This paper by Allen Buchanan is the beginning of an exchange we will follow through this week. On Wed. we will discuss a critique of it by Chris Naticchia, and Fri. we will discuss Buchanan’s response to Naticchia. We will not have time to discuss the whole of any of the three papers, so I’ve assigned selections that focus on the parts most important for the exchange.
• Section I focuses on the part of international law that will be the subject of this weeks exchange. This the criteria of statehood, what Buchanan will speak of as “recognitional legitimacy.” He consideres these partly as they are stated in the Montevideo Convention of 1933 (strictly speaking only a treaty among states in the Americas but serving as a principle for international law more broadly) but also with attention to more recent developments. You should think of cases where issues of legitimate statehood have arisen. Although Buchanan will cite some, still others have occurred in the dozen years since he published this paper.
• Sections II-III concern the moral justification of criteria for recognitional legitimacy. The sort of justification Buchanan offers is centered on an idea of minimal justice as a criterion for recognition. The bulk of §III (pp. 52-60) is devoted to discussing the first part of this, internal justice, with two further criteria appearing at the end of the section. Pay particular attention to the limitation of the criteria to minimal justice, for this will play a role in Nattichia’s criticisms.