Declaration of independence
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- This article is about declarations of independence in general. For the U.S. Declaration, see United States Declaration of Independence.
A declaration of independence is a proclamation of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such states are usually formed from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the parent state.
Declarations of independence are typically made without the consent of the parent state, and hence are sometimes called unilateral declarations of independence (UDI), particularly by those who question the validity of the declarations.
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[edit] Overview
In international politics, unilateral declarations of independence are generally frowned upon, since preservation of territory is one of the few things that most countries of the world agree upon. In international law, there are multiple schools of thought regarding the creation of statehood. One of these, the declarative theory of statehood holds that a self-declared state that meets certain minimum criteria is indeed a state, even if not recognized by any other nation. Conversely, the constitutive theory of statehood holds a self-declared state is not truly a state until it receives at least a minimal level of acknowledgement (but not formal recognition) by existing states.
Declaring independence or supporting such a declaration is seen as a hostile act that may easily lead to war. Money is often an important factor when one state attempts to succeed another, with control of important resources such as ports, oil fields or strategic towns or geographic features leading to dispute. If a government has extremely large debts to other organizations, there may be international pressure for these debts to be taken over by successor governments, even if the original governmental organization is disbanded.
Many states have come into being through a Declaration of Independence. The legality of a Declaration of Independence is often the subject of debate and unsurprisingly the previous government typically asserts that a Declaration of Independence is illegal.
[edit] List of Declarations of Independence
- Declaration of Arbroath (Scotland, 1320) - The first known formal declaration of independence, in which Scotish leaders declared Scotland's independence from England on behalf of the Scottish people.
- Oath of Abjuration (Low Countries, 1581) - The Plakkaat van Verlatinghe was the formal declaration of independence on July 26, 1581 of the northern Low Countries from Philip II of Spain.
- Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (May 20, 1775 in North Carolina) - Declared Mecklenburg County, North Carolina independent of Great Britain a year before the US Declaration of Independence.
- United States Declaration of Independence (November 2, 1776) - Made by thirteen of Great Britain's North American colonies. In 1778, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed by the United States and France signaling the first official recognition of the new country. The Kingdom of Great Britain formally recognized the new country in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
- Haitian Act of Independence (1804) On January 1, 1804, Jean Jacques Dessalines declared Haïti a free republic and joined the United States as the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere.
- Brazilian Declaration of Independence (1822) - Brazil was declared independent from Portugal on September 7 by then regent Pedro de Bragança e Bourbon, who was then crowned Emperor Peter I of Brazil.
- Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand (1835) - This was a declaration of the independence of the Māori tribes.
- Texan Declaration of Independence (1836) - Texas declared its independence from Mexico as the Republic of Texas.
- Dominican Declaration of Independence (1844) Dominican Republic declared independence from Haiti, its neighbor on the island of Hispaniola. The date traditionally named the Dominican Republic's independence day is February 27, 1844
- Hungarian Declaration of Independence (1849) - Hungary declared independence from the Austrian Empire and deposed the Habsburg dynasty on April 14, 1849. The Hungarian Revolution was later suppressed with Russian help and the country gained full independence only after World War I on November 16, 1918.
- Philippine Declaration of Independence (1898) - The Philippines was declared independent from Spain by Emilio Aguinaldo on June 12, 1898 when the Spanish-American War was still under way. However, neither Spain nor the United States recognized the declaration. Official Philippine independence was finally granted by the American Congress on July 4, 1946 after 48 years of United States colonial rule.
- Easter Proclamation (Ireland, 1916) - During the Easter Rising in Dublin Irish rebels proclaimed, on behalf of the Irish people, the establishment of an independent Irish republic. Unlike the later Declaration of Independence of 1919, the Proclamation of the Republic was not issued by an elected body and was not followed by the establishment of any de facto political institutions.
- Finland's declaration of independence (1917) - Finland declared its independence from Russia shortly after the October Revolution, on 6th December.
- Council of Lithuania (1918) - On February 16, 1918 the council signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania and declared Lithuania an independent state based on democratic principles. The council also managed to establish the proclaimed independence even though German troops were present in the country till the fall of 1918. The council continued its work until the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Steigiamasis Seimas) first met on May 15, 1920.
- Irish Declaration of Independence (1919) - The Irish Republic, encompassing the whole island of Ireland, was declared by Dáil Éireann (a revolutionary parliament setup by the vast majority of elected representatives of Ireland) in 1919. By the declaration the Dáil ratified the earlier Easter Proclamation. The new Irish Republic was recognized by no country except the Russian SFSR and was rivaled by the administration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War. It was superseded by the Irish Free State in 1922.
- Korean Declaration of Independence (1919) - Korea declared independence from Japan on March 1, 1919. Japanese government brutally cracked down the independence movement. Leaders of the movement fled to Shanghai of China and founded Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
- Icelandic Declaration of Independence (1944) - Iceland declared its independence from Denmark, following a plebiscite of the local population, on June 17, 1944. The Danish King Christian X, whose country was under Nazi occupation at the time, had urged Iceland to wait until the end of the war before making any such move but otherwise did nothing to prevent it (and was unable to do so in any case as Iceland was under U.S. military occupation).
- Indonesian Declaration of Independence (1945) - Indonesia declared independence from the Netherlands on August 17, 1945. Its independence was soon recognized by the United States and Australia, but not by the Netherlands until 1949.
- Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam (1945) - proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi on September 2, 1945
- Indian Declaration of Independence (1947) - India declared independence from the United Kingdom on August 15th 1947.
- Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (1948) - The declaration was made on May 14, 1948 (the day in which the British Mandate over Palestine expired) by the Jewish People's Council.
- Katangan Declaration of Independence (1960) - Katanga, a former a province of the Belgian Congo, attempted to secede by means of a Declaration of Independence in 1960, when Congo was granted its independence. The attempted secession was ended by the implementation of the United Nations supervised National Conciliation Plan in January, 1963.
- Rhodesian Declaration of Independence (1965) - Ian Smith's white minority government declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. Few states accepted this declaration's legitimacy. The UDI Rhodesian state was ultimately replaced under the Lancaster House Agreement by a restored British regime under a governor: Lord Soames. Within a short time, a new, much more widely recognized independent state, Zimbabwe, came into existence.
- Declaration of Independence of Bangladesh (1971) - Bangladesh (East Pakistan) declared independence from the Pakistan in 1971. Pakistan sent its military and brutally killed liberation fighters (Mukti Bahini). India supported the Mukti Bahini who fought against West Pakistan's military for nine months and this eventually led to the 1971 Indo-Pak War, a result of which, Bangladesh gained independence and was recognised as a country by the world within a year.
- Declaration of Independence of Guinea-Bissau (1973) - Guinea-Bissau, formerly Portuguese Guinea, declared independence from Portugal in 1973. The declaration was recognized by many countries. Portugal formally granted independence in 1974.
- East Timorese Declaration of Independence (1975) - East Timor, formerly Portuguese Timor, declared independence from Portugal on November 28. The declaration was recognized by several Communist (Marxist-Leninist) and Third World nations, including the People's Republic of China, but not by neighboring Australia, Portugal or Indonesia. Indonesia invaded on December 7, 1975, and annexed East Timor as its 'twenty-seventh province' on July 17, 1976.
- Declaration of Independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (1983) - The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in northern Cyprus in 1983. The area had been occupied by Turkish forces since a Turkish invasion in 1974. The state has only received international recognition from Turkey and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan.
- South Africa On adopting the 1996 constitution[1][2], the government of South Africa declared that people of South Africa did not have to ask the Westminster Parliament to pass legislation to make the new constitution legal [3][4]. See also Constitutional Court of South Africa and Statute of Westminster 1931 .
- Palestinian Declaration of Independence (1988) - The Palestinian Liberation Organization proclaimed the State of Palestine in 1988. The PLO had no control of any territory at the time and a de facto state has yet to come into existence.
- Somaliland Declaration of Independence (1991) - With Somalia sliding down into total anarchy, the former colony of British Somaliland, which became a constituent state of the newly independent Somalia in 1960, reasserted its independence. Despite the non-recognition of Somaliland by the international community, Somaliland has enjoyed stability and economic growth.
- Declaration of Independence for the Southern Cameroons (1999) - broadcast over regional radio in the early hours of 31 December 1999
- Recent self-declared states include: Chechnya, Puntland, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transnistria.
[edit] Independence without a Declaration of Independence
In many cases, independence is achieved without a declaration of independence but instead occurs by bilateral agreement. An example of this is the independence of many components of the British Empire, most parts of which achieved independence through negotiation with the United Kingdom government. Australia and Canada, for example, achieved full independence through a series of acts of the respective national parliaments of the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
One notable example of self-government in the absence of a formal declaration of independence is Taiwan, which is administered by the Republic of China (ROC). The People's Republic of China (PRC) has stated that a formal declaration that Taiwan is independent of China would be one of the conditions under which they would use force against Taiwan.
The political status of Taiwan remains controversial; the position of many advocates of Taiwanese independence has been that since Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC, and the governing institutions of the ROC function as an independent and sovereign state and there is no need to formally declare Taiwan to be independent. However, opponents of Taiwanese independence and supporters of Chinese reunification on Taiwan, also see no point in a declaration of independence in that they argue that Taiwan is and should be part of a greater cultural entity known as China, and a new proposed "Republic of Taiwan" would only bring about a change in name at the cost of an invasion of Taiwan, which it could not afford.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study on the History of Political Ideas (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1922). online edition
- Shi, David E and George Brown Tindall. America: A Narrative History (Sixth Edition). New York: W.W Norton & Company, Inc. 1984. 2004.
