Organizing for self-determination, ethical de-Zionization and resisting apartheid

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 576-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Barghouti
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Civil Resistance ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Clear Vision ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Resistance Movement ◽  
Shared Society

This paper argues for a secular, democratic state in historic Palestine as the most morally coherent solution to the century-old colonial conflict because it offers the best hope for reconciling the inalienable right of the indigenous Palestinians to self-determination and the acquired rights of the colonial settlers to live in peace and security, individually and collectively. Accepting colonists as equal citizens and full partners in building and developing a new shared society is the most magnanimous offer any oppressed indigenous population can present to its oppressors, but for such to be attained, settlers must shed colonial privileges and character, accept justice, unmitigated equality, and conscious integration into the region. Building a just and lasting peace anchored in international law and universal human rights, conducive to ethical coexistence requires the ethical decolonization, or de-Zionization of historic Palestine. Such a process is premised on a revitalized, democratized Palestinian civil resistance movement with a clear vision for a shared, just society and effective worldwide support for reaffirming Palestinian rights and ending Israel's violations of international law and universal rights. By emphasizing the equality of humanity as its most fundamental principle, this paper shows that the proposed secular democratic state promises to transcend national and ethnic dichotomies that now make it nearly impossible to envision reaching any just solution to the most intricate questions.

scholarly journals The One-State as a Demand of International Law: Jus Cogens, Challenging Apartheid and the Legal Validity of Israel

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-205
Author(s):  
Oren Ben-Dor
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Crime ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
State Recognition ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The One ◽  
Jus Cogens ◽  
The Right ◽  
Peremptory Norms ◽  
State Of Israel

This article provides the initial contours of an argument that uses International Law to challenge the validity of Israeli apartheid. It challenges the conventional discourse of legal debates on Israel's actions and borders and seeks to link the illegalities of these actions to the validity of an inbuilt Israeli apartheid. The argument also connects the deontological doctrine of peremptory norms of International Law (jus cogens), the right of self-determination and the International Crime of Apartheid to the doctrine of state recognition. It applies these to the State of Israel and the vision of a single democratic state in historic Palestine.

scholarly journals The Proliferation of Definitions of Terrorism in International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Fabian Baumer-Schuppli
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Symbolic Function ◽  
Core Function ◽  
Common Enemy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

This paper analyses the proliferation of definitions of terrorism in international law and across national jurisdictions. On the one hand, this paper argues that terrorism legislation mainly pursues a symbolic function in international and criminal law by constructing the common enemy to the community of states. However, the fundamental disagreement on the nature of terrorism undermines this core function of terrorism legislation because violence becomes relativized by competing definitions of terrorism. On the other hand, this paper highlights how, in the presence of competing legal definitions of terrorism across states, the duty to prosecute or extradite (aut dedere aut iudicare) threatens the fundamental principle of foreseeability of criminal accountability (nullum crimen sine lege certa). As individuals are held accountable to multiple overlapping jurisdictions, self-determination struggles and legitimate acts in armed conflicts become increasingly criminalised. Therefore, the proliferation of definitions of terrorism in international law and across domestic jurisdictions has the effect of weakening collective action in international law and at the same time strengthening unilateral prosecution of terrorism.

Self-Determination and Territorial Integrity: Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-653
Author(s):  
Valerie Muguoh Chiatoh
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Third World ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Present Issue ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Relationship

African states and institutions believe that the principle of territorial integrity is applicable to sub-state groups and limits their right to self-determination, contrary to international law. The Anglophone Problem in Cameroon has been an ever-present issue of social, political and economic debates in the country, albeit most times in undertones. This changed as the problem metamorphosed into an otherwise preventable devastating armed conflict with external self-determination having become very popular among the Anglophone People. This situation brings to light the drawbacks of irregular decolonisation, third world colonialism and especially the relationship between self-determination and territorial integrity in Africa.

Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Natural Resources

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Right

The issue of sovereignty over natural resources has been a key element in the development of international law, notably leading to the emergence of the principle of States’ permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. However, concomitant to this focus on States’ sovereignty, international human rights law proclaims the right of peoples to self-determination over their natural resources. This has led to a complex and ambivalent relationship between the principle of States’ sovereignty over natural resources and peoples’ rights to natural resources. This chapter analyses this conflicting relationship and examines the emergence of the right of peoples to freely dispose of their natural resources and evaluates its potential role in contemporary advocacy. It notably explores how indigenous peoples have called for the revival of their right to sovereignty over natural resources, and how the global peasants’ movement has pushed for the recognition of the concept of food sovereignty.

Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Territorial States

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

scholarly journals “Indigenous sovereignty” and right to self-determination in international law: a critical appraisal

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-82
Author(s):  
Rashwet Shrinkhal
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Indigenous Sovereignty

It is worth recalling that the struggle of indigenous peoples to be recognised as “peoples” in true sense was at the forefront of their journey from an object to subject of international law. One of the most pressing concerns in their struggle was crafting their own sovereign space. The article aims to embrace and comprehend the concept of “indigenous sovereignty.” It argues that indigenous sovereignty may not have fixed contour, but it essentially confronts the idea of “empire of uniformity.” It is a source from which right to self-determination stems out and challenges the political and moral authority of States controlling indigenous population within their territory.

scholarly journals Postcolonial International Law Discourses on Regional Developments in South and Southeast Asia

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane A. Desierto
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Economic Order ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
South And Southeast Asia ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
International Legal System

The development of international law in South and Southeast Asia exemplifies myriad ideological strands, historical origins, and significant contributions to contemporary international law doctrines’ formative and codification processes. From the beginnings of South and Southeast Asian participation in the international legal order, international law discourse from these regions has been thematicallypostcolonialand substantivelydevelopment-oriented.Postcolonialism in South and Southeast Asian conceptions of international law is an ongoing dialectical project of revisioning international legal thought and its normative directions — towards identifying, collocating, and applying South and Southeast Asian values and philosophical traditions alongside the Euro-American ideologies that, since the classical Post-Westphalian era, have largely infused the content of positivist international law. Of increasing necessity to the intricacies of the postmodern international legal system and its institutions is how the postcolonial project of South and Southeast Asian international legal discourse focuses on areas of international law that create the most urgent development consequences: trade, investment, and the international economic order; the law of the sea and the environment; international humanitarian law, self-determination, socio-economic and cultural human rights.

Separatism in the Comoros: Some Legal Aspects

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gino J. Naldi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Small Island ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Island State ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Small Island State ◽  
The Relationship

Since its founding in 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has placed special emphasis on the preservation of the territorial integrity of African states. It has actively contributed to the development of relevant rules of international law, such as that of uti possidetis. Its opposition to the fragmentation of states has been absolute. However, the small island state of Comoros has challenged this state of affairs. The seemingly successful secession of ‘Anjouan’ has threatened the cherished principles of the OAU. This article critically analyzes the relationship between the principles at the heart of the dispute, those of self-determination and uti possidetis, and concludes that there is no legal proscription on the secession of ‘Anjouan’.

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