Dangerous Opportunity: Recognizing Somaliland – and New Realities

[Timothy William Waters is the Richard S. Melvin Professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, and author of Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World (Yale University Press, 2020). His new book on secession in the United States is tentatively titled Unmapping America: The Case for A New Declaration of Independence (The New Press, forthcoming 2027).]

Despite decades of de facto independence dating back to 1991, no country had ever recognized the East African breakaway state of Somaliland – until late December 2025, when Israel did.

Reaction was overwhelmingly negative. Somalia, the nominal sovereign, bitterly opposed Israel’s “flagrant assault” as a “threat to the security and stability of the world and the region,” as did Egypt, Djibouti, and Turkey. But the most common refrain condemned recognition as a “dangerous precedent,” language used by the African Union, Gulf Cooperation Council, Arab League, China, and others, including members of the UN Security Council at an emergency meeting. Recognition was apparently both a bad idea in itself and dangerous because of what it might trigger elsewhere – the precedent.

But if Somaliland doesn’t merit recognition, it’s hard to imagine what place would. And that’s a problem: Somaliland is simply the leading example of the costs the global order’s rigid rules of territorial integrity impose on viable states-in-waiting and their people. Yet in ways that are both terrifying and encouraging, that orthodoxy is starting to shift: Israel was an unlikely first mover, but also unlikely to be the last. That’s not just a precedent, it’s an opportunity.

Somaliland’s six million citizens live in one of the world’s most functional unrecognized states, “one of the more stable democracies in the Horn of Africa,” with active economic relations throughout the region. British Somaliland enjoyed five days’ independence in 1960 before merging with southern, Italian Somaliland to form Somalia. Union quickly soured, and by the 1980s Somalia was murderously repressing its northern populations. When Somalia itself collapsed, Somaliland reasserted independence. Since 1991 it has held most of the former colony and independent state’s territory. Its own passport, currency, flag, judiciary, and army, but, until last year, no foreign power had recognized it, even as some, like the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan, have actively engaged with it for years.

Given Israel’s current diplomatic isolation and controversial status within the Arab and Muslim world, one could imagine better first movers. But as with publicity, any recognition is valuable. Israel is a powerful regional actor. Recognition brings cooperation in “agriculture, health, technology, and economy” as well as intelligence sharing and training for security personnel. (And maybe other things: Israel and the US briefly sounded out Somaliland – and Somalia – about relocating Gaza’s Palestinians. Somaliland has denied this was part of the deal, but an Israeli military base may be.) Somaliland’s president Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as Irro, paid a state visit to Israel this June to open the state’s embassy.

Somaliland has tried to gain additional recognitions, so far without success. But Israel’s move may be a harbinger for the greatest prize: US recognition. Somaliland has been trying to leverage its strategic position on the Gulf of Aden to persuade Washington to support it. It held talks on defense cooperation with the Biden administration, but has made its strongest push with conservative institutions and Republican lawmakers concerned about Chinese influence in the Horn. The US has maintained military contacts in the region, and last year, there was speculation the US might trade recognition for a port and airstrip at Berbera. (Mogadishu countered, offering the US access to the same facilities under its aegis, though it doesn’t control them.) After Israel’s announcement President Trump said he wouldn’t recognize Somaliland, and the US has reaffirmed its support for Somalia’s territorial integrity. But Trump also said the question remained under study, and the response of the US mission to the UN was studiously neutral. It’s unlikely Israel would have proceeded if the US had strongly objected, and there’s a narrative that could sway the administration: Prime Minister Netanyahu linked Israeli recognition to the Abraham Accords, Trump’s effort to normalize ties between Israel and Muslim states.

All of this is best understood through the lens of geopolitics – port access, control of the approaches to the Red Sea, diplomatic positioning between America and China. But as a moral matter, Somaliland has as good a claim to independence as one could make, and there are also plausible arguments in existing international law that its independence could be recognized.

The most obvious way is through a claim of ‘dissolution,’ when a state ceases to function and its sovereignty and its people’s right of self-determination necessarily devolve onto some sub-unit or internal claimant. Around the time Somalia collapsed, Yugoslavia ‘dissolved,’ and ultimately seven states formed on its territory. Yet even in its death throes, Yugoslavia was a marvel of continuity and functionality compared to Somalia: For years, the US State Department listed Somalia’s government type as ‘none.’ Somalia’s government still barely functions outside Mogadishu, surviving on foreign support.

If one acknowledged – we might even say, took notice of – Somalia’s dissolution, Somaliland would be one of the logical successors. Applying the doctrine of uti possidetis juris, international law encourages the devolution of state sovereignty onto existing units. That’s what happened in Yugoslavia, where statehood and recognition was afforded to republics like Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia (and only later to the autonomous province of Kosovo). And as a former colony and (briefly) de jure independent state, Somaliland’s claim to be a self-determining unit with a right to independence is about as strong as one could make. The postwar interpretation of external self-determination as a right to be free of colonial or alien rule or foreign occupation is extraordinarily narrow, but might plausibly apply to Somaliland. (Even if one argued that that original right of self-determination had been ‘perfected’ in the Somali union, that wouldn’t be stand against a claim of dissolution; that same claim was made about the Yugoslav republics during the Communist era.)

There are other pathways. Before de facto independence, Somaliland was subjected to brutal repression by the central government, which might theoretically justify ‘remedial secession,’ a claim to independence in response to persecution or systematic exclusion from participation in internal governance. (It’s a controversial theory, and if applied in Somaliland, it could apply in many places.) Finally, Somaliland’s people have expressed overwhelming support for statehood, which under more expansive views of self-determination as a ‘right to decide’ could justify support for independence, or at least good-faith negotiations. 

Extending recognition to a separatist state could violate the non-intervention principle if it were created along racist lines (like white Rhodesia) or in violation of the UN Charter (like Republika Srpska or Northern Cyprus), or even if recognition were premature. But none of these apply to Somaliland: nothing in international law prohibits states from recognizing Somaliland.

Still, these reasons don’t matter in the face of reflexive support for territorial integrity and the fear of precedential contagion. The general arguments against recognition are well-rehearsed: States’ territorial integrity and political independence are protected in the UN Charter. Self-determination mandated decolonization, but definitely not the creation of new states on the territory of existing ones. Secession with the state’s agreement is possible, but not unilateral secession. And legal or not, other countries should not cavalierly recognize separatists: Recognition destabilizes regional relations and angers countries with separatists or revanchist neighbors. That’s the dangerous precedent: Whatever the merits of a particular claim, too much is at stake – the postwar architecture of territorial integrity, non-annexation, and limits on force could come crashing down.

These are tough arguments in the Horn of Africa. How exactly have the existing international rules preserved stability there? Has insisting on the fiction of Somalia’s statehood since the 1990s created stability? Nor is ‘territorial ‘integrity’ self-actuating: The US and Europe have invested enormously to prop up – create – ‘Somalia’ as a platform to fight against Islamic militants. Imagine if even a fraction of that investment had been spent bringing Somaliland into the community of states.

And contagion is exaggerated. Precedent is about consistency, a belief and demand that like cases be treated alike, but international legal rules don’t get applied lockstep. In fact, the best protection against contagion is the predictable inconsistency of diplomacy: Recognition is highly political, and doing it in one place doesn’t require it in another. When the US recognized Kosovo in 2008 – a move that wasn’t justified by the original interpretation of uti possidetis and which violated Serbia’s territorial integrity – it declared the decision sui generis, claiming special circumstances (like a UN administration) made Kosovo different. States could recognize Somaliland and insist it was unique, or discover particular circumstances (like dissolution or that brief period of independence or its colonial status) to inoculate against the spread of recognition.

Of course, states do talk in precedential terms. When Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, he claimed Kosovo as justification. But even that wouldn’t be a reason not to act in cases we think justified on their own terms: Few in our policy apparatus, Democrat or Republican, accept Putin’s argument or think America shouldn’t have recognized Kosovo because it later served as a dubious ‘precedent.’

And that’s the problem with precedent: It’s not really about the case in front of you, only the fear that it might affect other cases. Even if Somaliland’s independence is sensible and justifiable on its merits – an argument as good as Croatia’s was when its independence from Yugoslavia was recognized – we shouldn’t allow it because of what might happen elsewhere. ‘Slippery-slope’ arguments discourage us from doing things that are good in themselves – or in our interest (like if we want that military base on the Horn) – for fear of speculative, abstract consequences. But what if those consequences were actually worth supporting? Is secession – or recognition of breakaway states – really something to fear? 

We may find out, because the strongest argument against the existing rules is that they are already changing. Even before Israel’s move, cracks were showing in the wall of non-recognition. In 2024, Ethiopia signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Somaliland to lease Berbera in exchange for recognition. Ultimately, Ethiopia backed off, agreeing with Somalia to negotiate “under Somalia’s sovereignty.” Still, Ethiopia’s trial balloon show how far the African consensus has attenuated. Recent reports suggest Guinea-Bissau got close to defecting from the consensus too. And US recognition is clearly a possibility.

None of these states are acting out of principle, but for their own reasons, just as the many states protesting Israel’s decision have their own strategic interests. But this first break in the wall of non-recognition of one small nation is nonetheless a step towards rethinking and revivifying the ossified territorial norms that stifle our best hopes for human flourishing. That’s the dangerous precedent: creating space to recognize a truly robust principle of self-determination as the right to decide one’s own governance, with the hope of support from the broader world.

Something similar is happening in Papua New Guinea, where the government is slowly moving towards recognizing the results of a 2019 vote on the island of Bougainville that overwhelming favored independence; and haltingly, perhaps, on New Caledonia, where France has been in negotiations to increase the island’s autonomy and acknowledge its separate statehood (but not independence). Just such a claim is why Denmark recognized Greenlanders’ right to self-determination, which may prove the best defense they have against a revived American gunboat imperialism. In fact, all the other territorial crises in the world suggest why recognizing Somaliland isn’t the danger, but instead might be part of the path through. 

Many people who oppose Israel’s policies more generally will suppose that since Israel recognized Somaliland, recognition must be bad. But they might want to rethink that seemingly straight line: The fact that Israel moved first suggests an irony and a possibility, precisely because its recognition of Somaliland’s self-determination and sovereignty came even while it denies those same things for Palestinians.

I’m not suggesting a direct historical analogy. After all, who’s the state and who the seceder? (James Crawford once argued that Israel seceded from Mandatory Palestine, so is Israel ‘Somaliland’? But then what’s Palestine? Palestine is widely recognized but has no control of its own territory, so is it ‘Somalia’?) None of those: The point is not analogical precision but signs of a shift. Somalilanders are a group of humans wishing to form their own state and not be ruled by the neighbors; on that reading, the roles are easy enough to understand. So, what if Israel’s recognition contributes to a new consensus about peoples’ right to govern themselves?

It’s hard to see past doctrines to opportunities. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas also condemned recognition of Somaliland; they too reflexively upheld the existing, narrow reading of the existing territorial order of which they are, doctrinally, notional beneficiaries. But has that order benefited Palestinians? Their ‘state’ is recognized by most of the world even as they huddle on the shore of the sea. What if, someday, renewed commitment to self-determination – as a right to govern the place one lives – helped them claim what Israel has so long denied? 

That probably won’t happen. Diplomacy isn’t a game with consistent rules and law isn’t consistent in application – ask anyone in Ukraine, Venezuela, or Iran, or yes, Palestine. That’s exactly why recognizing Somaliland won’t bring a precedential deluge. But rules aren’t totally irrelevant: They shape how we think and act – cynically, sincerely, positionally. They matter, on the margins. Enough, perhaps, to seize the opportunity to change them when it comes.