The Break-up of Yugoslavia and International Law by Peter Radan

Abstract

(New York: Routledge, 2002) pages i–ix, 1–278. Price US$95.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0415253527. Book Reviews This first book-length study of the international legal aspects of the dissolution of the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia offers more than its title promises. In the first chapter, Radan distinguishes what he calls the ‘classical theory’ of self-determination from the ‘romantic theory’: the former defines the subject of self-determination in terms of the territory which a group inhabits, while the latter defines it, roughly speaking, in terms of a group’s cultural and ethnic traits.1 For the latter, the group that should ‘determine itself’ is a national one, defined in terms of its ethnicity and culture. Having drawn this distinction, Radan proceeds, in chapter 2, to examine the use of the term ‘people’ in various international legal — mostly United Nations — documents regarding the selfdetermination of peoples. He concludes that in these documents the term ‘people’ is not restricted to the use prescribed by the classical theory of selfdetermination: the reference of the term ‘people’, in the frequently recurring phrase ‘the self-determination of peoples’, is not and cannot be restricted to ‘the total population of a political unit.’2 The term ‘people’, Radan argues, can — and in practice, does — encompass nations or national groups. While noting that neither the texts of various UN documents nor their travaux preparatoires can offer a conclusive interpretation of this term, he lists a large number of instances in which these documents refer to a number of ‘peoples’ inhabiting a single territory. He points out that in the great majority of these, the term can be, without any difficulty, understood to refer to nations. The rival interpretation, propounded by Antonio Cassesse,3 according to which ‘people’ refers to the entire population of a single state or colonial territory, Radan claims, is not only unsubstantiated but also inconsistent.4 The rival interpretation grants the right of secession to ‘a people’ but denies the status of ‘people’ to any group within a particular state. From this it follows that a people would have only the right to secede from itself. The contrary view, that ‘peoples’ include national groups within a single state, does not, however, imply that any national group within a single territorial unit or state would have the right to secession. Citing a variety of UN documents, Radan argues that a national group has the right to secede only when it is denied the right of internal self-determination in the state which it inhabits. The romantic theory of self-determination, at least its international law version, does not countenance an uncontrolled proliferation of states.