ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a proposal for reforming the international legal response to self-determination issues. The suggestion is to isolate a limited right to unilateral secession understood as a remedial right only — to uncouple the unilateral right to the most extreme form of self-determination from the question of intrastate autonomy — and then proliferate the options for intrastate autonomy arrangements. It should be emphasized that Remedial Right Only Theories only concern the conditions under which there is a unilateral right to secede. From the perspective of institutional design that takes incentives seriously, there is much to be said for making the remedial grounds for international legal recognition of a group's right to autonomy somewhat less demanding than those for international recognition of a unilateral right to secede. There are some distinct and mutually compatible justifications for developing international legal support for intrastate autonomy for indigenous peoples.
