Recognizing States and Governments under International Law

FAIN: HR-50475-09

Chris Naticchia
California State University, San Bernardino (San Bernardino, CA 92407-2318)

The United Nations and its member states often face agonizing decisions about whether to recognize states and governments that fail morally in important ways. Some of these states and governments gain power through violence or maintain it that way. Others perpetuate injustices -- ethnic, religious, or gender discrimination, persistent failures of due process, denials of political participation -- in which a weary public acquiesces. If we recognize these states and governments, we seem to be condoning their moral failures. Yet if we deny them recognition, we can make matters morally worse by increasing their insecurity and excluding them from international institutions when allowing them to participate might actually give the international community some leverage over them to improve. With NEH support, I will complete a book that examines this dilemma.

Associated Products

A Law of Peoples for Recognizing States: On Rawls, the Social Contract, and Membership in the International Community (Book)
Title: A Law of Peoples for Recognizing States: On Rawls, the Social Contract, and Membership in the International Community
Author: Chris Naticchia
Abstract: Which political entities should the international community recognize as member states -- granting them the rights and powers of statehood and entitling them to participate in formulating, adjudicating, and implementing international law? What criteria should it use, and are those criteria defensible? From Kosovo, Palestine, and Taiwan, to South Sudan, Scotland, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Catalonia, these questions continuously arise and constantly challenge the international community for a consistent, principled stance. In response to this challenge, Chris Naticchia offers a social contract argument for a theory of international recognition -- a normative theory of the criteria that states and international bodies should use to recognize political entities as member states of the international community. Regardless of whether political entities adequately respect human rights or practice democracy, he argues, we must recognize a critical mass of them to get international institutions working. Then we should recognize secessionist entities that suffer from persistent, grave, and widespread human rights abuses by their government -- and, under certain conditions, minority nations within multinational states that seek independence. We must also recognize entities whose recognition would contribute to the economic development of the least well-off entities. Drawing on the social contract tradition, and developing a broadly Rawlsian view, A Law of Peoples for Recognizing States: On Rawls, the Social Contract, and Membership in the International Community will both challenge and appeal to a broad readership in political philosophy, international law, and international relations.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield)
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781498526135
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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