Content
International law has a self-determination problem. The paradoxes raised by the concept, almost like a Russian doll, beget ever more paradoxes. Yet when pressed for clarity as to the meaning of the term, scholars, practitioners, and legal advisers all shy away from precise definitions. Based on the apparent collision of competing claims, the principle of self-determination is reduced to a claim to create a new State; territorial integrity is viewed as a necessary protection for existing political units. A neat binary is constructed whereby self-determination is reduced to instances where it does not affect territorial integrity (so-called 'internal self-determination') and those where it disrupts it significantly ('external self-determination').
The self-determination/territorial integrity binary, though taught widely in international law textbooks, doctrine, and practice, is too simple to tell the whole story. A different means of conceptualising self-determination claims in international law is needed. During this webinar, I will that the concept of self-determination is in fact a category, a genus, of which there exist four distinct forms, or species: polity-based; identitarian; remedial; and colonial. These distinctions are conceptual, but also highly practical, reflecting how international actors have in fact responded to claims. By rethinking self-determination in this manner, the common features of these four forms help us further to give content to the concept, as well as better to understand the different legal treatment that self-determination claims have received within international law.
Webinar
About the speaker
Prof. dr. Gleider Hernández is Professor of Public International Law at Open Universiteit and KU Leuven; and Secretary-General of the European Society of International Law (ESIL).