Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 SCR 217

The hinge precedent on the law of self-determination outside the colonial context. The Court held that international law does NOT grant a general right of unilateral secession to a province of a constitutional democracy, BUT preserved a remedial doctrine: a 'people' subjected to grave and persistent denial of internal self-determination may, in principle, have recourse to external self-determination. The Quebec Reference is the framework /case/law uses to read the Sri Lankan record: did the Tamil people pursue internal self-determination through every constitutional pathway, and was each one foreclosed by the state? The Reference does not adjudicate the Tamil case; it provides the test.