Scotland. Northern Ireland. Catalan. The Basques. Gibraltar. Greenland. Puerto Rico. The Confederate States of America. The West Bank. Kashmir. Tibet. Taiwan. Hong Kong. Xin Jiang. Quebec.
Who decides when a territory becomes a part of a country? Who decides when a territory becomes part of a different country? Who decides when a section of a country decides it will be independent?
Assume, for a moment, we are democracies. Decisions can be made by referendum or by legislatures that are genuinely representative.
Eliminate the particulars of all of those listed above. A people. A territorial segment of a people. A territory may want to join a nation or leave one. Should it be able to decide on its own? Should the country the territory is joining or leaving have a say?
This is not theoretical. Spain is jailing leaders of an effort to have the people of Catalonia vote on independence without the Spanish government’s approval of the vote. The devolved Scottish government and the government of the UK made an agreement that the people of Scotland could vote on independence. The people of the UK, however, had no vote. The President of the United States offered to buy Greenland from Denmark. The head of Denmark turned him down. There was no thought about whether the people or the legislatures of the US, of Greenland, or of Denmark should have a say in that decision.
How about some common rules for these processes?