What about us? The issue of unrecognized/de-facto states: cases of Puntland and Somaliland

The problem of Somalia conflict, often referred to as State Failure issue has attracted attention of scholars and practitioners in the 1990s as one of by-products of the dissolution of the Yalta-Potsdam system of International Relations and the end of the Cold War. Ever since that pivotal moment, the issue of a failed state remains unresolved, although the overall conflict landscape in Somalia has improved, especially with the emergence and rise of Somaliland and Puntland, still largely unrecognized diplomatically worldwide. An almost 20-year period of applying various conflict resolution schemes, negotiations and attempts to resolve, or to create a viable theoretical and practical framework to address conflict in Somalia calls for a revision of some fundamental conflict actors’ notions of this conflict, as it is the major conflict actors that influence this conflict drivers and peace agendas. At present, in Somalia there are 5 parallel conflicts : 1) Federal Government of Somalia versus non-state violent conflict actors of islamist groups al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam over ideology and national power issues, which started in 2006 and up to 2013 has been defined by Conflict Barometer as all-out War; 2) Puntland self-proclaimed authority versus Somaliland self-proclaimed authority over territory and subnational dominance issues, which started in 1998 and is characterized as non-violent dispute; 3) Puntland self-proclaimed authority versus Federal Government of Somalia over Puntland autonomy issue and status, which is ongoing since 1998 within a non-violent format; 4) Somaliland versus Khatumo State Autonomy over subnational predominance and power, which is ongoing since 2009 and is currently a violent crisis; 5) Federal Government of Somalia versus Somaliland over secession, territory, and power, which is ongoing since 1991 with a present non-violent status (however, the status has changed over last 25 years). Due to grave security conditions, UNDP does not provide Human Development Index for Somalia. However, at least two political - territorial entities, Somaliland and Puntland, have performed relatively well as compared to the rest of Somalia. Although still unrecognized by the UN and the majority of the world states as official member states of the world community, these two entities managed to establish their own de-facto viable rules of (non-official)-citizenship and managed to resolve numerous illegal border crossings and illegal trade between the two unrecognized states. This paper overviews the efforts made by the unrecognized de-facto states of Somaliland and Puntland over last 25 years in terms of securing citizenship and citizens' rights. It aims to understand how citizenship and corresponding rights evolved as a notion in these two entities and offers a view on how these practices may help to sustain a long-term peace and economic development in these post-state-failure areas.