Chapter Two
A Conceptual Analysis of Self Determination
2.1 Introduction
This chapter sets out to analyze the concept to self-determination. Much of Somaliland’s argument in its struggle for international recognition arises around the principle of self-determination. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the legal, socio-economic and political aspects of self-determination. It is an ambiguous concept and fairly difficult to define or explain its content. However, despite its controversy, self-determination is ‘one of the most important driving forces in the international community. This chapter defines the concept and looks at its historical origins. The chapter also specifically examines the concept within the African context.
According to Helen Quane, the concept of self-determination creates difficulty when the majority of the population of a State claims the right to maintain the territorial integrity of the State while an ethnic, linguistic or religious group within the State claims the right to secede and establish an independent State. They not only generate instability and civil conflict within the State but can also threaten international peace and security. These conflicts highlight the principal difficulty with the concept of self-determination. Competing claims can be advanced in the name of self-determination due to the ambiguity surrounding the concept. Each State or non-State group can resort to the interpretation which best suits its interests.
There is disagreement among scholars with regard to when self-determination emerged as a useful concept. Some argued that its appearance goes back to the peace of Westphalia where it appeared for the first time in 1648. Others claim that self-determination originates from the American Declaration, of Independence in (1776) and the French Revolution, which marked the demise of the notion that individuals and peoples, as subjects of the King, were objects to be transferred, alienated, ceded… in accordance with the interests of the monarch. The two opinions, however, are close to each other.
Though the Peace of Westphalia was the starting point of self-determination, its practical use started with the American and French Revolutions. Hassani, for example, argues that in practice it was the French Revolution that proclaimed self-determination as a revolutionary principle against despotism and monarchic rule. Since then, the concept of self-determination has gone through various stages. Hence, the Peace of Westphalia together with the American and French Revolutions marks the first stage of the concept.
A second, major phase of self-determination took place between the two World Wars (1919-1939). As Hassani mentions after WWI self-determination does not appear anymore as a revolutionary but as a guide to the conduct of day-to-day international relations. In this period, self-determination was used as an effective political tool to structure states of central Europe. United States President Woodrow Wilson suggested that self-determination should be the guiding principle when it came to divide the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires and redrawing the map of Europe. Wilson’s ambition was to block the Allies powers from using self-determination as a tool of pressure against Germany. Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and consequently redraw the territories that fell under those empires.
Generally, in that period, there were two major opposing opinions: the Wilsonian representing the American view and the Soviet Union view conceptualized by Lenin. To the Wilsonian thought, self-determination meant two things: ‘the right of people to choose their own sovereignty and their own allegiance and not be handed about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.’ To Lenin, self-determination was a useful revolutionary slogan which would lose its force once the revolutionary class had seized power and multinational states merged into a unitary socialist order, e.g. Socialist (communist) federation. Thus, the American approach attached the right to self-determination to people, while the Soviet approach made it attachable to the state itself. As discussed above, at the very beginning, self-determination emerged as a political principle. It played a critical role among states in the international relations sphere.
A third and more important stage for self-determination started after WWII. After World War II, Self-determination emerged as a fundamental principle in the United Nations Charter and provided the basis for the decolonization of Africa and Asia. The development of the legal right to self-determination is based on the UN Charter. Article 1(2) of the Charter provides that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. Article 55 provides that the United Nations shall promote a number of goals with a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
After WWII, self-determination became a legal standard intended for the liberalization of nations under colonization. Since then the greatest challenge has been how to differentiate between the political and legal dimensions of the concept. It appears then that most disputes about the definition of self-determination are political more than legal. Crawford explains this tension by saying that ‘the question of the ambit of self-determination, the territories to which it applies, has arguably remained as much a matter of politics as law’.
Notwithstanding, the political argument, self-determination is a legal right, which means the right of peoples to determine their own destiny. In particular, the right allows people to choose its own political status and to determine its own form of economic, cultural and social development, free of outside interference. As appears from this definition, self-determination is classified into two broad categories; internal self-determination and external self-determination. Highlighting this point, Schoiswohl states that international law aims at the realization of self-determination either within or against a given state. Doctrine distinguishes two component parts of self-determination, namely the “internal” and “external” dimensions of the right to self-determination. Internal self-determination ‘encompasses the right to political participation, i.e. the people’s right to assert their will, to choose a government, and be represented. On the other hand, external self-determination ‘envisages a right to political independence (against outside interference) and ultimately a right to secessions’.
However, self-determination is limited both by the context in which it is applied and by the peoples to whom it belongs. With regard to whom it belongs, there is a great controversy around what does constitute self and whether this self can demand for self-determination outside of the colonial context. Therefore, the following sections deal with in which context self-determination applies.
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