How Can Rights Survive Political Breakup?

Why Changing Borders Must Not Erase Established Membership and Rights

Imagine waking up in the same house, on the same street, in the same city where you have lived for thirty years.

You have not moved.

Your job is still there. Your children attend the same school. Your neighbors have not changed.

But the country has.

The territory where you live has separated from a larger state and become independent. A new government decides who belongs to the new political community.

Then you discover that your permanent residence—the legal status allowing you to make your home there indefinitely—is no longer recognized.

Nothing about your daily life has changed. Yet the law governing that life has changed profoundly.

This is not merely an imaginary possibility.

After Slovenia became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991, thousands of residents experienced something of this kind.

Their experience raises a question for the World Citizen Society.

When political communities change, why should people risk losing rights they already possessed?

Borders need not remain fixed forever. Regions may seek independence, greater autonomy, or new constitutional relationships.

But changing a political boundary is not the same as an individual’s freedom to choose a political community.

The difference matters especially for those who did not ask for the border to change.

Slovenia — When Residence Was Erased

Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991.

Its citizenship arrangements distinguished between people who held Slovenian republican citizenship and residents who held citizenship of other republics of the former Yugoslav federation.

Qualifying residents in the second group could apply for Slovenian citizenship within a specified period.

Not everyone acquired it.

On February 26, 1992, the authorities removed many people who had not obtained Slovenian citizenship from the register of permanent residents.

They became known as the erased.

According to figures reported by the Council of Europe, 25,671 people were affected.

Some became stateless, meaning they were not recognized as nationals by any state. Others retained another nationality but lost their previously recognized permanent residence status in Slovenia.

This was not simply a change in administrative records.

People faced difficulties obtaining identity documents, working legally, accessing healthcare, and traveling. Some lost jobs or housing. Family life was disrupted.

Many were not individually notified. They discovered what had happened only when they needed a document or public service.

Someone who had lived legally in Slovenia for years could suddenly find it difficult to continue an ordinary life there.

The person had not necessarily crossed a border.

The legal order had changed around them.

What the European Court Found

In Kurić and Others v. Slovenia, the European Court of Human Rights examined the consequences of removing established residents from the register and the prolonged failure to provide adequate remedies.

In its June 2012 Grand Chamber judgment, the Court found violations of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects private and family life.

It also found violations involving effective legal remedies under Article 13 and discrimination under Article 14, considered together with Article 8.

In ordinary terms, the case concerned people whose ability to maintain their lives and family relationships had been seriously affected by losing a residence status they previously possessed.

Slovenia introduced measures addressing residence status, and further action followed, including compensation arrangements. In March 2014, the Court delivered another judgment concerning compensation for the applicants.

Council of Europe materials report that more than 10,000 affected people eventually obtained Slovenian citizenship or permanent residence.

Those measures mattered.

But the years of insecurity could not simply be returned.

For the World Citizen framework, the central issue is not whether Slovenia should have become independent.

It is why the creation of a new state was accompanied by the loss of established residence rights for people already living there.

Independence may be experienced as liberation by those who seek it.

For others, the new political order may become a source of exclusion.

A theory of political freedom must examine both experiences.

Latvia — Residence Without Equal Membership

Latvia offers a different comparison.

After Latvia restored its independence in 1991, it restored citizenship to those who had been citizens of the pre-occupation republic and to their descendants.

Many residents who had arrived during the Soviet period, or whose families had done so, were not automatically recognized as citizens.

In 1995, Latvia established a special legal status for certain former Soviet citizens who held neither Latvian citizenship nor citizenship of another country.

They became known as Latvia’s non-citizens.

Their position differs substantially from that of Slovenia’s erased residents.

Latvia’s non-citizens have legally protected rights to permanent residence and return. Under Latvian law, they are not simply ordinary foreign residents or people classified as stateless.

Yet they do not have the right to vote in national or local elections.

An earlier essay, No Permanent Transition: When Temporary Restrictions Become Permanent Inequality, examined the persistence of this status over decades.

The histories of Latvia and Slovenia should not be treated as identical.

In Slovenia, established residents lost their recognized residence status.

In Latvia, important residential protections were preserved, while non-citizens remained outside full political membership unless their status changed.

These cases expose different problems.

A political transformation may undermine secure residence. Or it may preserve residence while leaving people without equal political membership.

The right to remain and the right to belong as an equal political member are not the same.

Brexit — Protecting Established Residence

Not every major institutional change creates a new state.

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union was not a territorial breakup. Yet it raised a related question about people who had established their lives under existing legal arrangements.

What would happen to qualifying EU citizens living in the United Kingdom and British citizens living in EU countries?

The EU–UK Withdrawal Agreement included protections for eligible residents and family members.

In the United Kingdom, the EU Settlement Scheme created procedures through which eligible people could obtain or confirm immigration status enabling them to remain.

These protections were conditional. They did not eliminate every problem concerning applications, documentation, or access to rights.

Still, they show a different possibility.

When institutions separate, arrangements to protect established residence can be included in the agreement from the beginning.

Brexit does not provide a ready-made model for territorial secession.

The lesson is narrower: the protection of existing residents can be treated as part of a political settlement, rather than a problem to address only afterward.

Secession Is Not Foot Democracy

There is an attractive but misleading analogy.

If individuals should be free to change political communities, why should a territory not possess an equivalent freedom to separate from a state?

Because a territory is not a person.

When someone exercises Foot Democracy, that person seeks to change their political membership through movement, Entry, residence, and membership choice.

When a territory separates, political authority changes for everyone living there.

That includes people who opposed separation, people who could not vote, and people who did not wish to change their political situation.

Rules concerning citizenship, taxation, public administration, pensions, and minority protections may all be affected.

A territorial majority’s choice reaches beyond those who supported it.

In The World Citizen Society, I therefore distinguish Foot Democracy from Territorial Reconstitution.

Territorial Reconstitution concerns the lawful, negotiated, and rights-bounded reorganization of a community’s territory or constitutional status. It may involve greater autonomy, boundary changes, mergers, federal restructuring, or negotiated separation.

Independence is one possible outcome. It is not the only one.

Secession is not Foot Democracy.

A collective decision about territory cannot be treated as though every affected person had individually chosen a new political membership.

A Vote Is Not the Whole Settlement

The Supreme Court of Canada’s 1998 opinion concerning Quebec helps explain this distinction.

The Court concluded that Quebec did not possess a unilateral right to secede under the Canadian Constitution.

But it also held that clear majority support for separation, expressed in response to a clear question, would create a constitutional duty for the relevant parties to negotiate.

The Court emphasized democracy, federalism, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and respect for minorities.

It did not say that negotiations must result in independence.

The distinction is important.

A democratic mandate to seek separation is not the same as a legal settlement that determines how separation will occur.

A vote may authorize a political demand. It cannot, by itself, settle minority protections, public debts, borders, or the responsibilities of other communities.

International law does not provide a universal shortcut.

In its 2010 advisory opinion concerning Kosovo, the International Court of Justice concluded that the declaration of independence at issue did not violate applicable international law.

But the Court answered a narrow legal question. It did not establish a general right for every territorial group to secede unilaterally.

The World Citizen Society should neither assume such an automatic right nor treat existing borders as permanently immune from peaceful change.

The stronger approach is to require lawful processes capable of addressing collective self-government and individual rights together.

Residence Should Survive State Succession

The United Nations International Law Commission considered related problems in its 1999 draft articles on nationality during state succession—the replacement of one state by another in responsibility for a territory.

Article 14 addresses the status of people whose usual home is in territory affected by such a change.

It proposes that their standing as habitual residents should not be affected simply because the state governing the territory has changed.

The draft also addresses preventing statelessness, discrimination, and safeguards in nationality decisions.

These are draft articles, not a universally binding treaty. They do not establish the full system of political membership proposed by the World Citizen Society.

Their relevance is more specific.

They recognize that a change in public authority should not automatically destroy the residential position of people whose lives are established in the territory.

Those people do not become newcomers merely because the constitution or government has changed.

New citizenship laws and administrative procedures may be necessary.

But reorganizing government is different from erasing the established status of those it governs.

Who Belongs After the Border Changes?

Who belongs to a newly independent political community?

What happens to residents who have lived there for decades but retain another nationality? What about families whose members have different citizenships? And those who opposed separation?

The answers can create—or prevent—a new hierarchy of political membership.

The World Citizen Society approaches these questions through Resident Sovereignty, Resident Equality, and Membership Security.

Durable residence is the primary basis of ordinary political membership.

People who become full political members should enjoy equal standing regardless of inherited nationality.

Membership Security provides a further protection: full members should not be removable under ordinary immigration law merely because they retain foreign nationality.

This does not mean every temporary visitor automatically becomes a full member when a border changes.

Nor does it decide every nationality rule a successor government may adopt.

But territorial reorganization should not turn established full members into removable outsiders merely because their inherited nationality differs.

Territorial change must not become a way to erase membership that was already secure.

Rights Cannot Simply Be Reset

Membership is not the only concern.

Someone may have contributed to a pension system for decades. A family may hold property records issued under the previous state. A court judgment may remain unfulfilled when public authority changes.

Which government must honor these obligations?

Some responsibilities may need to be transferred, divided, or jointly administered.

But transferring responsibility is different from arbitrarily extinguishing established rights.

Earlier essays considered how rights can survive when people move between political communities.

Territorial breakup presents the reverse problem.

People may remain where they are while the border moves around them.

Recognition of legal records, enforceable agreements, and accessible remedies become essential. Cooperation between political communities can make territorial change less destructive.

Who Is Responsible During the Transition?

A territorial settlement must also address everyday public responsibilities.

Who operates hospitals and schools while authority is transferred? Who pays pensions? Who maintains infrastructure crossing the new border?

Some functions may pass to successor governments. Others may require temporary joint administration.

The arrangements will vary, but residents should not be left in a period when every authority denies responsibility.

Peaceful transformation requires more than an absence of fighting. It also requires the continuity of essential institutions.

Security raises further questions concerning policing, armed forces, and borders. Those deserve separate treatment.

The People Who Did Not Choose Separation

A referendum can produce a majority and a minority.

After separation, both remain.

Those who opposed independence may find themselves living under a constitutional order they did not support.

Some may share the language or nationality of the former state. Others may belong to minorities whose position has become vulnerable.

Their rights cannot depend on the goodwill of the winning majority.

This is another reason territorial secession differs from individual political-community choice.

A collective decision changes the institutions governing people who did not necessarily agree to that change.

A democratic mandate does not give the majority unlimited authority to deny their equal standing.

And dissenting residents should not be told that their only protection is to leave.

They must retain effective rights where they live.

Rights Must Outlast Borders

Independence can be a significant political achievement. It may allow people to establish institutions of meaningful self-government.

But creating a new state does not, by itself, guarantee greater political freedom.

The cases examined here reveal different possibilities: established residence can be lost, secure residence can coexist with unequal political membership, and institutional separation can include negotiated protections for existing residents.

The central question is what happens to people whose lives are already rooted in the territory.

The reorganization of political communities must not become a justification for depriving residents of their established rights or equal political standing.

Foot Democracy seeks to make political membership more open to personal choice.

Territorial Reconstitution concerns changes in the authority governing a place.

They may be connected, but they are not the same freedom.

A World Citizen Society must allow political institutions to change without treating residents’ rights as disposable.

Borders may be redrawn.

The rights of the people who live within them must endure.

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Further Reading

Books

• The World Citizen Revolution
• The World Citizen Society — Especially Chapter 24, Peaceful Transformation, Territorial Change, and Security During Transition.

Related Essays

• No Permanent Transition: When Temporary Restrictions Become Permanent Inequality
• Can Political Power Be Divided Without Creating a World Government?
• Decompose Before Abolishing: How Nationality Could Be Unbundled
• When Does Residence Become Full Membership?
• How Can Rights Survive Movement?
• Once Entry Is Won, How Is It Protected?
• Why Territory Still Matters in a World Citizen Society

References

1. European Court of Human Rights. Kurić and Others v. Slovenia, Application No. 26828/06, Grand Chamber Judgment, June 26, 2012. Official source
2. Council of Europe. “Justice for Thousands of ‘Erased’ People After 20 Years Without Rights.” Official source
3. European Court of Human Rights. Kurić and Others v. Slovenia (Just Satisfaction), Grand Chamber Judgment, March 12, 2014. Official source
4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia. “Society Integration in Latvia.” Official source
5. European Union and United Kingdom. Withdrawal Agreement, Citizens’ Rights Provisions. Official source
6. UK Home Office. EU Settlement Scheme: EU, Other EEA and Swiss Citizens and Their Family Members. Official source
7. Supreme Court of Canada. Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217. Official source
8. International Court of Justice. Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion, July 22, 2010. Official source
9. International Law Commission. Draft Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in Relation to the Succession of States, with Commentaries, 1999. Official source