A Study On Ethic Secessionism From The Perspective Of International Law

Ethnic secession is a general but also special phenomenon in today's international community. It is a serious threat to national sovereignty and challenges the existing international order. Many of today's ethnic secession activities have long exceeded the scope of a country and demonstrated a trend of internationalism. Ethnic secessionism always quotes people's self-determination, the principle of international law, as the theoretical basis for justice. So it is necessary to conduct a study of ethnic secessionism from the perspective of international law.This article begins with the concept of secessionism, which can be divided into two categories: ethnic-based secessionism and political-based secessionism. It points out that ethnic secessionism is the main types of a contemporary secessionism, and to outline ethnic secessionism we have to look to three essential characteristics: (1) The subject of ethnic secessionism are ethnic groups which lives in a s part of the territory of sovereign states ;(2) The basic objective of ethnic secessionism is to separate from his present sovereign state with the territory of the host country (3) ethnic secessionism is the unilateral separation, not for the respective governments agreed. At the same time, through the analysis and comparison of the typical case of ethnic secession activities around the world and in China , we find out that terrorism is often used as one of the means to an end by ethnic secessionism but they are different and can be distinguished by their political purposes .This article does theoretical studies to clarify the international law principle of People's self-determination and its relationship with ethnic secessionism. The meaning of People's self-determination contains two aspects, one associated with colonialism on traditional content, and another in the context of a new era as collective human rights. However, whether seen from the subject or the meaning of the People's self-determination, this principle of international law does not justify the national secession activities , it just not include right of secession.We need international law to restrict Ethnic secession activities and also international cooperation. Therefore, this article spends efforts to build an international cooperation system. The article first analyzes the necessity and possibility of building such a system, and then pointed out that the content of international cooperation should include the determining of the nature of the ethnic secession ,the assistance of international judicature and information exchanging and sharing, etc.. it also suggests to cooperate in bilateral, regional and global three levels. Apart from this, international cooperation, including United Nation's Trusteeship Council and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization should play an active role in international cooperation.Finally the author discusses China's participation in the international cooperation system. This article interprets this from three aspects: China's active participation and promotion of signing of international treaties; adjust China's domestic legislation with international treaties, full play China's role in international organizations. The author puts forward a number of useful suggestions.