Examining the Suitability of the International Minority Rights Regime as an Avenue for Advancing Self-Determination Claims

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 675-727
Author(s):  
Rhys Carvosso

The international legal right of all ‘peoples’ to self-determination applies indeterminately to minority groups. The limited jurisprudence tends toward an ‘internal’ dimension of the right being available to minorities, to be exercised and negotiated domestically. However, where a state-minority negotiation process fails, the international law of self-determination is inadequate to resolve the ensuing deadlock. Accordingly, this article examines the suitability of minority protections under international human rights law (‘minority rights’) as a supplementary set of rules by which disputes concerning the self-determination of minorities might be resolved. It argues that owing to the strong conceptual and doctrinal overlap between the two areas, the enforcement of minority rights is a suitable strategy for advancing a self-determination claim. However, two bars within existing international human rights enforcement procedures – the non-justiciability of self-determination, and the requirement that complainants must be “victims of a violation” – substantially reduce the utility of this strategy at present.

Author(s):  
Rhona K. M. Smith

This chapter examines the right to self-determination in international human rights law. It traces the origins of this right and considers issues characterizing the current debate on the future of self-determination. The chapter suggests that while self-determination is acceptable for divesting States of colonial powers, problems can arise when groups that are not the sole occupants of a State territory choose to exercise self-determination. The right to self-determination may sit uneasily with respect for territorial integrity of States. Various forms of modern self-determination, including partial or full autonomy within States are emerging.


Author(s):  
Rhona K. M. Smith

This chapter examines the right to self-determination in international human rights law. It traces the origins of this right and considers issues characterizing the current debate on the future of self-determination. The chapter suggests that while self-determination is acceptable for divesting States of colonial powers, problems can arise when groups that are not the sole occupants of a State territory choose to exercise self-determination. The right to self-determination may sit uneasily with respect for territorial integrity of States. Various forms of modern self-determination, including partial or full autonomy within States are emerging.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Munafrizal Manan

This paper discusses the right of self-determinationfrom  international  law  and international human rights law perspective. It traces the emergence and development of self-determination from political principle to human right. It also explores the controversy of the right of self-determination. There have been different and even contradictory interpretations of the right of self-determination. Besides, there is no consensus on the mechanism to apply the right of self-determination. Both international law and international human rights law are vague about this.


2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDRE LIEBICH

AbstractThis article argues that minority rights developed as an indemnity offered to defeated parties. As a grudging and begrudged calculus of compensation, considered inadequate by the vanquished and offensive by the victors, minority rights have been unable to compete in terms of legitimacy with either an increasingly robust international human rights regime or with the right of national self-determination. After reviewing some explanations for the weakness of the existing minority rights regime, this article traces the rationale of what may be described anachronistically as minority rights provisions in international treaties from the Peace of Westphalia to the Versailles settlement, concluding with a consideration of present-day implications of the argument elaborated here.


2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na'ama Carmi

Cultural rights of minority groups are recognized in international human rights law. These rights include the right of minority groups to adopt various measures to protect their cultural identity, which may include closure of the group’s community from outsiders. The state in which such groups reside has a concurrent duty to respect these rights and sometimes even to take positive measures to ensure their implementation. The consideration of demographic factors, then, is regarded as legitimate when designed to protect minority groups. The rights of majority groups, on the other hand, are often ensured by the mere fact that they constitute a majority within the state and as such do not require special measures.This state of affairs is challenged, however, in face of mass immigration that could change the relation existing between majority and minority groups within the state. Under these circumstances, does a majority have the right to preserve its own culture through an immigration policy that takes into account demographic factors? I argue that the duty of states under international human rights law to protect rights of minority groups might serve as an incentive to restrict immigration endangering the character of the state. This character—the state’s public culture—is the outcome of collective preferences of the majority of its citizens, which is assumed ought to be respected.


Author(s):  
Martin Dixon ◽  
Robert McCorquodale ◽  
Sarah Williams

Human rights are a matter of international law, as the rights of humans do not depend on an individual’s nationality and so the protection of these rights cannot be limited to the jurisdiction of any one State. This chapter introduces the principal ideas, issues and framework of international human rights law. It discusses human rights theories; human rights and the international community; international protection of human rights; regional human rights protections; limitations on the human rights treaty obligations of States; the right of self-determination; and the protection of human rights by non-State actors.


Author(s):  
Jorge Aillapán Quinteros

In the present essay, the author—and Mapuche, at the same time—critically analyzes the construction of the Mapuche people as a “vulnerable human group” under the International Human Rights Law and then, according to decolonial option, proposes a hypothesis: if the indigenous people are vulnerable, by definition, to claim the right to self-determination, in the Mapuche case, it is an oxymoron.


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