by Akihisa Matsuno, OSIPP, Osaka University
Self-determination beyond decolonisation
Self-determination has legal and political dimensions. The right to self-determination is cited in the UN Charter and the two Covenants of Human Rights, but basically the international community failed to consistently apply this right beyond the cases of decolonisation. The newly born states have been mostly hostile to the notion of self-determination of a population under their sovereignty, the world powers feared further instability if colonial boundaries were not respected, and there was a technical difficulty in defining ‘a people’.