implausible, since a number of already independent states, whose right of self-determination can hardly be challenged, fail to meet this test.²⁶

The sole economic viability test that is the most plausible is: a community is economically viable if it can meet at least the basic prerequisites of its population or has a reasonable possibility of achieving this with suitable economic development help from other States. Hence, the test aims to identify whether the community will require external help indefinitely and if so, then the community’s right of self-determination is at issue. In most cases, it is hard to fail this test and even if a community which seeks political independence does happen to fail this test, it may be saved by the fact that international justice may demand the benefits of the utilisation of natural resources be shared in a more just manner between the

26 Ibid 38.

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resource-rich and the resource poor-State.²⁷ In Cyprus, there have been recent hydrocarbon findings off the south shores of the island, and as it stands the benefits of these gas reserves need to be equally distributed between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Furthermore, at present, Turkey is the primary provider for the TRNC (it is known as Turkey’s offspring) and will continue to be until the new State is comfortably trading with the rest of the world. Thus, it is safe to say that the Turkish Cypriot community fulfil the economic criteria of the right of self-determination.

The condition that a community needs to be able to successfully defend itself in combat to qualify for the right of self-determination seems to be a very strange prerequisite in this day and age. Arguably, even the greatest powers cannot successfully defend themselves in a war today, especially if the war is dependent on nuclear missiles. Even if the war is not a nuclear war, existing smaller States will still struggle to defend themselves against larger States without external help.

Statehood and the right of self-determination should definitely not depend on such a negative condition; if anything, the condition should be that the new State will not engage in violent attacks on other States and it should help work towards a world free of war.²⁸

Axiomatically, not all the members of the so-called community will be pro-secession. The changing of political borders is a serious issue that needs to be solved democratically. For instance, during the breakup of former Yugoslavia, the majority in Croatia were in favour of secession from Yugoslavia; nevertheless, the inhabitants of the area of Krajina in Croatia, which is mostly made up of Serbs, were predominantly opposed to the idea of secession. As a result, voluntary association can only be determined via the majority principle; hence, a referendum needs to be orchestrated by the community that wishes to secede within their specified territory in order ascertain whether a separation should take place or not. If the referendum results indicate that the majority of the community wishes to change their territory’s political status then the community is free to exercise their right to self-determination by seceding. Those who do not wish to secede within this community can also apply the majority principle to decide how to proceed; i.e. they could remain within the State which others wish to secede, or they could even become independent too. The

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid 39.

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majority principle will always terminate a political dispute in a democratic way; ‘it maximises the number of individuals who live in a mutually desired political association, an ideal implicit in the right of freedom of association’.²⁹

Overall, the democratic theory of self-determination can be summarised as follows:

1. Adults have the right of self-determination;

2. Territorial communities have the right of habitation so long as they have acquired their territory rightfully;

3. A group, which is a territorial community or community of communities, has the right of political self-determination so long as it is capable of economically and politically maintaining itself as an independent entity.

(This right is derived from the two initial rights mentioned above.)

4. If a territorial community is made up of smaller territorial communities then its right of self-determination is derived from the right of the smaller communities as a result of the voluntary association principle. Ergo, ‘the right of a smaller community always overrides the right of the larger community of which it is part, if there is a conflict of wishes regarding political boundaries.’³⁰

5. The majority principle needs to be utilised in order for a community to determine its political status. In most cases, a referendum needs to take place unless the demands of the community are so clear that a vote is rendered unnecessary.

6. No-fault secession is possible. The exercise of the right of self-determination requires the fair division of the assets and debts of the existing State.

In sum, the reason this theory is called the democratic theory of political self-determination is because it is based on the right of personal self-self-determination and requires the majority principle to resolve territorial/political polemics.³¹ Furthermore, it is a theory of rightful political borders of populated regions and not unoccupied locations. The overall aim of the theory is to peacefully resolve border disputes, which in turn means that this theory does not deal with situations that require justifiable emergency secession; for instance, if people are being slaughtered or there is a genocide taking place in the existing State, a referendum to determine rightful borders does not need to be held in order for them to secede and furthermore in a situation as such, the just division of the assets of the State need not take place.

29 David Gauthier, ‘Breaking Up: An essay on Secession’ (1994) 24 Canadian Journal of Philosophy 357, 360.

30 Beran (n 4) 40.

31 Ibid.

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Without a doubt, the right of self-determination can be overridden by other human rights, and it may be that the exercise of this right is immoral, unjust or even impracticable.³² Interestingly, Beran has even argued that it is sometimes acceptable to permit political independence to those groups which do not possess the right of self-determination.³³ Throughout this thesis it will be argued that Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus do possess this right and this should be acknowledged by the outside players.

Obviously, secession is not the answer to every social conflict and by all means I do not intend to argue that it will ultimately and effectively solve the Cyprus problem.

Other options include federalism, consociotionalism and minority rights.³⁴ These alternate options tend to be applicable only when a rather small minority is scattered within a State, which in turn makes it near enough impossible for them to secede; so not like in Cyprus where the island is ethnically divided by the Green Line separating the Greeks and the Turks. In some instances, even if the minority does occupy a territory, it may not wish to secede and as a result the best solution would be for a confederation to be set up or the establishment of minority rights.

In 2004, the Annan Plan referendum results indicated that the Turkish Cypriots living in the north of Cyprus desired a confederation/federation on the island, whereas the majority on the island-the Greek Cypriots- did not wish to reunite with the Turkish Cypriots. Thus, the situation in Cyprus is rather difficult to assess and it is going to be even harder to try and fit the Turkish Cypriots into a category within this theory unless another referendum is held either on the entire island or in the north in order to ascertain whether or not the Turkish Cypriots would like to secede or officially rejoin the RoC. Nevertheless, this thesis will presume that the best option for the resolution of the Cyprus conflict is the official recognition of the already established TRNC; this is because the Greek Cypriots are reluctant to welcome back the Turkish Cypriot authorities to their constitutionally assigned posts and the needs of the Turkish Cypriot community will be better addressed if the TRNC is internationally recognised than if they were to return back to an already failed marriage-the 1960 RoC.

32 Gauthier (n 29).

33 Beran (n 4) 41.

34 J McGarry & B O’Leary, The Politics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation: Case Studies of Protracted Ethnic Conflicts (Routledge 1993) Chapter 1.

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Albeit the international fora believes that the best solution for the Cyprus problem is power-sharing, the reality is that power-sharing would only work on the island if there are almost equally numerous communities living on the land. Power-sharing in 1960 Cyprus led to the oppression and ethnic-cleansing of the Turkish Cypriot community. A federation tends to work well when there are numerous divergent communities, i.e. such as in Germany, and thus the communities can make the most of local autonomy and be part of a larger political and economic entity.

These abovementioned options for deeply divided States are by all means democratic and also allow communities to exercise their right of self-determination. ‘Democracy is a political system which respects the rights of individuals and communities of individuals, and such respect may require limiting majority rule by minority rights, power-sharing and federation in order to avoid the tyranny of the majority.’³⁵ Personally, I believe that secession is the safest option for those who are being suppressed within a State, so long as it is a workable option.

In sum, the democratic theory of self-determination and secession differs from other theories of secession in the sense that the right of secession in the democratic theory of self-determination is far more liberal as mentioned earlier. Other secessionist theorists, such as O.S. Kamanu (1974), Anthony H. Birch (1984) and Buchanan (1991), believe that the moral thing to do is to maintain an existing State, even though they do acknowledge the right of remedial secession.³⁶ Unfortunately, the abovementioned secessionist theorists do not really go into depth about the

‘compatibility of such a highly qualified right of secession with the fundamental principles of democracy.’³⁷ This is where Beran differs; the right of secession is not based on the wrongs endured by separatists but on the right of free political association and therefore his argument is based on no-fault secession.³⁸ So, this in turn means that Turkish Cypriots do not need to justify their desire to secede as they automatically possess the right of self-determination by being a community and are solely exercising their right of free association.

35 Beran (n 4) 41.

36 See Allen Buchanan , ‘The International Institutional Dimension of Secession’ in Percy B Lehning (ed), Theories of Secession (Routledge 2005)

37 Beran (n 4) 42.

38 Ibid.

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Evidently, secession comes with a great price and it is a huge risk to take; in fact, secession could be classified as being an inconvenience at large. Nonetheless, those who wish to secede tend to have a very robust reason for wanting to take this step. In the case of Cyprus, the issues which have caused the island to separate into two ethnically divided territories have not been eradicated by negotiations which are still ongoing; this consequently proves that sometimes the most peaceful option is separation, despite the disruption this may cause.

The democratic theory of self-determination, unlike the libertarian theories of secession initiated by Ludwig Von Mises³⁹, aims to be well-matched with strong States ‘with a duty of aid to fellow citizens in need, and with principles of international distributive justice which libertarians reject.’⁴⁰Ipso facto, this gives the EU and the UN and important role to play in the Cyprus problem and this will be discussed throughout the chapters of this thesis.

Existing States can respond to both internal and external challenges to their territorial integrity with force, and this is supported by international law. However, the democratic theory of self-determination claims that only external threat to a State’s territorial integrity should be dealt with force by the State. Internal challenges to the State’s integrity should be permitted according to this theory of secession.⁴¹ It could be argued that this is not necessarily a black or white issue; some internal attacks to an existing State could be extremely nasty and deserve a forceful response, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist attacks that are constantly occurring in Turkey. Since 1984 this terrorist group has been waging a violent struggle against the Turkish State for cultural and political rights and self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey. The original ideology of the PKK led by terrorist Abdullah Ocalan was to establish an independent Marxist-Leninist State in Turkey which was to be known as Kurdistan. However, they have adopted a new political platform of democratic confederalism which is heavily influenced by the libertarian socialist philosophy of

39 Ludwig von Mises, Nation State and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of our Time (New York University Press 1983) 34.

40 Beran (n 4) 42.

41 Ibid.

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communalism.⁴² The strategy adopted by this terrorist group has been brutal, with hundreds of civilian deaths and thousands of soldiers killed across the country over the years as result of suicide bombers and Kurdish guerrilla attacks.⁴³ The situation in Cyprus however, is completely different. The Turkish Cypriots have never been violent against the Greek Cypriot majority on the island; they were always the victims of fierce attacks and the targets of elimination. In fact, the Turkish Cypriots never once instigated internal force for the purpose of self-determination throughout the history of the island; the 1983 act of self-determination came as a result of the 1974 intervention on the island and the events which followed.