Constructing Kurdish Statehood in Northern Iraq: The Primacy of Traditional Statecraft over International Law

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This paper analyses the long-running debate between the oft-opposed international legal/political doctrines of self-determination (maintained by the Kurds) and territorial integrity (advocated by Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria) to conclude that the latter trumps the former. The author examines international legal practice regarding the UN, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, various ICJ decisions regarding former Yugoslavia and Africa, the international legal doctrines of sovereignty, succession and uti possidetis, among others, to reach this conclusion. However, there is nothing in international law that prohibits successful secession as the cases of Eritrea and Kosovo, among others, illustrate. Nevertheless, either the secession must be won in war or accepted peacefully by the original mother state. Neither has occurred in the case of the Kurds. Remedial secession and internal self-determination also offer more flexible interpretations of the applicability of self-determination, but do not constitute international law or detract in any way from the conclusion that territorial integrity takes precedence over self-determination. Thus, international law only plays a secondary role in attempts to solve the Kurdish predicament. Traditional power politics remains the primary solution to the Kurdish predicament. However, by successfully building rudimentary state institutions, the KRG has managed to stake a claim to autonomy and even nascent statehood.