Engagement without recognition: the limits of diplomatic interaction with contested states

Abstract

This document is the author's final accepted version of the journal article. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Engagement without Recognition: The Limits of Diplomatic Interaction with Contested States AbstractThis article examines the extent to which states are able to interact at an official level with a contested or de facto state -a state that has unilaterally declared independence but is not a member of the United Nations -without being understood to have recognised it. This is an area of increasing interest and relevance to policy makers. As is shown, albeit with some significant provisos, legal theory and historic practice suggest that diplomatic engagement does not constitute recognition if there is no underlying intent to recognise. This means that there is a very high degree of latitude regarding the limits of state engagement with contested states, especially in bilateral contexts. Indeed, the level of engagement can even amount to recognition in all but name.

Power and Recognition: How (Super)Powers Decide the International Recognition Process

“…However, while we tested our hypotheses using four cases studies in this article that converge and differ in useful ways, further studies are of course needed, both to verify the wider applicability of the external actor thesis, and to properly identify the specific factors influencing the decision of external powers regarding the level of intervention in secessionist conflicts. These should include: geography, strategic choices, nuclear‐armed parent state, economic relations, normative question, and so forth (see Coggins ; Ker‐Lindsay ; and their analysis of the capabilities of states to set their own recognition and engagement criteria). We leave these questions for much‐needed future research projects.…”

“…History presents us with a few cases of successful nonconsensual secession that resulted in a full international recognition, such as Bangladesh—the only example of unilateral secession without a consent of parent state—Eritrea, East Timor, and South Sudan. Cases that have received wider international recognition but are still de facto and de jure parts of their parent states (e.g., Palestine or the Western Sahara); entities that have obtained de facto independence and international recognition to a wider or lesser degree (e.g., Kosovo, Somaliland, Taiwan, or Abkhazia); and entities that were reincorporated into their parent states by force (e.g., Katanga, Biafra, or Cabinda), and with wide variety of level of external intervention into these conflicts (Buzard, Graham, and Horne ; Ker‐Lindsay ).…”

International Recognition and Its Implications for the Statehood

“…Recognition is nothing more than an official confirmation of a factual situation-a retroactive act that traces back to the moment at which the factual criteria were fulfilled and the entity became a state (Ryngaert & Sobrie, 2011). Recognition does not affect statehood as such or a state"s international rights and obligations-objective condition of statehood is independent of recognition (Ker-Lindsay, 2015). Recognition is a formality of very specific kind: a prerequisite for establishing diplomatic ties (Fabry, 2010).…”

“…While recognition is one of the most vexed concepts in international law that has been extensively analyzed and causes decades-long scholarly debates over legal consequences of recognition to the sovereignty of a state, the topic has been traditionally understudied in International Relations (IR) discipline and few IR scholars have deemed it worthy of examination (Ker-Lindsay, 2015;Kinne 2014). International Relations scholars find the recognition (as a phenomenon) as tedious topic and the research would rather explore what were the consequences of recognition to i.e.…”

Introduction: A Conceptual Framework for Engagement with de facto States

“…Related to this, the role of major powers and supra-national bodies in the process of recognition and acceptance has also been the subject of interest by scholars (Berg & Pegg, 2018;Coggins, 2014;Ker-Lindsay, 2017b;Kyris, 2015;Relitz, 2016;Sterio, 2013). One area that has attracted considerable attention in recent years is the way in which states and international bodies can engage with secessionist territories that they do not recognise (Berg & Toomla, 2009;Lynch, 2004;Ker-Lindsay, 2015;Toomla, 2016).…”