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[RedKing]

Worried about the prospects of this ruling being used to justify other secession movements (such as South Ossetia),

Why would you be worried about secessionist movements? Shouldn't people have the right to form a new nation if they so wish? Obviously, they would need to have a clear majority (I would say 60%, but that's just me postulating out of my ass), and not be violating any human rights or international laws.

Maybe he's a Georgian living in South Ossetia? Just saying....there's two sides to the whole "minority right of self-determination" thing. Unless you have a region that is 100% homogenous, someone's going to get screwed.

[Onlyhestands]

...someone's going to get screwed.

One of the facts of life.

While I would sympathize with people in that situation, if the majority wanted independence then there's not much they can do. Hypothetically, I would say that areas in S.O where most people wanted to stay with Georgia should be allowed to do so, but I imagine that the ethnic groups are too intermingled to allow such an event to occur.

[RedKing]

Exactly. If you do that, you wind up with exclaves all over the place and an environment ripe for further armed conflict.

Although it does remind me of one of my favorite Onion articles of all time: Northern Irish, Serbs, Hutus Granted Homeland In West Bank

[Servant Corps]

Worried about the prospects of this ruling being used to justify other secession movements (such as South Ossetia),

Why would you be worried about secessionist movements? Shouldn't people have the right to form a new nation if they so wish? Obviously, they would need to have a clear majority (I would say 60%, but that's just me postulating out of my ass), and not be violating any human rights or international laws.

I am afraid that unilateral declarations of independence would just lead to more chaos and violence (see Balkanization). I'm not against independence, but I prefer having the forces fighting for independence negotiate with their oppressors for independence. Sorta like the Treaty of Paris, where the United States signed a treaty with the United Kingdom.

[Onlyhestands]

I think that negotiating independence would of course be the best course of action, but if people are really being oppressed/are in bitter conflict with the other ethnic groups in the country then I don't think there's any way they would become independent without rising up and/or enjoying massive foreign support/sanctions against their oppressors.
(Wow run on sentence)

If they were let free peacefully, then I think the country would probably be peaceful, reasonable, and democratic enough that people wouldn't want to leave except in certain cases such as most of their kin living in another country and wanting to join with them.