Edmarverson A. Santos's Is Somaliland a Country? is a confused account of Somaliland's recognition case. He acknowledges strong arguments he can't refute, then waters them down in the background while weaker objections occupy the foreground. The resulting confusion has a political effect: a movement gaining momentum is recast as a cause whose legitimacy must remain permanently in question. Somaliland's opponents gain a cheap narrative of doubt without having defeated the case for recognition.
I am not an international law expert. For the legal discussion, I lean on established scholarly work, including peer-reviewed research. The political arguments and recommendations are my own.
The Legal Rebuttal
Somaliland achieved legal independence on 26 June 1960. On 1 July, Somaliland went into a de facto union with the State of Somalia, which had formerly been administered by Italy. Our state continuity case holds that conflicting union instruments and retrospective legislation never extinguished Somaliland's legal sovereignty.
America's original message acknowledged Somaliland's legal independence. My earlier discussion of recognition and sovereign choice examines Herter's congratulatory message of 26 June 1960. The claim that Washington withheld formal recognition appears in a FRUS editorial note, published in 1992. The note attributes that decision to an Operations Coordinating Board report dated 13 July 1960, which it cites without reproducing. The original message and that later editorial account must be distinguished. Neither classification erases Somaliland's legal independence or establishes the validity of the attempted union. Washington's recognition of Djibouti through a congratulatory message in 1977 also shows why the message's format alone cannot settle its legal significance.
The 13 July report is a moot point on Somaliland's prior statehood. It postdates the five days from 26 to 30 June 1960 when Somaliland exercised both legal and physical sovereignty. London and Washington were by then proceeding on the basis that union had taken place on 1 July. Yet on 25 July, Britain's Foreign Secretary acknowledged uncertainty over how far the Act of Union had been consummated. Diplomatic assumptions after those five days cannot retroactively erase Somaliland's legal sovereignty or prove that the union was lawfully completed.
Belittling Somaliland's legal independence on 26 June undermines the very claim of an Act of Union. The 1960 Union Law's preamble expressly identifies both states and their respective independence dates before proposing their union. The claimed interstate union presupposes two legally independent, sovereign countries capable of consenting to it. It is ridiculous to invoke a union of two states while belittling the legal statehood of one of them.
Union was a choice for Somalilanders, not a destiny assigned by the world. Washington's NSC 5903 policy, dated 4 February 1959, contemplated French Somaliland, now Djibouti, joining a "Greater Somaliland" only if this was "acceptable to the peoples concerned" and compatible with US security interests. This was conditional acceptance of a popular choice, not an international instruction to become part of Somalia. The same principle applies to Somaliland. Seeking union was an exercise of sovereign choice; it did not by itself extinguish legal sovereignty. Treating that choice as legally exhausted requires establishing the valid mutual act that completed the union. International expectations cannot substitute for that act or transfer Somalilanders' political future to Mogadishu.
American recognition practice also answers the claim that a political union must be irreversible. Syria withdrew from its union with Egypt on 28 September 1961; Washington recognised Syria on 10 October. Recognition of the United Arab Republic in 1958 did not permanently bar recognition of Syria's restored statehood. Washington's expectation of union in Somaliland's case likewise supplies no permanent prohibition on recognition today.
Santos's strongest objection is that subsequent conduct consolidated one state. The Baltic states show why time and administration alone do not settle legal continuity. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania endured five decades of Soviet rule yet restored independence in 1991. Lauri Mälksoo's study of Baltic state continuity examines that outcome against the background of unlawful annexation and continuing nonrecognition. The US maintained its nonrecognition policy. Ex injuria jus non oritur means that unlawful acts do not create legal rights. Repeating Somalia's claim for decades cannot legalise an unlawful incorporation.
Somaliland's leaders initially pursued union; consent to its final legal terms remained a separate question. In the 1961 constitutional referendum, the constitution passed across the republic but was rejected by a majority of votes cast in Somaliland. The 1969 military coup and the later genocide cannot be counted as acts of ratification. Opponents must show how lawful mutual assent extinguished Somaliland's legal sovereignty, not merely how long Mogadishu governed it.
The 1964 OAU principle supports Somaliland's case. Its decisive words are "borders existing on their achievement of national independence". Somaliland achieved legal independence on 26 June 1960, within the borders of the former British protectorate. The reference point is legal independence, not Africa's political map in 1964. Restoring that frontier respects inherited borders rather than redrawing them along ethnic or clan lines.
Somaliland had achieved legal independence almost three years before the OAU was founded on 25 May 1963. Nothing in the 1964 resolution retroactively extinguished that legal independence or completed the attempted union. Anyone claiming that the 1960 arrangement lawfully extinguished Somaliland's statehood must establish that separately. Ironically, the International Law Commission records Somalia's own reservations to the Cairo resolution. Invoking that principle against Somaliland while ignoring its legal independence date turns it upside down.
Somaliland possessed territorial integrity as a legally independent state before Somalia did. Somaliland achieved legal independence on 26 June 1960; the State of Somalia became independent on 1 July. The ICJ's Kosovo opinion, paragraph 80, places territorial integrity in relations between states. Somalia must establish how Somaliland's prior legal sovereignty and territorial integrity were lawfully extinguished. Invoking Somalia's own territorial integrity cannot answer that question.
The positive case concerns population, territory, government and independence. Somaliland administers a substantial territorial core, survives leadership changes and conducts external relations without delegated authority from Mogadishu. Michael Schoiswohl's legal monograph concludes that Somaliland qualifies as a state. Jure Vidmar cautions that factual criteria cannot mechanically defeat a territorial counterclaim. But Janis Grzybowski's peer-reviewed European Journal of International Law analysis also challenges treating nonrecognition as proof of nonexistence. Neither recognition nor its absence replaces the substantive assessment.
Taiwan illustrates a related distinction in recognition law. The Taiwan-based Republic of China claimed to represent China for decades while Beijing governed the mainland. The UN changed China's representation in 1971; the US recognised Beijing's government in 1979. These concerned competing governments, not recognition of a separate state. Nevertheless, the point here is that international representation cannot make a government's territorial claims permanently conclusive. Somalia's UN seat is no substitute for examining Somaliland's claim.
AU members must also consider regional obligations. Under Vienna Convention Article 34, the AU treaty cannot itself bind non-members without consent. Applicable customary rules still matter, but the AU's opposition alone cannot establish a universal prohibition.
Las Anod is a security challenge, not the death of Somaliland's recognition. The 2023 loss does not erase its territorial core. Even British control of the interior, including the east, was intermittent: ministers confirmed withdrawal to coastal garrisons in 1910. Protectorate boundaries did not contract around those garrisons. Historical title and continuous occupation are different questions. Recognition can preserve disputed territorial claims for peaceful settlement.
Las Anod's changing allegiances are another reason to reject continually redrawing the map. Puntland took control in 2003; Somaliland regained the town in 2007, assisted by a local politician who switched sides. Such reversals change who administers a town, not where an inherited international frontier lies. The 1964 OAU principle guards against this instability by anchoring borders at legal independence. It is ridiculous to redraw the map whenever a clan elder changes his position.
The Political Case
The genocide under Siad Barre and the different political cultures Somaliland and Somalia have developed already make a powerful political case. Santos himself acknowledges the destruction of northern cities, the union's profound political failure and Somaliland's peaceful presidential transition following the 2024 election. Beyond these familiar arguments lies the purpose of the original political bargain.
Somalilanders rushed towards the attempted union as a political project to recover lost territory. Jama Mohamed's peer-reviewed English Historical Review study connects the drive towards union to the Haud loss, describing it as one third of Somaliland. The 1954 agreement brought a British administrative withdrawal in 1955, against the background of the 1897 treaty. For Somalilanders, recovery addressed a recent dispossession; for southern leaders, it served the wider Greater Somalia ambition. This particular transfer concerned British-administered territory, not land ceded by Italian-administered Somalia.
My argument about that political bargain is that its failure removed its moral foundation. There is no credible recovery project left. Somalia accepts Ethiopia's territorial integrity and conducts sovereign relations with Kenya and Djibouti. Greater Somalia has retreated, yet Somaliland is told the failed bargain binds it forever.
Somalia's diplomatic continuity survived the collapse of effective central authority after 1991. Before 2012, Somaliland's status was made to wait behind Somalia's crises. In 2011, Britain invoked Somalia's territorial integrity; the 2012 London Conference left future relations to dialogue with Somalia's transitional institutions. Beijing pressed its Taiwan claim with functioning state machinery; Mogadishu's claim was sheltered while outsiders helped rebuild its government. Territorial integrity became compensation for Somalia's weakness. Mogadishu's leverage over us was a diplomatic gift, not an achievement of government.
Santos's account of Ethiopia's diplomatic pivot is selective. The Ankara Declaration commits Ethiopia to pursue commercial sea access under Somalia's sovereign authority. It neither names Somaliland nor expressly cancels the Somaliland MoU. Ethiopia had not recognised Somaliland, so no recognition was withdrawn. Reading Ankara as a settlement of Somaliland's status goes beyond its text.
The harder test came when Mogadishu tried to enforce its claim. On 4 April 2024, Somalia ordered Ethiopia's ambassador to leave within 72 hours and its Hargeisa and Garowe consulates to close within seven days. Yet the consulates remained open. In that practical test of authority over Ethiopia's diplomatic presence in Hargeisa, Somaliland had the upper hand. Mogadishu could issue an order; it could not enforce it there. Santos's account foregrounds diplomatic assurances while omitting this test of who actually governed.
A community of 9% cannot automatically veto the other 91%'s future. Las Anod district is the base of the Dhulbahante clan militia, which Mogadishu presents as a federal state under the name "North East State". The district lies within Sool, whose entire population accounted for roughly 9% of Somaliland's population in the 2014 UNFPA estimates reproduced in Somaliland's education plan. Which African state could survive a rule demanding unanimous political allegiance in every border community? If Somalilanders constitute over 33% of the population Mogadishu claims, the same rule would give them a veto over Somalia's future. Residents deserve security, representation and reconciliation; protecting minority rights does not require giving clan leaders control over everyone else's statehood.
Answer Somaliland's Case
Santos has catalogued objections; he has not defeated Somaliland's case. Anyone claiming that Somaliland's legal sovereignty was extinguished must establish the valid mutual assent that accomplished it. Somalia's failure to govern supplies no political justification for making Somaliland wait indefinitely.
More importantly, after 35 years, let us step back and ask ourselves: Should Somaliland's status change to fit our definitions, or should our definitions change in light of Somaliland, and which approach would better serve the world?