Self Determination Definition History Facts Britannica

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. self-determination, the process by which a group of people, usually possessing a certain degree of national consciousness, form their own state and choose their own government. As a political principle, the idea of self-determination evolved at first as a by-product of the doctrine of nationalism, to which early expression was given by the French and American revolutions. In World War I the Allies accepted self-determination as a peace aim. In his Fourteen Points—the essential terms for peace—U.S. Pres.Woodrow Wilson listed self-determination as an important objective for the postwar world; the result was the fragmentation of the old Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and Russia’s former Baltic territories into a number of new...

After World War II, promotion of self-determination among subject peoples became one of the chief goals of the United Nations. The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, had also recognized the principle, but it was in the UN that the idea received its clearest statement and affirmation. The UN Charter clarifies two meanings of the term self-determination. First, a state is said to have the right of self-determination in the sense of having the right to choose freely its political, economic, social, and cultural systems. Second, the right to self-determination is defined as the right of a people to constitute itself in a state or otherwise freely determine the form of its association with an existing state. Both meanings have their basis in the charter (Article 1, paragraph 2; and Article 55, paragraph 1).

With respect to dependent territories, the charter asserts that administering authorities should undertake to ensure political advancement and the development of self-government (Article 73, paragraphs a and b; and Article 76, paragraph b). Self-determination[1] refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage.[2][3] Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law, binding, as such, on the United Nations as an authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms.[4][5] The principle does not state how the decision is to... Further, no right to secession is recognized under international law.[7][8] The concept emerged with the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and came into prominent use in the 1860s, spreading rapidly thereafter.[9] During and after World War I, a general principle of self-determination... 'Self determination' is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action."[11] However, neither Wilson and Lloyd George nor Lenin and Trotsky considered the peoples of the Global South as the main...

Nevertheless, their rhetoric resonated far beyond the European audiences they aimed to reach.[12] During World War II, the principle was included in the Atlantic Charter, jointly declared on 14 August 1941 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who pledged The Eight Principal points of the Charter.[13] It was recognized as an international legal right after it... Implementing the right to self-determination can be politically difficult, in part because there are multiple interpretations of what constitutes a people and which groups may legitimately claim the right to self-determination.[15] As World Court... The norm of self-determination can be traced to the American and French revolutions, and the emergence of nationalism.[17][18] The European revolutions of 1848, the post-World War I settlement at Versailles, and the decolonization movement... At its most basic, the principle of self-determination can be defined as a community's right to choose its political destiny. This can include choices regarding the exercise of sovereignty and independent external relations (external self-determination) or it can refer to the selection of forms of government (internal self-determination).

The fundamental concept of self-determination-the right to choose-has its roots in the American and French revolutions in the eighteenth century with their emphasis on justice, liberty, and freedom from authoritarian rule. It found its most prominent expressions following World Wars I and II. In the aftermath of the First World War, self-determination was perceived to be Woodrow Wilson's guiding principle for redrawing European and world maps to establish a new, just order. Following World War II, self-determination was enshrined in the United Nations Charter, initiating its transformation into a legal right under international law. In practice, this notion provided the justification and impetus for de-colonization and is often conflated with independence. More recently, the term is associated with struggles by groups within a state for greater autonomy or independence-primarily ethno-nationalist claims or counter-reactions to oppression or authoritarianism.

Current academic debates and international diplomacy tend to emphasize internal self-determination in proposals for resolving claims, often shying away from the term altogether to avoid mistakenly conflating every question of self-determination with a quest... In law as in theory, the principle itself refers to the right to choose and should neither privilege nor dismiss specific outcomes. Discussion continues in academic, legal, as well as diplomatic circles as to the delineation of the 'self'-in other words, who are the peoples entitled to self-determination-and what is implied or allowed by the application... Contemporary understanding of the principle defines self-determination as the right to choose for all peoples, but with flexibility as to the application of that right in the context of particular claims. From the nationalist wars of the nineteenth century to the reunification of Germany after the Cold War, self-determination has been responsible for shattering large empires and small states alike as well as for state... Since World War I, self-determination has acquired a classical or Wilsonian meaning: a community striving for full independence and sovereignty at the expense of the existing state(s) and other communities.

In this sense, self-determination automatically entails a change in existing sovereign boundaries and also implies the right to form a government and administration according to that community's wishes. Historically, this notion of self-determination served the assertion of statehood and national identity at the expense of large multinational empires (e.g., Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and czarist Russian); contributed to the dissolution of colonial empires; and,... Struggles for autonomy and secession have been and continue to be a source of conflict in Africa, Asia, and Europe-witness the ongoing self-determination conflicts in places as diverse as Chechnya, Kosovo, Sri Lanka, and... Though its roots lie in the ideals of the American and French Revolutions, self-determination as a political concept was initially articulated as a tool for maintaining order and spreading democratic ideals in the early... Prior to the Bolshevik revolution, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin espoused self-determination as an anti-imperialist measure necessary for world peace.[1] Woodrow Wilson conceived of self-determination as a basis for offering the peoples of the... Following on the tenets of his Fourteen Points speech, Wilson insisted upon self-determination for peoples ruled by the Germans and the Habsburgs.

These demands were incorporated into the Versailles peace process, though still under the rubric of the existing colonial order to satisfy great power interests. Through Wilson's inducement to break apart multinational empires and replace them with nation-states at the center of a more peaceful and democratic global order, the essence of this vision of self-determination emphasized the link... Two decades later, Adolf Hitler infused self-determination with a negative connotation by using the concept to justify the consolidation of German-speaking territories to gain "Volksraum." In contemporary usage, the principle of national independence associated... Over the course of the twentieth century, self-determination evolved from a general political principle into a legal right. The United Nations (UN) Charter offered the first step in the transformation to legality by proclaiming as one of its purposes the promotion of "friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle... United Nations resolutions in the 1950s presented the right to self-determination as a prerequisite for the enjoyment of human rights and an idea deserving respect from all member states.

The 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UN General Assembly Resolution 1514, 14 December 1960) asserted that continued subjugation and denial of human rights is an impediment to... These texts are considered definitive both as the basis for international law on the subject as well as for setting the parameters for further application, discussion, and development of the principle. The common Article 1.1 of the two 1966 Covenants repeats the language of the 1960 Declaration above [2] and then calls upon States Parties to promote the realization of this right. Perhaps the most expansive articulation of the right to self-determination appears in the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the... The preamble places of self-determination firmly in the context of international security: the denial of self-determination is described as a threat to peace and security and the exercise of self-determination as the basis of... "Convinced that the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a major obstacle to the promotion of international peace and security, Convinced that the principle of equal rights and self-determination of...

The section on the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples elaborates on what this right entails in the contemporary international system. This passage is considered an authoritative source for explaining the fundamental meaning and application of self-determination: "By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter, all peoples have the right freely to determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their... Learn how the world’s nearly two hundred countries came to be and whether the map is set in stone. Fifty independent countries existed in 1920. Today, there are nearly two hundred.

One of the motivating forces behind this wave of country-creation was self-determination. This is the concept that nations (groups of people united by ethnicity, language, geography, history, or other common characteristics) should be able to determine their political future. In the early twentieth century, a handful of European empires ruled the majority of the world. However, colonized nations across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and elsewhere argued that they deserved the right to self-govern. Their calls for self-determination became rallying cries for independence. Ultimately, the breakup of these empires throughout the twentieth century—a process known as decolonization—resulted in an explosion of new countries.

The world map as we recognize it today is largely a result of decolonization. But now that the age of empires is over, is that map set in stone? Not quite. Self-determination continues to play a role in deciding borders. However, the landscape is more complicated. Many people around the world argue that their governments—many of which emerged during decolonization—do not represent the entire country’s population.

The borders of colonies seldom had anything to do with any national (or economic or internal political) criteria. So when decolonization occurred, many of the newly created countries were artificial. As a result, these countries are rife with internal division. However, for a group inside a country to achieve self-determination today, that country’s sovereignty—the principle that guarantees countries get to control what happens within their borders and prohibits them from meddling in another country’s... In other words, creating a country through self-determination inherently means taking territory and people away from a preexisting country. Whereas many world leaders openly called for the breakup of empires, few are willing to endorse the breakup of modern countries.

Indeed, the United Nations’ founding charter explicitly discourages it. The fact that so many modern countries face internal divisions means few governments are eager to embrace the creation of new countries abroad. Countries fear that supporting self-determination abroad could set a precedent that leads to the unraveling of their borders. A road to self-determination remains, but it is far trickier in a world in which empires no longer control colonies oceans away. The world looked vastly different a hundred years ago. In 1914, European empires controlled nearly 60 percent of the world.

The British Empire—the largest in history—spanned every continent. The French Empire ruled over territory greater than the size of Europe. One factor driving such expansive imperialism was the quest for resources. The extraction of commodities from overseas colonies brought incredible wealth to European homelands. The Indian subcontinent, for example, accounted for nearly 40 percent of the British Empire’s gross domestic product in 1913. India’s production included items such as cotton, spices, and tea.

Colonized people often suffered greatly under the rule of empires. Colonized labor and land enriched faraway rulers at the expense of local communities. In one of the most extreme cases, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, up to ten million people died producing ivory and rubber for the Belgian Empire from 1885 to 1908. In India, millions died from famines from 1870 to 1930, as the British forced the colony to convert its farmable land from producing food crops to producing cash crops like cotton. Amid such conditions, millions of colonized people demanded independence from the ruling empires. Their demands for self-determination grew stronger in the early twentieth century.

Such calls for freedom intensified as European empires refused to cede their profitable colonies. These vast, continent-spanning empires eventually began to break apart following World War II. Bankrupted by the war, many European countries could no longer afford to operate vast empires abroad. The cost of maintaining thousands of soldiers and administrators in colonies halfway around the world became increasingly unfeasible. This held particularly true for the United Kingdom, which emerged from the conflict with crippling debt. Additionally, resistance to European rule grew stronger after World War II, when in places such as Algeria and India colonized people fought on behalf of the Allied Powers (including France and the United Kingdom)...

People Also Search

• Self-determination | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica
• Self-determination - Wikipedia
• Self-Determination | The Princeton Encyclopedia of Self-Determination
• How Self-Determination Shaped the Modern World | CFR Education
• Self-determination Definition - AP World History: Modern Key Term ...
• Self-Determination Definition, History & Examples - Study.com
• SELF-DETERMINATION Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
• Self-Determination: A Complex and Controversial Right • PolSci Institute
• Self-determination - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• SELF-DETERMINATION | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary