This book examines the conceptual and political history of the right of self-determination of peoples.

Presents the legal cases for self-determination in East Timor, Kosovo, Chechnya, Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and in South Sudan.

In this book, leading scholars re-examine the principle of national self-determination from diverse theoretical perspectives.

Sovereignty in the Exercise of the Right to Self-Determination detangles the relationship between a number of principles of international law and the exercise of sovereign power. Jane Hofbauer’s assessment is conducted through an analysis of the different tiers of self-determination, ranging from the right to exercise external self-determination, the right to exercise forms of autonomy as a form of de facto independence, and the right to a type of ‘spatial’ independence, exemplified through the principles of permanent sovereignty over natural resources (PSNR), and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The book not only highlights the (intentional) uncertainties within each of these principles, but identifies the (non-discretionary) limits to their normative evolution. It thereby explores to what extent (indigenous) peoples can be designated as sovereign entities.

The right to self-determination has played a crucial role in the process of assisting oppressed people to put an end to colonial domination. Outside of the decolonization context, however, its relevance and application has constantly been challenged and debated. This book examines the role played by self-determination in international law with regard to post-conflict state building. It discusses the question of whether self-determination protects local populations from the intervention of international state-builders in domestic affairs. With a focus on the right as it applies to the people of an independent state, it explores how self-determination concerns that arise in the post-conflict period play out in relation to the reconstruction process. The book analyses the situation in Somalia as a means of drawing out the impact and significance of the legal principle of self-determination in the process of rebuilding post-conflict institutions. In so doing, it seeks to highlight how the relevance of self-determination is often overlooked in this context.

The definitive study of the doctrine of self-determination of peoples.

Although most international lawyers assumed that the distribution of the land surface of the earth between States was more or less final after the end of decolonization, recent practice has disproved this assumption. Eritrea separated from Ethiopia and new States were created out of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia and the former Czechoslovakia. There is no reason to believe that these events form the end of the creation of new States. Numerous communities within existing States claim a right to full separate statehood on the basis of their entitlement to an alleged right to self-determination. However, in most cases, the international community rejected such claims to statehood, even if the territorial entity satisfied the traditional criteria for statehood. On the other hand, in other cases, including some of those mentioned above, the international community acknowledged the statehood of entities which clearly failed to meet these criteria. In the light of the above-mentioned developments, this book examines the modern law of statehood, and in particular the role of the law of self-determination in the process of the formation of States in international law. The study shows that the law of statehood has changed considerably since the establishment of the United Nations. It is argued that the law of self-determination is particularly relevant for explaining the international community's position regarding the general recognition, or the general denial, of statehood of different territorial entities under contemporary international law.

Internal self-determination is an under-explored topic in international law. It is popularly understood to be a principle of relatively recent origin, promoting democratic freedoms to populations and autonomy for minority groups within states. It has also been viewed as a principle receiving the support of Western states, in particular. In this first book-length critical study of the topic, the reader is invited to rethink the history, theory and practice of internal self-determination in a complex world. Kalana Senaratne shows that it is a principle of great, but varied, potential. Internal self-determination promises democratic freedoms and autonomy to peoples; but it also represents an idea which is not historically new, and is ultimately a principle which can be promoted for different and conflicting purposes. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be of interest to international lawyers, state-officials, minority groups, and students of law and politics.

The book provides in-depth insight to scholars, practitioners, and activists dealing with human rights, their expansion, and the emergence of 'new' human rights. Whereas legal theory tends to neglect the development of concrete individual rights, monographs on 'new' rights often deal with structural matters only in passing and the issue of 'new' human rights has received only cursory attention in literature. By bringing together a large number of emergent human rights, analysed by renowned human rights experts from around the world, and combining the analyses with theoretical approaches, this book fills this lacuna. The comprehensive and dialectic approach, which enables insights from individual rights to overarching theory and vice versa, will ensure knowledge growth for generalists and specialists alike. The volume goes beyond a purely legal analysis by observing the contestation, rhetorics, the struggle for recognition of 'new' human rights, thus speaking to human rights professionals beyond the legal sphere.