What was wilsons self determination

In practice, however, legal protection for minorities was only limited to those internationally recognised minorities.

The picture that emerged after the Conference was, therefore, that of general confusion Weitz However, only some months after their official formation, domestic authorities put in place practices of prioritisation of population groups, in accordance with their ethnic identification. Certainly this was happening, to a great extent, because of local, pre-existing imperial logics. Nonetheless, such discriminatory practices were often domestically justified in the name of self-determination and internationally tolerated, due to an inherently ambiguous formulation of the principle and of minority rights.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes represents an emblematic case in point. Formed on the eve of the Peace Conference and officially based on the equality of peoples, it was recognised by the Entente Powers a few months later with the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain. Similarly to other Treaties recognising new states between and , this document simultaneously regulated the treatment of minorities in the Kingdom Djokic However, while the national delegates declared that the Kingdom was composed of one single people with three names — Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes — the last Austro-Hungarian census of instead indicated that, in the region corresponding to the new state, at least nine different ethnic groups co-existed.

The direct result of the uneven politics of recognition was that the internationally unrecognised minorities were most often excluded from full participation in the national political community.

This was certainly true in some instances. Most often, though, and this was the case of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, state officials subtly set up practices to discriminate minority groups and to constitute a political community strongly dominated by a single core group.

These were expressed through the granting or denying of political rights to individuals, according to the group with which they were identified. These were rights that would allow full access, in the form of a right to vote, to the national political community. In addition, as the numerous petitions received at the League of Nations during the s indicate, often these practices were accompanied by the use of violence by state and local authorities as means of deterrence.

To understand these discriminatory practices, it is important to underline that, beyond its ethnic tone, self-determination was internationally promoted without an actual definition as to its content. In addition to that, the recognition of minority groups was flawed. These ambiguities, I suggest, led to the instrumentalisation by state authorities of self-determination and of minority rights to justify discrimination.

Ethnic self-determination as defined at the Paris Peace Conference emerged from the Second World War even weaker than it had been in the aftermath of the First World War. Its systematic application resulted in unparalleled catastrophes.

Nazis and Fascists had invoked the principle to exclude minorities and to rationalise genocide Mazower In , the Allies had to acknowledge two major limits of self-determination as formulated after World War I.

The first was that the ethnic norm that was attached to self-determination and the definition of peoples could be used to support exclusionary practices.

The second was that the lack of a clear formulation of self-determination after World War I had led to its disastrous instrumentalisation, a phenomenon that had hardly been contested internationally.

In the spring of , the Allies faced the responsibility of post-war reconstruction. Amongst their tasks was the need to condemn the systematic crimes against domestic populations undertaken in the name of internationally recognised principles. In such a context of general bewilderment, one thing was clear to the Allies: self-determination had to be reviewed and reformulated. The principle was thus formalised in international law through its inclusion in the UN Charter.

However, similarly to the Paris Peace Conference, it was again loosely defined Articles 1 and 55 of the Charter and was arguably conceived more as a foreseeable norm than as an imminent measure for all. A major transformation took place in the s, when delegates from independent Third World countries used the UN as a political arena to uphold the cause of self-determination for those peoples still under colonial rule.

In addition to the invocation of self-determination and human rights, Resolution also led to the creation of an array of new states in Asia and Africa. Again, when the new post-imperial states came to draw the boundaries of their political communities, discrimination often prevailed over inclusion. With minor exceptions, newly proclaimed state leaders set up both formal and informal discriminatory practices, often along local kinship ties, to favour certain domestic groups over others.

The set of values governing the liberal international order were simply not reflected within territories that had understandably no experience with state structures and rights recognition. After all, these new states were all formed following the arbitrary principle of uti possidetis , presupposing that independent statehood was granted following the formal lines of the old colonial borders.

However, explanations stressing the persistence of colonial norms within the newly formed states did not have much popularity. Generally, these statements were made in reference to extremely violent situations, as was the case in Nigeria. In this country, Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbos were the three main groups recognised by British authorities.

Subsequently, they were the ones legally recognised after independence. The political and social structure of colonial Nigeria was thus maintained after independence, with power being transferred directly to those loyal individuals that had most closely collaborated with British authorities: the Igbos.

Such devolution reinforced ethnic divides Ibhawow: 2. Discontent was widespread. In the first years of independence, political coalitions shifted rapidly, and during the period, Igbos started to be excluded, often with violence, from national political life. Hence, despite the liberal connotation of self-determination, its actual application domestically was not positively received internationally. Its easy instrumentalisation to justify discrimination and violence led to widespread concern regarding the existence of a discriminatory dimension, which was perhaps inherent to the principle.

The matter, it was generally thought, was somehow solved, after all. Self-determination was the principle that, invoked, had led to the end of empires, first in Europe and then in colonial territories, and to the constitution of independent states.

What else could be done with it? To some extent, due to the existence of a strong non-interference norm during the Cold War Glanville , if violence occurred after independence, notwithstanding how problematic it could be, it was fundamentally a domestic matter.

The principle was nonetheless inscribed in the first article of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in — though, as said, the document had already been negotiated throughout the s. The principle was later mentioned in the Helsinki Final Act, giving origin to the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe. While the debate over self-determination was considered to be finished, the break-up of Yugoslavia brought back claims of national self-determination in the name of ethnicity on the international scene.

Formulated to legitimise new states, these claims were also used to justify physical and administrative practices of ethnic cleansing. Even though, after the events of World War II, the UN promoted the ideal of ethnically blind polities, ethnicity as a category of identification had never actually disappeared from the Balkans Stiks Indeed, for almost half a century, ethnicity had been a matter related to national politics of recognition. In addition, these claims were being made precisely in the area where, in , the Paris Peacemakers had attempted to guarantee the smooth transition from empires to nation-states.

The difference was that, when in the s the newly proclaimed leaders uttered their respective claims, in they were not internationally tolerated. These attempts were, in fact, occurring right at the same moment in which liberalism was ponderously endorsed internationally Clark Interestingly, the coexistence of divergent understandings of self-determination — one ethnic and one liberal — led to greater international confusion as to what should be done.

In August , more than a year after Croatia and Slovenia had shown the first signs of their intention to proclaim independence, the Council of Ministers of the European Community EC created a special arbitration commission, commonly known as the Badinter Committee. It consisted of EC mediators and the representatives of the parties involved, namely the Yugoslav delegates and the representatives of each constituent republic.

Some months later, the Committee clearly established that, following the principle of uti possidetis , it recognised the borders between Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. By applying the colonial principle of border recognition to the Balkans, the Conference recognised previously internal borders as the new international frontiers.

In doing so, the Conference acknowledged the possible coincidence between the boundaries of the new states with those of the claimed ethnic nations. Accordingly, from the start of the s, newly proclaimed leaders found in such international recognition the indirect justification to constitute states grounded on ethnic exclusion. In the post-Cold War system, many groups see a renewed opportunity to assert their separate identity on the international stage and use the rhetoric of self-determination to articulate and inspire those desires.

Lacking a generally accepted approach to these non-colonial claims, the international community's response has frequently been erratic and untimely, often failing to stop disputes from turning violent and threatening individuals, states, and regional security.

From this evolution one can discern the widely accepted essence of self-determination-the right to shape one's political destiny-as well as the perceived tension between self-determination and territorial integrity.

After elaborating on the duties of states not to deny peoples' right of self-determination, the abovementioned passage of the Declaration concludes with a caution against self-determination as an invitation to disrupt the existing state system:. Every state shall refrain from any action aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of any other State or country.

No rules exist to specify exactly how to balance these seemingly contradictory principles: allow all peoples to determine their political future, but don't disrupt rightfully existing states and borders in doing so.

To allow unlimited choice in political destiny would mean, at least in theory, that states can be redesigned and boundaries redrawn. To argue for the supremacy of territorial integrity in all situations would deny the right of self-determination for peoples who have freely chosen independence.

Scholars and practitioners thus separate the principle the right to choose from its application across time and in specific cases-with no predetermined outcomes. The tension between self-determination and territorial integrity is hence mediated according to the particulars in each case. Given the legal weight of self-determination as well as its symbolic power as a beacon of freedom, leaders of claimant groups frequently use the term self-determination to try to capitalize on international sympathies-attempting to internationalize issues by linking their situation or goals to international law and precedent in the rhetoric of "neo-colonialism.

The political ramifications of rewarding every claimant group a separate right to self-determination-in the Wilsonian sense of independence-are potentially destabilizing in a world where boundaries overlap and ethnicities mingle. Despite Woodrow Wilson's vision for a more harmonious world order after World War I, the ideal of having an individual state for every nation is unachievable without widespread violence and bloodshed.

Instead, many statesmen and scholars alike would agree that self-determination is a loaded term often identified closely with secession and thus can be considered extremely destructive. State representatives often avoid the word altogether or deliberately emphasize its negative connotations. The process of international recognition, by other states and the United Nations, offers another threshold limiting the chances of full independence as a result of classic self-determination.

Recent scholarship and practice suggest an emphasis on self-determination as a more dynamic concept-ongoing accommodation of all groups in the political process-rather than as a question of acquiring the status of a new, internationally-recognized independent state. In the fields of international law and political philosophy, some scholars place contemporary self-determination claims in the context of international human rights and good governance regimes.

Discourse in the legal literature suggests that a post-colonial right to self-determination does exist and can be accommodated by current legal instruments, while several political philosophers advocate at least a remedial right to self-determination resulting in secession when serious human rights abuses have occurred over time.

Recent debates have attempted to decouple formal legal sovereignty-recognition based on territorial control-from effective governance and the full benefits of sovereign statehood in the international system, which depend on a legitimate government as it is defined and accepted by the international community. Judging self-determination claims through a prism of legitimate governance suggests that a state has responsibilities to its domestic constituents-groups as well as individuals-for which it can be held internationally accountable.

Failure by the state to adhere to these responsibilities can justify a self-determination claim; in extreme cases of oppression, secession may be justified. In a sense, the full realization of classical self-determination-secession, independence, and the recognition of new international boundaries-represents a dichotomy between the traditional perspective of a state-based international system during the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order characterized by interdependence and globalization.

States are increasingly challenged on one hand by the pressure of greater education and contacts abroad, increased personal mobility, economic and strategic interdependence, and the real-time global media, and on the other hand by an emerging insistence upon traditional national or communal values in decision-making, culture, laws, and administration.

Contrary to widespread assumption, the intensification of globalization has not diminished the frequency or violence of struggles for self-determination and secession.

Though accepting increased economic and industrial interdependence, people are also eager to maintain communal and socio-cultural values and traditions-in particular, local language. This may be a counter-reaction to international interdependence and globalization, may emanate from observing secessionist precedents in geographically-proximate areas, or may be born out of a longstanding communal desire for greater freedom from central authorities.

Heightened global mobility and interaction also enhance the role of diaspora in self-determination struggles. The fact that members of the ethnie afar are frequently the most fervent and defenders of its rights only spurs radicalization. Interdependence and technological globalization also increase the prominence of younger leaders inciting the struggle via the internet.

Unfortunately, this perception effectively strengthens international and state opposition to the claim. The resultant tension makes the future development of the concept of self-determination less predictable and questions the general assumption of a reduced role of the state. Thus, it is time for a thorough analysis of the classical concept of self-determination and the examination of its new role and meaning in the emerging global system.

Contemporary scholarship and practice suggest that the search for self-determination and autonomy need not necessarily or automatically cause the breakup of sovereign states or change external boundaries.

Other solutions may satisfy the aspirations of the community looking for greater independence while enabling the state to continue existence within its current boundaries.

In addition, experience with self-determination crises has shown that the effects of a community seeking greater independence from the center cannot be considered in isolation from other communities within the state and region.

Other communities may find precedent value in greater autonomy or successful secession, leading to a possible domino effect of secession and potential state collapse e. Members of the state majority community who suddenly find themselves the minority in a secessionist-minded region may initiate population movements, cause violence, or seek international security guarantees. Often, the community desiring independence has kin in other states within the region. The resolution of the original claim affects other states as well: spillover effects as other minorities seek to replicate their kin's success; implications for regional security if secessionists wish to join another state; and direct involvement of kin states in settlement negotiations.

Thus, the struggle for self-determination is rarely a zero-sum game between one community and one central authority, but may have repercussions for other communities within the same state and in neighboring states as well. Deng, et. At the beginning of the 21st century, new self-determination struggles have emerged around the globe while other, long-simmering conflicts continue unabated. But each case harbors its own, very specific background and level of development and differs in intensity and orientation.

Self-determination claims have unique root causes, encompassing a wide range of issues: economic or resource control, leadership interests, quests for sovereignty by communities with lingering interethnic problems, and historical grievance to name a few.

To complicate analysis of self-determination, the international response to claims also exhibits diversity, from suppression and domination to deliberate manipulation and incitement as well as outside power involvement. The international community, still possessing the attitudes and strategies toward self-determination that were developed before and during the Cold War, has rarely responded effectively or consistently to contemporary claims.

Neither has it acted in a timely fashion or shown much innovation. A distinguishing feature of self-determination conflicts that makes them difficult to resolve is their inherent combination of three overlapping disputes over identity, territory, and governance.

Self-determination claimant groups articulate the importance of a shared identity-often ethnic, tribal, or religious in origin-as the basis of their claim. This perception of distinct identity, and the desire to preserve that identity, compels the group to become or remain politically active. In other words, part of the inherent conflict concerns the distinctiveness of the group relative to other communities and to the central authorities and how that separate identity should actuate in the political process.

Further complicating self-determination claims is the link between this identity of the group and a particular defined piece of territory. The claim may originate from a sense of entitlement to the territory-based on historical grievance, religious importance, or economic motivation-or a desire to be free of 'alien domination'. In either case, the claim necessarily involves a desire to control a parcel of land or share in the distribution of its resources.

This could include secessionist or state-shattering claims to take a piece of territory and leave an existing state , state-unifying claims Germany, e. Third, underlying the identity and territorial claims is a deep-rooted governance dispute: who rules and how.

A self-determination claim often emanates from grievances linking identity with governance; for example, political or economic discrimination aimed at a certain ethnic, religious, tribal group.

In certain self-determination struggles, economic hardships or perceived injustices have been persistent over long periods of time, lending explosive input into a community's search for independence.

These feelings of repression or being permanently disadvantaged may spawn the desire within the group to govern themselves, free from the oppressive exercise of sovereignty by 'others. The work of the High Commissioner on National Minorities HCNM of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe exemplifies one positive-albeit limited in geographic scope-approach to self-determination in the contemporary era.

Initiated as a conflict prevention mechanism, the office of the High Commissioner addresses minorities issues within states as a potential threat to the stability of states-members and to regional security.

Rather than treating these cases under the rubric of classical self-determination, the HCNM's solutions favor integrating diversity and increasing participation within existing borders.