|
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
As for 4th world nations such as Kurdistan, Tamil country, and Palestine, they fit my criteria of a nation deserving state status, and thus, self-determination. |
Not to beat a dead horse, but I did some looking and finally found an article I wanted to reference earlier.
In 1971 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held a hearing on the right of Namibia to unilaterally declare independence from South Africa. The right of self-determination was oft cited as a pretext for declarations of independence from former African colonies, but for a variety of reasons mostly stemming from the fallout of the Second World War, Namibia had come under the domain of South Africa and had not gained independence.
The Court defined self-determination as the right of a population in a non-self-governing territory to incorporate themselves in an independent state. Furthermore, the court ruled that self-determination is an enforceable, defined right that can be won through the "blood of the people" - basically if an independence movement arises to win independence, that call to independence must be honored.
The ICJ backed down on that position in 1975 when hearing the case of Western Sahara, which sought (and still seeks) independence from Morocco -- defining self-determination instead as merely the "free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory" in question - no mention of independence or the right to self-governance, merely the right to participate. The Court also allowed that the General Assembly held final sway over the issue of self-determination and could bypass the will of the people in "special circumstances" - again left undefined. At this point self-determination under international law ceased being held up as a universal right, and become merely a privilege that a "people" (however defined) was entitled to.
As Jan Klabbers notes, "The most serious treatment of self-determination [under international law] was in Western Sahara, in which the ICJ reconceived self-determination into a procedural principle, having a lot to do with figuring out what the people want but without necessarily attaching any particular consequences to the peoples' free and genuinely expressed will."
Frustrating stuff - the definition of self-determination is therefore quite hazy, but you can rest assured that it correlates to the ability of a population to determine on their own terms their governance.
Source: Klabbers, Jan. "The Right to be Taken Seriously: Self-Determination in International Law." Human Rights Quarterly 28 (2006) 186-206. Johns Hopkins University Press.
___________________
|
