In September 2016, we organized a workshop on the concept of autonomy examined both from theoretical and practical perspectives at the Liverpool Law School, the UK. Those scholars who presented papers or participated in discussions indicated that only a few research materials could be reached in the English language which focused on the self-governing territories and related discussions in the Middle East. This fact encouraged us to further concentrate on the possibility of enriching workshop presentations and turning them into an edited volume, an idea to which the contributing scholars responded positively. The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from Lund/Sweden supported the workshop and the preliminary works of this book project.
The theory and practice of self-determination, autonomy models and minority accommodation have been an enduring topic of politics and scholarship for more than two centuries. Although materials written in English about the autonomy arrangements are fast growing, this volume is novel from several perspectives. First, it combines theory with facts on the ground, going beyond legal perspectives without neglecting existing laws and their implementation. Second, theoretical discussions transcend examining existing autonomy models in certain regions. It offers new models in the field, discussing such critical themes as environmentalism. Third, traditional concepts such as self-determination and, well-known successful autonomy examples, including the Åland Islands, Basque and Catalonian models, are examined from different perspectives by the contributing authors, who are experts on different dimensions of these themes. Fourth, some chapters of this volume focus on certain regions (including Turkey, Syria and, Iraq) which have only recently received scholarly attention. As can be expected, all chapters complement one another in terms of their theoretical inputs and outputs from the field, laying the groundwork for future studies.
In Chapter 1 Prof. Alfredsson classifies and distinguishes between some of the distinct socio-political contexts in which claims to the right of self-determination have thus far been brought.
In Chapter 2 Ephraim Nimni argues national self-determination and expands the concept by taking the autonomy discussions to non-territorial autonomy concept through focusing on national minorities who are not fairly represented in a system based on the idea of ‘one person one vote’. His criticisms are crucially important for the discussion of national self-determination within the nation-state and are related to the on-going discussions on different autonomy models in Europe and in the Middle East. For developing
In Chapter 3 Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark provides a competent background for on-going territorial autonomy discussions in the different parts of the world. Instead of constricting territorial autonomy discussions in a strict legal approach, she shows the inadequateness of this approach of conceptualizing territorial autonomy in a particular moment and a particular context, searching for a broader, or rather a more longue dureé type of reflection. Spiliopoulou Åkermark examines how we end up having concepts and institutions of ‘territorial autonomy’ today by studying the legally reflected justificatory chains behind territorial autonomy by and basing her analyses on historical developments since early 19th century.
In Chapter 4 Markku Suksi follows the theoretical discussions on autonomy and self-determination with practical cases from Canada, Finland and Denmark by focusing on the distribution of legislative powers, which is a vital issue for developing autonomy discussions in the Middle East. He examines typical federation and typical autonomy cases, especially dwelling on a third option for distributing legislative powers, where both national law-makers and sub-state law-makers have enumerated powers based on separate lists of competences. This is the situation in a number of cases, some of which are normally considered federations (e.g., Canada and its provinces) and some of which are normally considered autonomy arrangements (Finland and the Åland Islands, but also Denmark and the Faroe Islands, as well as France and New Caledonia). Suksi explores the three ways of distributing legislative competence within a state and focuses in particular on the third category, the double enumeration, which has so far not been studied much from a comparative perspective.
In Chapter 5 Daniele Conversi and Xabier Ezeizabarrena focus on a newly developing issue in the self-determination and autonomy debates: environmentalism. They firstly argue the historical connection between nationalism and environment, and then reply the question of recent years: Do regional governments controlled by sub-state nationalist parties have a better record of implementing robust environmental policies and effective sustainable development, while fighting climate change at the same time? After briefly exploring the exemplary cases, Conversi and Ezeizabarrena analyze the case of the Basque autonomous community in Spain, with occasional reference to the broader national territory envisioned by Basque nationalists, Euskal Herria, and other meso-level institutions.
While the first section of this collection gives a theoretical background for self-determination and autonomy discussions with a special emphasis on developing issues like environmental issues and evolving legislative competence;
The first case from Europe is Spain, which has been a model for decentralization for decades although recently facing disputes with autonomous communities. In Chapter 6, Eduardo Javier Ruiz Vieytez examines territorial autonomy and minority self-government issues in Spain with highlighting Catalonia and Basque Country. He argues that the real debate in the Spanish constitutional system is not about autonomy, but about the recognition of the ‘pluri-national’ character of the country and the political asymmetry. In this framework he refers to the debate on the multinational character of the Spanish Kingdom to describe the constitutional framework (1978) dealing with territorial diversity. He is further analysing the tensions raised by the evolution of this very system in the last 20 years and evaluating the Catalan and Basque cases by dwelling on his main argument about political asymmetry.
In Chapter 7 Andrea Carlà and Sergiu Constantin present South Tyrol as an example of successful conflict resolution and minority protection through territorial and cultural self-governance; underlining at the same time the idea of copying and reproducing the entire set of South Tyrol’s mechanism and institutions into a different cultural, politico-economic context. They explore South Tyrol’s autonomy arrangements, focusing on strengths and challenges by providing a thorough analysis of South Tyrolean institutions and mechanisms of self-governance and minority protection. They also highlight the several challenges at regional, national and European level that the autonomous system face and provide.
Catalonia, Basque Country and South Tyrol provides significant lessons for a better understanding of minority accommodation and different autonomy models from Europe before moving to the Middle East cases and prospected models for autonomy. On the other hand, Thomas Schmidinger’s chapter on self-determination, federalism and autonomy in the Middle East displays that autonomy discussions and practices are not recent phenomena in the region as it has been widely suggested by the general public opinion, but cases from Europe could be useful for the development of the discussions on the issue.
In Chapter 8 Schmidinger examines historical and contemporary concepts, realities of autonomies and federalism in the Middle East. He also deals with the difficulties to establish federalist structures that are also accepted by central governments by giving examples of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) – Rojava and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq providing insights on these issues. Finally, he discusses the special cases of Palestine and the United Arab Emirates.
In Chapter 9 Thomas Phillips elaborates on Schmidinger’s analyses, studying the organizational program of the multi-ethnic dfns, formerly known as
In Chapter 10 Olgun Akbulut analyses autonomy discussions in Turkey with an emphasis on the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 and related domestic legislation. Legal discussions on autonomy arrangements in Turkey can be approached from both historical and current perspectives. Research which focuses on the current unavoidably encounters a legal deadlock, but a historical perspective often provides a higher vantage point wherefrom autonomy in the Turkish context may be better evaluated. For many autonomy discussions in the Turkish context focus on the existing constitutional rules and the judgments of the Turkish Constitutional Court as the main stumbling blocks. This chapter stresses the significance of the historical perspective.
In Chapter 11 Cengiz Gunes analyses ‘democratic confederalism’ and ‘democratic autonomy’ demands of the Kurdish movement in Turkey. By examining the key texts through which these proposals have been articulated, he firstly unpacks what democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy entail and then examines the specific demands for minority groups. Gunes evaluates these two concepts in detail as a proposed solution to the Kurdish question in the light of a decentralised and democratised vision of the Middle East. He is also building bridges with Nimni’s chapter referencing non-territorial autonomy.
We wish to thank all the contributors for their invaluable time and scholarship as well as for their endurance for supporting this project for more than two years. We, as two human rights scholars from Turkey, went through difficult times over this period. It was our contributors who encouraged us all the way through to complete the work. We owe them a lot.
We would like to express our gratitude to Brill series editors Gudmundur Alfredsson and Kristina Henrard, who worked hard to catch up the time we lost when editing the series. Without their invaluable advice this volume could not have been completed. Our thanks also go to Lindy Melman and Bea Timmer (Brill Publishers) and Sindhuja Vijayabaskaran (Spi Global) for all kinds of editorial and practical work rendered in the preparation of the publication.
We hope that the volume would be beneficial for all students of autonomy and autonomy related subjects.
Olgun Akbulut & Elçin Aktoprak
Istanbul & Ankara, 22 February 2019