Statehood expert Rebecca Richards on the benefits of being recognised as a state.
(Image: Independence Day in Somaliland. Credit: Mohamed Abdiwahab /Getty Images.)
Who Gets to Have Their Own Country?
(Part III of this podcast is on Somaliland. Professor Rebecca Richards, a lecturer on Internation Relations, translates her expert perception of a country she fell in love with – the Republic of Somaliland – into power-packed words that make a credible pitch for its recognition. 12:00′ – onwards)
You might think simple rules decide the creation of nation states. You’d be wrong.
There are plenty of people out there who want their own state – like in Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia, which both have independence referendums coming up. Yet the national governments in Baghdad and Madrid say the votes – whatever their outcome – won’t result in new countries.
So how do you start a new country? Making sense of an atlas dotted with exceptions, special cases and lands in limbo, we ask: who gets to have their own country?
(Photo: Young boy holds a pro-Independence Catalan flag (Senyera) during Catalonia National Day. Credit: Quique Garcia/Getty Images)
