Self-determination
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Self-determination or the right to self-determination is a theoretical principle that a people ought to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structures. It is the core basis of most forms of anarchism, all forms of ethnic nationalism, and has been prominently supported by most Leninist communist National Liberation Front movements in independence movements throughout the 20th Century. The principle of self-determination has also been used as a justification for Far right beliefs and movements, such as Neo-Nazism, racism, and fascism.
The right to self-determination has found, like its close cousin nationalism, increasing international acceptance among stateless peoples and diaspora since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In most cases there is an ethnic or religious minority within a specific geographic area seeking independence from a majority to escape prejudice or persecution. However, the right to self-determination has been most effectively employed in the decolonization movement. Given the perceived risk of constant fragmentation of states that could result from this, states have approached self-determination cautiously, as in the csae of the Tamil Tigers.
This principle was first applied in international relations by Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points. At the ratification of the UN Charter in 1945, the signatories introduced the right of all people to self-determination into the framework of international law and diplomacy. In addition, the right to self-determination holds the prestigious position of Article 1 in both the International Covenant on Civil and Politcal Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Its presence in the two covenants points to the right's complex nature and importance.
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History
Template:Globalize Self-determination is notoriously difficult to define and apply. The concept of the right to self-determination of a political community can be seen to date back at least as far as 1859 with John Stuart Mill's work On Liberty in which he argues that political communities are entitled collectively to determine their own affairs. In his work he argues that states should be seen as self-determining communities even if their internal political arrangements are not free, self-determination and political freedom are not equivalent terms. A state is self-determining even if its citizens strive, and fail, to create free political institutions, however in turn, it is deprived of its self-determination if such institutions are established by an external power. He argues that the members of a political community must seek their own freedom, just as they may seek to be virtuous, they cannot be 'set free' just as an individual cannot be made virtuous. In this way self-determination can be seen to be a parallel to state sovereignty.
Many of the concepts embodied in the ideal of self-determination can be found in earlier documents such as the Declaration of Independence of the United States. The constitution of the Soviet Union acknowledged this right for its sister republics (although not for declared "autonomous" regions), but it was not applied in practice until the perestroika, when it led to the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The purpose of the self determination clause in international law was to allow the former colonies that existed before World War II to have a say in their future. Some felt that after decolonization the right to self-determination should apply only to states and not to peoples, and to be circumscribed by the principles of territorial integrity and non-intervention. Territorial integrity can only be applied to prevent the cessation of integral parts of a state, and does not apply to decolonisation. It is clear that a colony cannot affect the territorial integrity of a country of which she does not form part. Many of the newly independent former colonies faced secessionist and irredentist movements and therefore there was an international consensus that self-determination did not apply to these movements. UN Resolution 1514(XV) was adopted and guarantees the right to self-determination of all peoples.
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 committed the idea of the right for self-determination to the body of international protocol. In essence, all people reserve the right to seek self-determination to address a lack of proper representation or oppression from any given government.
There is tension between the concept of self-determination and that of territorial integrity. The prevailing force of the principle of territorial integrity was exemplified by the adherence to the principle of uti possidetis during the decolonization process (that is, the retaining of colonial borders in the birth of independent nations). This conflict has been resolved in practice by defining the notion of "people" entitled to self-determination as persons living in a particular geographic area within a nation-state rather than persons sharing a common culture or language. Hence, self-determination as it is understood in the early 21st century does not generally promote the political aspirations of oppressed ethnic minorities.
Wilson's ideas of self-determination originated in his Southern heritage and sympathies. His favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation, and his Democratic Party beliefs and personal ties were steeped in Southern pride and resentment of Northern power. Hence Southern interpretations of States-Rights directly led to Wilson's ideas of self-determination. Many have criticized both concepts, however, for promoting secession and division over unity. Further, the key question is at what level do populations have the right to self-determination and the formation or preservation of a state, the empowerment of a local majority, and the formation of a local minority. In the United States, southern states' rights to determine their own destiny during the Civil War and Civil Rights era were held to be not absolute, especially since significant minorities there were oppressed. In Europe after World War I, many of the former Empires destroyed in that war were broken up into ethnic states which themselves were amalgamations of peoples containing their own minorities, in Yugoslavia, the former Russian and Austro-Hungarian provinces, and in the Middle East. In Palestine, Jewish immigrants would claim self-determination to justify the creation of the state of Israel in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire, just as Palestinians would later claim independence as Palestine.
Hence, self-determination has been held to be an example of an advancement of the fundamental political rights of politically bounded 'peoples' at work, but also as an example of an abstract theory that has been implemented in contexts with sometimes severe political and national conflict.
Lenin on Self-Determination
Though the Maoist communist movement would later embrace self-determination more wholeheartedly, Vladimir Lenin supported the concept of the right of a culturally distinct grouping to self-determination, albeit within the framework of proletarian internationalism and, as it turned out in the policy of the Soviet Union, more in theory than in practice. The policy of Korenizatsiya seemed to indicate a sincere belief on the part of Lenin national self-determination. However, Lenin also assumed that the populations of the ethnically diverse soviet republics were voluntarily confederated with Russia in the form of the Soviet Union. By the time the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, significant numbers of national minorities were defecting to the Nazi side in the hope of being allowed to create their own sovereign states. Template:Citation needed
In regard to a long running argument going on between Rosa Luxembourg, right-wing tendencies within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, and the Bolsheviks, Lenin said:
...[T]he tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied. ... [T]he national state is typical and normal for the capitalist period. Consequently, if we want to grasp the meaning of self-determination of nations ... by examining the historico-economic conditions of the national movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusion that the self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent national state. ...[It] would be wrong to interpret the right to self-determination as meaning-anything but the right to existence as a separate state." -Lenin, What Is Meant By The Self-Determination of Nations?
External links
- United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514(XV). "Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples"
- Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization on Self-determination
- Self Determination - International Law and Practiseat tamilnation.org
See also
- Nationalism
- Ethnic nationalism
- Identity politics
- International relations theory
- Nation state
- Non-Intervention
- Sovereigntyca:Autodeterminació
de:Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker es:Derecho a la autodeterminación fr:Autodétermination he:הגדרה עצמית nl:Zelfbeschikkingsrecht ja:民族自決 pt:Autodeterminação ru:Право на самоопределение