This event took place on the 18th of March 2021

The Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law and the Centre on Constitutional Change present: A Discussion on ‘Morality and Legality of Secession: A Theory of Self-Determination.’

This event is part of the Centre for Constitutional Change Comparative Secession Series.

Co-chairs: Dr Elisenda Casanas Adam, Associate Director, ECCL, and Dr Karlo Basta, Co-Director, CCC

Speaker: Dr Pau Bossacoma Busquets, Lecturer in Public Law at Pompeu Fabra University

This book explores secession from three normative disciplines: political philosophy, international law and constitutional law. The author first develops a moral theory of secession based on a hypothetical multinational contract. Under this contract theory, injustices do not determine the existence of a right to secede, but the requirements to exercise it. The book’s second part then argues that international law is more inclined to accept and advance a remedial right approach to secession. Therefore, justice as multinational fairness is to be fully institutionalized under the constitutional law of liberal democracies. The final part proposes constitutionalizing a qualified right to secede with the aim of fostering recognition and accommodation of national pluralism as well as cooperation and compromise between majority and minority nations.

Speaker Biography: Pau Bossacoma Busquets is Lecturer in Public Law at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and legal advisor to the Catalan Government. Bossacoma is a member of the UPF Political Theory Research Group, the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law and the Evolution of Institutions Observatory. He holds degrees in law and political science. After taking a master’s degree in law, he obtained his PhD with a thesis on secession. His research interests include constitutionalism, democracy, citizenship, nationalism, self-determination, sovereignty, federalism and territorial autonomy.