SELF-determination is the concept of a people’s right to choose their own political, economic, and social destiny, often leading to the formation of an independent and sovereign state for the people who are struggling against the oppressive rule and for nationhood status. It is a core principle of international law, which by virtue of its erga omnes status, given responsibility to recognized states and global institutions to ensure the rights of people including the rights of freedom from foreign occupation. In this regard, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has also reiterated the honour of self-determination. The obstruction or violation of this value, particularly through the use of force, constitutes a very serious violation of international law.
Historically, the principles of self-determination introduced by Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points(1918) in which Wilson directed the empires to honour the self-determination based on caste, creed, language, and religion, mean the people should govern themselves in the independent states. In fact, Wilson encouraged the state system and discourage the colonisation in the world. This notion ultimately emerged as an instrument of freedom for a just and lasting peace. So, Wilson points were the guidelines for the future postwar world and dismantled the European and Asian empires and supported the idea of new nation-states based on self-determination. Initially this concept applied in the Treaty of Versailles after the World War II and its strength has seen in Europe with the colonial interests of allied powers. However, after the Yalta Conference (1945), the concept of self-determination come out as a political force and the era of decolonization started.
In the same way, the nation’s right of self-determination was also confirmed by the United Nations Charter Article-1 and international covenants, which is closely tied to decolonization and respect to state sovereignty. Its mean the UN charter discouraged colonialism and favor the vision of statism in the world which is considered an authoritative indication of customary international law. Thus, the principle of self-determination has taken the position as the first right in the twin Human Rights Covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). So, the UN reaffirms this right to all suppressed people who are facing the state offensive practice. The spirit of right has extended to its application beyond the colonial context, and present world state system is the best gift of this concept. So, self-determination has a central position in the present international state system and global institutions are responsible to protect it as a basic right of people. In this regard, international support has grown for the right of oppressive people which led to successful against the foreign occupation in the modern state system.
In the contemporary time, it has indicated that the principle has acquired the status of jus cogens – a peremptory norm of international law as a whole mean no state can deviate from the right of self-determination for people and national identities have legitimate right to freely determine their political and socio-cultural status. Therefore, the norms of right to self-determination have established as human dignity and human rights in the world. So, the concept outlines not just the duty of states to respect and promote the right, but also the obligation to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples of the enjoyment of such a right. In particular, the use of force to prevent a people from exercising its right to self-determination as doing by India and Israel is regarded as illegal and has been consistently condemned by the international community.
Nevertheless, the concepts of self-determination in Kashmir and Palestine are linked by their shared struggle against the foreign occupation and their claims to right to self-determination has become well established reality. Both communities are suffering by state terrorism, extrajudicial killing, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, communication blockades and attempts at demographic engineering in the contemporary history. Thus, Hindutva and Zionist regime’s actions reveal the fragility of human rights violation and their serious crimes against humanity continue to be committed. Both states blatantly intricate the crime of genocide and their forces are involved in torture, targeting innocent people before the eyes of the entire world, thousands of people, especially women, the elderly and children, have been killed, thousands have been injured and more than a million people have been displaced. Thus, Pakistan is frequently highlighted the necked aggression of India and Israel in all international and regional forums, and argued that the right to self-determination has been denied to their people. However, the right to self-determination has increasingly come to embody the notion of democratic governance, the observance of human rights, and the protection of minority rights because without that people will remain subjected to colonial, foreign and alien occupation.
—The writer is an educationalist, based in Peshawer
