Mohamed Osman’s The Unrecognized Republic asks a difficult question: what happens when a territory behaves like a state, governs like a state, and endures like a state—but the world refuses to call it one?

A State in Practice, but Not on Paper

Somaliland declared the restoration of its independence in 1991 after the collapse of Somalia’s central government. Since then, it has built public institutions, collected taxes, maintained security, issued currency and passports, and held competitive elections with peaceful transfers of power. Yet it remains outside the United Nations and is treated internationally as part of Somalia. Osman presents this mismatch as a central contradiction of modern statehood: Somaliland has achieved the substance of sovereignty without receiving its legal status.

The Case Against Calling It Secession

The book’s legal argument begins in 1960. British Somaliland became the independent State of Somaliland on June 26 and received recognition from more than thirty countries. Five days later, it voluntarily united with the former Italian Somaliland. Osman therefore describes the 1991 declaration not as a conventional breakaway movement, but as the dissolution of a failed union between two formerly sovereign........

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