ABSTRACT
The term 'secession' is used to refer to the process of secession, to a stage or stages in this process prior to the completion of the process and to the completion of this process. Secession is the creation of a new state by the withdrawal of a territory and its population where that territory was previously part of an existing state. A territory can be transferred from one state to another, usually to a neighbouring state. In the process of transfer of powers to the new institutions and office-holders, the seceded state gets, most importantly, a new name to assert its status as a state and to distinguish it from its previous status as a non-state territory. Thus the thirteen British colonies in America were, in 1776, named the 'United States of America'. In 1991 the Socialist Republic of Slovenia became the Republic of Slovenia, shedding its status of a federal unit in the Yugoslav federation.
