The Problem of De Facto States in International Relations in Africa

The issue of unrecognised states / de facto states in international relations has been the subject of intense scholarly debate for many years. In Africa, the formation of the first unrecognised states has to do with colonial legacy and subsequent decolonisation, which kept the newly formed African states within the artificial boundaries established on the continent by European colonisers. Another period in which unrecognised states appear in greater numbers is linked to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the communist federations of the USSR and Yugoslavia. A number of internal conflicts occurred in Africa during this period. A consequence of this political situation was the state disintegration of Somalia and the declaration of secession by Somaliland within the borders of the former British colony. Paradoxically, both presently existing unrecognised states on the African continent, Western Sahara and Somaliland, aspire to operate as independent entities within colonial borders (Kłosowicz 2017, pp. 175-176). Western Sahara seeks to assert its claim as the successor to Sáhara Español, while Somaliland aims to establish sovereignty within the confines of the former British Somaliland Protectorate.

Lack of external sovereignty does not necessarily mean that there is no chance for unrecognised states to function in international space, and actors such as Somaliland and Western Sahara, for example, seek to carve out a niche for themselves in an international system based on external sovereignty. Indeed, the international system is still largely based on a clear division between sovereign states and non-sovereign actors. In international relations theory, sovereignty has traditionally been seen as the ability to exercise political authority over a defined territory and population independently of other actors. State sovereignty is seen to include independence in both internal and external affairs. With the exception of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the world order as we know it today consists of states that are internationally recognised and control territories clearly delimited by internationally agreed boundaries. Thus, the problem of unrecognised states is treated as an anomaly, which does not fit the prevailing model for the academic study of this issue for the perspective of political science and international relations. However, the media report on the problems of unrecognised states almost every day, whether in the context of Somaliland, Western Sahara, Nagorno-Karabakh, Taiwan, or Northern Cyprus. It is also important to note that the problems of unrecognised states translate into concrete issues for neighbouring states, entire regions and even the world order in international relations. This confronts the international community with the problem of how to address the issue of unrecognised states, which pose a challenge not only in terms of security, but also international law, with their emergence undermining the territorial integrity of another state and challenging the established international order. The process of the formation of unrecognised states can be spontaneous – due to a region’s desire to become independent through secession, or externally inspired.

For the most part, these are territories that have often achieved de facto independence (not always through armed conflict) but have failed to gain international recognition as independent states. Despite their challenge to the principle of territorial integrity, unrecognised states do not seek to undermine the system of sovereign states or create alternative forms of statehood. Rather, de facto states seek a place in a system that does not, in principle, accept them as members of the international community. Consequently, there is no formally recognised mechanism by which an unrecognised entity can legally make the transition to a ‘recognised’ state, as such a mechanism would logically require states to establish consent to rules that could have the effect of undermining their own territorial integrity (Walker 1998; Rutland 2007).

Unrecognised states are in many ways “places that do not exist”, absent from maps, although in reality they function, for example, in media reports – not only on the occasion of spectacular events. Somaliland may serve as such an example of a state that is not a marked entity on maps, yet in the popular media and in political circles, it functions as a functioning entity in the Horn of Africa.

Unrecognised states, especially those on the “periphery”, sometimes fall into oblivion until the situation in their area escalates, which catches the attention of the international community and the media. Such an example is the outbreak of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, which lasted from late September to early November 2020 (Second Nagorno-Karabakh War), followed by the blockade of the Lachin corridor, which has continued uninterrupted since 12 December 2022 and is causing a humanitarian crisis in the Nagorno-Karabakh area. Other examples include the riots and armed clashes between the Moroccan army and the POLISARIO Front on the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara, which is under Moroccan occupation, taking place from mid-November 2020 to the present day (mid-2023), or the internal unrest and armed fighting in Somaliland over Laascaanood and the Sool region in the first half of 2023. These are just three recent high-profile examples of how situations involving unrecognised states can escalate rapidly. In addition, most reports on unrecognised states tend to view them precisely through the prism of threats to international security and link them to the problem of dysfunctional or even failing states. Here, the example of Somaliland is typical, as this entity emerged after the breakdown of Somalia’s state structures. Other unrecognised entities, on the other hand, are sometimes seen as puppets of the larger powers that use them to increase and consolidate their regional influence (Transnistria, Abkhazia, and Ossetia) (Lynch 2002).

What then is an unrecognised state and how does it differ from other anomalies in the international system? Unrecognised states have often been classified as dysfunctional entities, formed as a result of the dysfunctionality or disintegration of larger states from which they have emerged as a result of secessions caused by aspirations for independence or deep internal crisis. However, as Nina Caspersen (2012) notes, they cannot be qualified as “shadow states” (Reno 1999), “black spots” (Stanislawski 2008) or “insurgent states” (McColl 1969). Some unrecognised states such as Somaliland control all the territory they claim and within which they have managed to build state institutions. In other words, they have reached a level of statehood based on a degree of de facto internal sovereignty (Caspersen 2012, p. 15). Moreover, unrecognised states demonstrate a clear desire for full independence and want to become part of the world of sovereign states (Stanislawski 2008). This latter factor also distinguishes them from autonomous regions. The unrecognised states are not satisfied with their current status, which, moreover, is threatened by the fact that their internal sovereignty is not accepted de jure, either by what can be referred to as the “mother state” from which they have separated or by the international community.

A large part of this publication is devoted to the issue of Western Sahara, which is a special case of an unrecognised state on the African continent. The case of Western Sahara shows that defining unrecognised states in terms of their de facto independence, their attempts at institution-building, their aspirations for de jure independence and their lack of international recognition leaves researchers with a number of borderline cases. Some authors, such as Nina Caspersen and Gareth Stansfield (2012) or Deon Geldenhuys (2009) do not include Western Sahara (the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR) and Palestine as de facto states, stating that while these entities are more widely recognised than most unrecognised states, they do not meet one of the basic criteria of control of territory. According to Caspersen, an unrecognised state should control at least two-thirds of the territory to which it claims rights, including key regions and major urban centres. Meanwhile, the SADR controls only 20 per cent of the territory it claims, while the rest is under Moroccan control, including the capital and all major urban centres. Although Western Sahara is recognised by 47 states (as of end-2022), in the past the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was recognised by 84 UN member states, but, of these, 36 have since “frozen” or “withdrawn” recognition and one of the states has ceased to exist (Yugoslavia) (USC: “SADR Recognition”, Web). Thus, according to Caspersen (2012), it does not meet the criteria of an unrecognised state. Nonetheless, it remains an open question whether the case of Western Sahara can be considered a typical example of an unrecognised state according to the criteria cited earlier. The majority of instances of unrecognised states in Africa arose through secession when they broke away from the mother state, as was the case with Eritrea, South Sudan,¹ Somaliland or – historically – Katanga and Biafra. However, these seem to be very different situations from the case of Western Sahara, which was not part of Morocco but instead a Spanish colony at the time of decolonisation and, in accordance with the right to self-determination of peoples and the principle of uti possidetis that has guided decolonisation processes on the African continent since 1964, declared independence within its colonial borders. The territory of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco against the will of the Sahrawi people, and certainly without consulting them, so none of the examples cited fit its case. The trouble of how to qualify the case of Western Sahara disrupts concepts and theories trying to sort out the issue of unrecognised states. Western Sahara’s problem lies mainly in the fact that, although it had the right to exist as an independent international entity, it was never provided the possibility to do so. The current authorities of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and the administration managing the Sahrawi refugee camps are in exile, in an area belonging to Algeria in the province of Tindouf. Significantly, the SADR is a member of the African Union and maintains several official diplomatic missions worldwide. The Sahrawis themselves do not wish to be defined as an unrecognised state under occupation, similar to the approach taken by the Palestinians. Thus, it is by no means a coincidence that the case of Western Sahara is often referred to in the literature as unfinished decolonisation (Kosidło 2012; Shelley 2004).