SELF-DETERMINATION

The Doctrine Of The Right Of Self-Determination Of Peoples Includes The Legal Entitlement To Democratic Governance

The Doctrine Of The Right Of Self-Determination Of Peoples Includes The Legal Entitlement To Democratic Governance

History of the Right, With a Focus on the "Self Determination"

The concept of self-determination has a strong character and a particularly controversial one. The Human Rights Committee has made ??clear about its fundamental nature, noting that it is a prerequisite for the full realization of individual human rights. But these words in contemporary political discourse can raise fears of destabilization, even violent, and it has also been associated with extremist political positions and chauvinism ethnicity. The principle is not linked exclusively with nationalism: for example, Marxism defines free determination as the basis for the right of the proletariat to govern themselves. The French Revolution is considered a basic paradigm of how people overthrew the monarchy and the aristocracy in got in power and established a republican regime where the people govern themselves.

In stressing democracy the term was primarily concerned with internal self-determination. It was this notion of self-determination-a right to chose one's own form of government and to not be ruled by a foreign power--that was used in the First World War. This war was referred to as the war of self-determination, because the stated aim of the allies was the liberation of all people then governed by the "foreign powers" of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires.

Before World War I, President Wilson focused on internal self-determination. By equating self-determination with self-government --"the consent of the governed" -- he equated it with democracy. In the context of the war, "consent of the governed" also came to mean external self-determination: "the right of every people to `choose the sovereignty, under which they shall live,' to be free of alien masters, and not to be handed `about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property." After the war, however, in the process of applying these principles in order to redraw the various boundaries of Europe, the scope of the principle of self-determination was restricted. This restriction was caused by the difficulties in applying self-determination to all the different minorities that existed in Europe. Because of these difficulties, instead of creating states out of each minority, the allies and associated powers that negotiated the peace treaty agreed upon larger states that invariably encompassed different minorities. (Hughes, 1998)

The Exercise of the Right of Self-Determination

In describing the history of the right of self-determination this paper has focused primarily on who is regarded as the "self" entitled of "determination." Another important aspect of the right to self-determination is the exercise of the right -- both the substantive and procedural aspects of such exercise. This section describes these aspects and the problems created by their lack of precision. This description shows that, while the actual result of self-determination is flexible, this imprecision may provide an additional barrier to according the present right of self-determination to indigenous peoples. (Superclan, 1996)

External status

In relation to the exercise ...