# Is it customary to hold off recognition of a state that seceded from another country through a referendum?

> WASHINGTON -- Even if Quebec voters had said "Oui" to independence in 1995, the United States wasn't going to say "Yes" to immediately recognizing the new country or including it in the North American Free Trade Agreement.
> 
> Newly released documents reveal that the U.S. government would have held back recognition of an independent Quebec in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 30, 1995, sovereignty referendum.

Is it customary to hold off recognition of a state that seceded from another country through a referendum? The article mentions that the United States would have held off recognition of Quebec if it managed to win the referendum. I am wondering if it's customary for countries to hold off recognition and if not how often that tend to happen.

Generally speaking, a state will only recognize a new state after the new state has established stable and legitimate sovereignty over its declared territory. The issue is that any new state usually takes territory that is owned, claimed, or protected by an established state. Established states generally frown on this, seeing the purported creation of new states as invasions or rebellions, and usually respond with counterinsurgency actions or outright warfare against the new state. Third-party states recognizing the new state _as_ a state is generally seen as interference with the sovereignty of the established state whose territory is being claimed.

In concrete terms, the US would not have recognize Quebec independence until it was clear that Canada was not going to quell the independence movement internally. Such recognition might have involved the US in what Canada considered an internal rebellion, which might have led to a US-Canada war. Had the referendum passed, and been approved by the Canadian parliament to formally give Quebec independence (with or without bloodshed), then the US would likely have had no problem recognizing Quebec.

**Depends on the specifics.**

Regions usually do not **gain** independence through a referendum. Either the central government **agrees** to a referendum and promises to **grant** independence if the outcome calls for it, or the referendum is really only a self-selected opinion poll. The (failed) Scottish independence referendum is a good example. It was based on an agreement with the UK, not an unilateral act by Scotland. The Catalan independence referendum, on the other hand, was not accepted by the Spanish government.  
Independence can also be imposed by military force, either internal or external. That would probably make it more likely by the nations supporting the winner to recognize the new state, and by the nations opposing it to hold out.

The interational reaction will also depend on the twin principles of national self-determination and national integrity. Is the group calling for independence a genuine nation? This will be judged on historical, economic, political, and emotional grounds, in a complex hard to predict mixture.

Consider, for instance, the split of Czechoslovakia into Czechia and Slovakia. Diplomatically, not much drama. It appeared to outsiders that the Czechs and Slovaks would both accept it because they could see no way to continue their union, no bad precedents would be set.

Compare the split of Yugoslavia, where various other nations hesitated for various reasons to accept it. Russia was traditionally allied with the Serbs and wanted to protect them. Greece was worried about a new state of Macedonia claiming the _Greek_ province with the same name, etc.