the other former Yugoslav republics. Only the Russian Federation exceptionally inherited the rights and obligations of the dissolved USSR, in particular its permanent seat in the Security Council. This was due to a special agreement reached among all of the constituent states of the former Soviet Union. The agreement reflected a sense that dominant Russia should inherit the special position in the UN Security Council and the desire to ensure that Moscow alone should emerge as a nuclear power from the dissolution of the union. Scotland position in the United Kingdom is based in the Act of Union of 1706-7. However, Britain is no state-union. It is a unitary state. Even if devolution had rendered it a federal-type state, its continuous legal identity would not be put into question should only one of its constituent units, Scotland, leave. Even under this theory, rather like Russia in relation to the USSR, the South would be accepted as the universal heir, leaving Edinburgh to fend for itself outside of the Union. This leaves the third possibility of secession. This doctrine applied to the recent departures of Eritrea from Ethiopia, Southen Sudan from Sudan, and Kosovo from Serbia, and it would also apply to Scotland. The mother country continues the legal personality of the state, while the seceding entity has to apply anew for membership in international organizations The EU accession process is complex. The Eastern European candidate states had to demonstrate compliance with what are now 35 hefty chapters of the aquis