A Market for Sovereignty? The Roles of Other States in Self-Determination

How can the popular sovereignty associated with international law’s regulation of self-determination (secession) be reconciled with the state’s traditional property-like prerogative to transfer (cede) territory regardless of the inhabitants’ wishes? Joseph Blocher and Mitu Gulati innovatively propose a “market” for sovereignty that would treat secession more like a sale of property, and cession, less. Existing international law does not conceive of states as potential bidders, buyers, backers, underwriters or investors in a people’s exercise of self-determination. However, international lawyers should not overestimate the differences with Blocher and Gulati’s unconventional proposal. Compared to their idea of market-generated options for sovereignty, the generation of options pursuant to a right of self-determination appears murky in international law. Questions about the rights and duties of other states and the limits on outside investment in a people’s independence were legally salient in colonial self-determination—a doctrinal category of self-determination that Blocher and Gulati neglect. These questions deserve renewed attention in any analytical and critical stock-taking of self-determination in international law