Is it time we had an international framework for unilateral secession?

When I see a picture of a middle-aged woman, dressed in her ordinary clothes and standing outside one of the prohibited polling stations somewhere in Catalonia, with blood trickling down her forehead, my immediate response is a feeling of dismay. In one of Europe’s youngest, but most animated democracies, how has it come to this?

Throughout history, political thinkers have told us that we should understand conflict as an inherent part of politics. Certainly, if the media’s headlines from around the world over the last twelve months were anything to go by, you would see their point. You can find conflict in every political news story.

Yet we mustn't forget that our democracies offer us the tools to navigate some of society’s potential conflicts; to navigate the rich lands of compromise that lie between the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ nature of politics. Say, for example, how to manage the growing disillusion of a region in Spain that is perhaps not getting the fair deal it deserves. But no, opening democracy’s tool box isn’t as simple as taking out a referendum and one blow of the hammer will deliver pure democracy in action. It demands a process of education, debate and consultation that, if it’s not too much to ask, can be delivered responsibly by our elected representatives.

Europe, the self-proclaimed vanguard of democracy, is increasingly coming face to face with the complexities and contradictions of its chosen system of government. While it is easy to cite free and fair elections; the rule of law; social and political rights; the separation of power, or broader principles of transparency and social justice as necessary components of good governance, it is much more difficult to put them together.

That’s why we see some democracies happy to maintain a monarch as the constitutional head of state, where republicans would baulk. Or why many societies have evolved to elect representatives to manage society’s political matters, as opposed to the constant, more direct role of citizenship in the day-to-day running of the country.

Unsurprisingly, what we are witnessing, not only in Europe but around the world, are societies having to come to grips with such conundrums. The relationship between Spain and the autonomous region of Catalonia poses one itself: how to preserve the basic right of self-determination — which has shaped the global landscape since the US President Woodrow Wilson started the de-colonisation engine in 1918 — with the country’s constitutional integrity.

Like the vast majority of democracies, Spain employs a representative system to govern the country and protect the democratic rights of its citizens. The theoretical flaws of this system, which fill political textbooks at universities, are no new reading, but continue to deliver plenty of real-world case studies to illustrate them. One has emerged in Spain, where representative democracy has failed the autonomous region of Catalonia.

The region has consistently sent pro-independence representatives to the national parliament in Madrid. Afraid of the constitutional crisis that would ensue if claims for Catalan secession were given an ounce of acknowledgement, the capital has been unable to manage the issue with numerous political clashes over the years.

Meanwhile, everything from the high cost of motorway tolls in the region compared to the rest of the country, to the constitutional court overturning Catalonia’s controversial ban on bullfighting in 2016 to “preserve common cultural heritage”, have been politically framed as part of the secession debate. Where ever you sit, it is ‘us’ vs. ‘them’.

Nevertheless, any admittance of the secessionist claims by means of democratic debate in parliament would undermine a united Spain (bearing in mind there are other autonomous regions with a history of claiming secession from Spain, most notably the Basque country). It has therefore been a red line. This has led Catalonia to pursue alternative tools to system of representation, the recently popular poster child for direct democracy: the referendum.

It is a strong tool for democracy, just look at Switzerland. In 2017 alone, the country held seven referenda which guided the government on issues of pension reforms, the country’s energy strategy and immigration. Turnout sits at around 46%. But whilst these referenda clearly support their citizens’ right to self-determination, none would question the constitutional integrity of the 26 ‘cantons’ that constitute the Swiss confederacy.

More importantly, the rich tradition of direct democracy in Switzerland has evolved over centuries, and is protected by a constitutional framework. It guarantees the safeguards of imbedded expert guidance, citizen education and ongoing public consultations throughout the process to ensure the process is democratically regulated. What you won’t find is standalone, one-off referendum.

Having the right constitutional framework around referenda, as a tool of democracy, is absolutely essential. Without it, referenda risk being manipulated and used irresponsibly (a nod to Mr. Cameron there). In this sense, a referendum can actually lead to the undermining democracy. Just as humanity discovered fire as a tool to cook, warm family homes and light our streets, so too has it been used to burn down villages.

Colombia’s plebiscite to validate its peace agreement with the FARC and the UK’s Brexit referendum offer two illustrations of this. In both cases, poor public consultation in the build-up, no formal education process for citizens as an alternative to the polemic, self-interested media channels and no robust vision of what other solutions might look like, meant that the public emotions were freely manipulated by invested politicians — on both sides of the debate.

The fact is that in Catalonia, representative democracy has not worked, and the region now deserves some form of public consultation. However, this consultation should not be a standalone vote, unsupported by a well thought-through democratic framework.

More so than ever an international framework is needed to regulate the legality of unilateral secessions. The UN Charter is unsuitable, outdated and preoccupied with the era of decolonisation, which posed very different challenges to those we are facing today. In Article 2(1), it’s call for ‘equal rights’ and ‘self-determination’ offer little guidance on whether a community has the right to separate from a parent state. Similarly, while there are numerous historical cases from the international community from which we might seek precedence, they offer as much contradiction as guiding consensus.

Instead, a framework must be developed that is structured enough to protect democratic principles and public security, yet flexible enough to adapt to each country’s distinct democratic and historical context. The Catalunya question should not be treated the same as Scotland, or Palestine, or Kurdistan. Nevertheless, they should all be able to draw upon guidance from the international community on how to enter a process of public consultation, in order to guarantee the democratic rights of citizens across the world.

This argument is unlikely to be popular in the wake of Catalonia’s unofficial referendum. For the independentistas, it offers no immediate solution, and indeed no guarantees. Politics so often urges us to strike while the iron is hot, as the leader of the Catalonia government, Carles Puigdemont’s declaration that the region has won its “right to statehood” shows. But for those ardent supporters of a united Spain, an international framework that offers guidance and rights to enter a full and democratic public debate on secession poses a threat to the country’s constitutional integrity, and is unlikely to be supported by other national governments.

Be that as it may, we as citizens must realise the referenda are not unquestionably democratic, nor is prohibiting them where the correct conditions are absent necessarily undemocratic. In the case of Spain, the country must also accept that representative democracy, as so far let Catalonia down, and it must now either pursue constitutional reforms or a democratic consultation in the coming years to address the issue.

There is a long list of communities that are seeking to bring greater democratic governance and autonomy to within their own ethnic, cultural of national borders — and that list is only likely to get longer. Spain still has an opportunity to understand its own internal claims for secession in a truly democratic manner, and set a precedent for the international community to build upon.

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