Comments

This panel offers two very different papers which engage the two most common ways of exploring autonomy: Hurst Hannum engages that branch of research that explores how autonomy demands arise and what they purport to solve; while Markku Suksi engages a dominant literature that considers how different autonomy arrangements are structured and actually work. In combination they offer a rich assessment of the benefits and limitations of autonomy.

In looking at the use of autonomy in conflict situations Hurst Hannum offers a dynamic but cautious assessment. His work has long appreciated autonomy as an alternative to independence and separation while sounding a note of caution as to its limitations. This paper very much tracks that body of work. I will argue here that giving enduring international law teeth to autonomy arrangements may offer an alternative to the frequent march toward independence and the violence it entails. I will quibble with some of the points Hannum makes in his assessment of autonomy in conflict situations but this questioning is I hope very much in the tradition of his writings on the international recognition of autonomy.