On the Kurdish Question: Secession through the Cooley-Eaton-McQuillin Thesis

This paper argues that federalism is effective in managing internal conflicts only as a constitutional design for a union between non-contiguous sovereign cities. The paper illustrates why existing federal orders are instable, and how subsidiarity (at the city-region scale) can provide a stable equilibrium. As to the jurisdictions discussed in the paper, the first two, New Zealand and Australia, explain how federal constitutional designs fail (either explicitly or implicitly). The other two, Canada and Ethiopia, explain how domestic constitutional law can be amended to accommodate the ultimate objective of federalism, namely secession. In the final analysis, political calculations militate against secession, as seen in all four jurisdictions. To alter relevant incentives, we need to rethink the Westphalian nation-state and its contiguous, non-perforated ‘territorial integrity’. To this end, the paper proposes reimagining a world order beyond the (narrower) discourse of nation-state secession and federalism. In this Cooley-Eaton-McQuillin world order, sovereign cities acquire an international legal personality.