In the run up to last month's referendum in South Sudan, it was widely accepted that the overwhelming majority would opt for independence. Similarly, even before Kosovo unilaterally declared independence two years ago, it was widely agreed that the majority of its people endorsed the move.

What is striking, therefore, is what went before in these places. Sudan's civil war raged for four decades before the 2005 peace agreement. And when the international community ended the post-Cold War firestorm in the Balkans with the 1995 Dayton Accords, the Kosovars, despite their pleas, were actively excluded. Instead, they were told to make the best of it under Serbia's rule.

An investigation by the Times of India found 378 recorded attacks on Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri Lankan navy (SLN) between 1983 and 2005.

Foreign funds are continuing to exit Sri Lanka’s stock market, Reuters reported Friday, sustaining a trend since the end of the armed conflict.

[See also our post: 'Sri Lanka's stocks: a closer look']

Despite the bourse's main index doubling last year, foreign investors have been net sellers of the “overbought and expensive” market.

“It is clearly unreasonable to expect all disputing couples to behave like the Czechs and the Slovaks [who peacefully separated in 1993]. But is it reasonable in this day and age to set treat secession as somehow worse than unwilling union?

“Countries and territories change. For one reason or another, the ethnic or religious mix shifts; technological advances may dictate a sharp rise or fall in economic fortunes. Why should state borders not be subject to pragmatic fluctuation, too?

Groups of protestors outside retailers and business in Britain are not unusual. Most recently UK-Uncut activists launched a wave of sit-ins in and around corporations associated with tax dodging. That campaign turn on consumers not wishing to put money into pockets of those they believe are behaving unethically or exploitatively.

Amidst other campaigns-through-consumer, Tamil activists are also continuing to push for a boycott of Sri Lankan products.

"There is no reason to believe that Sri Lanka will return to a rights-respecting government any time in the near future.

“Until wartime abuses are prosecuted, minority grievances are addressed, and repression against the press and civil society ends, only the president and his family members in power have reason to feel secure in Sri Lanka."

“For now impunity is ruling the day.  So much so, that Sri Lanka is apparently seeking to export its brand of counter-insurgency to other countries.

Prof. Timothy William Waters, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, writes:

“The real danger to peace is not peoples’ desire to form new states. It is the willingness of the present world powers to resist that desire with violence. We have stumbled onto that truth in Sudan.