There can be no right to secession. While this may be prudent advice in a particular context, theoretically Higgins is leaving out a systematic, historical dimension to the problem. Raymond Aron explains this convincingly. The language of self-determination is in flagrant contradiction with a traditional international law which occupied itself with concepts of property and sovereignty. Quarrels between states and within states are about the attachment of particular populations to particular states rather than to others, and about the desire of populations to form new states.
History offers few examples of peaceful disintegration of states or empires.
The origin of states is like the origin of constitutions. One forgets that the origin of collectivities lies in force. In so far as international law has been understood as a law among states there is a sea-change in political meaning which international lawyers have to confront. Now it is recognized that the exercise of naming - of which legal naming, the acceptance of obligation, is merely a part is directly related to language and the history of the nation. It is no longer a matter that mysterious sovereigns, detached and separate from society, call determine meanings by legal fiat, by using words to reflect their exclusive monopoly of physical power and capacity to coerce.