After 35 years of peace, elections and defined borders, Somaliland meets every legal criterion for statehood — yet global politics keeps recognition out of reach. International law expert James Joseph examines why Somaliland meets the Montevideo criteria for statehood and the world can no longer ignore
HARGEISA — In an era when statehood is frequently contested amid conflict and fragility, the Republic of Somaliland presents what legal scholars increasingly describe as an anomaly: a self-governing polity that has maintained peace, built functioning democratic institutions and cultivated foreign partnerships for more than three decades — all without broad international recognition.
“For over three decades,” writes James Joseph, director of the UK-based consultancy The Deputy Legacy, “Somaliland has maintained peace, built robust institutions and pursued pragmatic diplomacy — all without widespread international recognition.”
The December 2025 recognition by Israel, he argues, “validates Somaliland’s de facto independence and invites the international community to align diplomatic practices with empirical realities and established doctrines of international law.”
A Restoration, Not a Secession
Somaliland’s leaders reject the idea that their claim is rooted in modern separatism. Instead, they frame it as a restoration of sovereignty that traces back to the former British Somaliland Protectorate.
On June 26, 1960, the territory briefly achieved independence before voluntarily entering into union with the former Italian Somaliland to form the Somali Republic.
That union, advocates contend, was never fully ratified and ultimately collapsed amid repression under the dictatorship of Siad Barre. During the 1980s, northern communities endured aerial bombardments and mass atrocities that many scholars and rights groups have characterized as genocidal.
When the central government in Mogadishu disintegrated in 1991, Somaliland’s clan elders and political leaders convened reconciliation conferences and declared the restoration of independence within the same borders recognized in 1960. The legal doctrine of uti possidetis juris — which holds that post-colonial states should retain their inherited administrative boundaries — underpins this claim.
An African Union fact-finding mission once observed that “the fact that the union between Somaliland and Somalia was never ratified and also malfunctioned when it went into action from 1960 to 1990, makes Somaliland’s search for recognition historically unique and self-justified in African political history.”
Joseph argues that Somaliland “does not seek to alter borders or secede from a functioning state; it seeks only to reassert a pre-existing sovereignty following the effective dissolution of a voluntary union” — a scenario he compares to Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965 or the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993.
Meeting the Montevideo Test
At the heart of the debate lies the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, which sets out four criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
“Somaliland unequivocally satisfies these,” Joseph writes.
With an estimated population of roughly 6 million, defined territorial boundaries corresponding to the former protectorate, and functioning state institutions, Somaliland operates with its own currency, passport and security forces. It maintains representative offices abroad and negotiates agreements independently.
Benjamin R. Farley, in his 2010 Emory International Law Review article “Calling a State a State: Somaliland and International Recognition,” concluded that Somaliland meets the Montevideo criteria “despite lacking formal recognition,” underscoring the tension between legal doctrine and geopolitical reality.
The debate often turns on two competing theories. Under the declaratory theory, statehood is an objective fact if Montevideo criteria are met; recognition merely acknowledges that reality. Under the constitutive theory, statehood depends on recognition by other states.
“In practice,” Joseph notes, “the international system blends these theories; lawyers recite the neutral Montevideo criteria while governments quietly ask who their allies are and what vetoes might be cast in New York.”
A Democratic Outlier in the Horn
Somaliland’s political trajectory sets it apart in a region frequently marked by instability. Since 2001, it has held eight multi-party national elections. On Nov. 13, 2024, opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi of the Waddani party defeated incumbent Muse Bihi Abdi in a peaceful transfer of power — the third in its history.
Outgoing President Bihi conceded promptly. Observers praised the orderly and transparent transition.
Somaliland’s hybrid governance model combines a directly elected House of Representatives with a council of elders known as the Guurti, which mediates clan interests using customary law. Voter turnout frequently exceeds 80 percent, and civil society organizations — including women’s advocacy groups and independent media — remain active.
“In a continent where many elections are marred by fraud or suppression,” Joseph writes, “Somaliland’s record exemplifies democratic consolidation.”
Strategic Stakes on the Red Sea
Recognition debates are not confined to legal theory. They intersect with geopolitics in one of the world’s most strategic corridors: the Red Sea.
The port city of Berbera has grown in importance as a logistics and security hub. In 2024, Somaliland signed a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopia granting port access in exchange for cooperation — a deal that reverberated across the Horn of Africa.
Since 2020, Somaliland has also maintained mutual representative ties with Taiwan, deepening collaboration in health, education and technology.
Israel’s December 2025 recognition, driven in part by shared security interests along the Red Sea, marked the first such step by a United Nations member state. Proponents say the move has already yielded economic dividends through increased trade and investment interest.
Critics, including Somalia’s federal government, warn that recognition risks destabilizing fragile regional dynamics. But Joseph counters that withholding recognition may carry its own costs.
“The African Union’s caution against secession ironically supports Somaliland,” he argues. “Recognition would uphold colonial borders while rewarding a stable democracy. Withholding it risks incentivising instability elsewhere.”
Precedents and Parallels
Somaliland’s advocates cite cases such as Eritrea’s independence in 1993 and South Sudan’s in 2011, as well as Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence — later deemed not to violate international law by the International Court of Justice.
They maintain that Somaliland’s situation is arguably stronger: no ongoing territorial conquest, adherence to colonial boundaries and a record of internal democratic legitimacy affirmed by a 2001 constitutional referendum in which 97 percent reportedly endorsed independence.
International law scholars often point to the 1948 ICJ advisory opinion on Conditions of Admission, which suggests that collective non-recognition cannot nullify an entity’s factual statehood where effective governance persists.
A Question of Political Will
Ultimately, the question may be less about doctrine than about political will.
“Recognition is declaratory rather than constitutive,” Joseph argues. “It acknowledges an existing factual situation rather than conferring statehood ex nihilo.”
After 35 years of self-governance, peaceful transfers of power and relative stability in a volatile region, Somaliland’s leaders believe the empirical case has been made. What remains is whether major powers — and regional bodies such as the African Union — are prepared to translate legal reasoning into diplomatic action.
“The world should act accordingly,” Joseph concludes, “recognising an independent state of Somaliland.”
James Joseph is a director of UK-based 
