Initial Citizenship and Rectificatory Secession

Abstract

Secessions that are justified by rectificatory justice — that is, by the fact that they rectify a previous unjust incorporation into another state — very often seem to confront us with a moral dilemma when it comes to the delimitation of the initial citizenry. In non-rectificatory secessions, all legal residents of a seceding unit have legitimate expectations to retain the equal citizenship status that they possessed in the old state. This means that the unconditional inclusion of all inhabitants becomes a requirement of justice. However, what justice requires in the delimitation of the initial citizenry seems more uncertain if the seceding unit has first been unjustly incorporated into another state and then also subjected to settlement of new residents from the incorporating state during the period of incorporation. This is the situation that the Baltic States faced in 1991 and — to some extent — that East Timor experienced in 2002. Moreover, it is a situation that Palestine, Tibet, and Western Sahara would also face if those political units would become independent states in the future. The question called forth in these cases is if justice really requires the unconditional inclusion of all legal residents in the initial citizenry or if the rectification of the injustice does not, in fact, require the exclusion of the settlers.