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Self-Determination by the Grace of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

Maarten Bos
Maarten Bos
Affiliation:
Professor of International Law in the University of Utrecht
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Extract

Self-determination: a cry of the French Revolution, and a revolutionary cry at that. As a revolutionary cry, it can have little to do with the antithesis of revolution: law. Self-determination, actually, belongs to the realm not of law, but of history. Nevertheless, as an historical phenomenon, it is of necessity linked up with international law. In the words of the much regretted Telders, indeed, “international law essentially is a border-line notion in the sense, inter alia, of being itself a border, i.e., the border between the realm—the category—of law and the realm or category of history”. But if international law thus partakes both of law and of history, the fact alone does not suffice to give an adequate insight in the nature of the relation between historical self-determination and international law so understood. To that end, we should probe somewhat deeper into the relation between international law and history generally.

Type
Articles
Information
Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 1968 , pp. 362 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1968

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References

1 Benjamin Marius Telders, born 19 March 1903 at The Hague (Netherlands), died at Bergen-Belsen (Germany), at the hands of the German invader, on 6 April 1945. From 1931 onward, he had been professor of law at Leyden University. In him, the Netherlands lost a most brilliant and promising legal theoretician and practitioner. The greater part of his work is to be found in his Verzamelde Geschriften (Collected Papers), Volumes I–VI (The Hague, 1947–1949).Google Scholar

2 Telders, , Opzet van een boek over het internationale rechtGoogle Scholar (Draft of a book on international law), in Verzamelde Geschriften, Vol. III, p. 314 (this writer's translation).Google Scholar

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5 Ibid., p. 414 (this writer's translation). In this quotation, no undue stress should be laid on the words “moral”, “political”, and “to act” in order to detract from what, in the end, appears to be an opinion regarding the course history will actually take.

6 Comp. Bloomfield, , Evolution or Revolution? The United Nations and the Problem of Peaceful Change (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 11–12.Google ScholarPubMed

7 They abound to anybody who did become aware of the nexus between historico-philosophical conviction and opinions in matters of international law.

8 Ambruster, , SelbstbestimmungsrechtGoogle Scholar, in Strupp-Schlochauer, , Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts, Vol. III (Berlin, 1962), p. 252.Google Scholar

9 Lauterpacht, , op. cit., p. 397Google Scholar; von Geusau, Alting, Vreedzame verandering en internationale organisaties (Leyden, 1965), pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

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12 Robinson, , From Protection of Minorities to Promotion of Human Rights, The Jewish Yearbook of International Law, 1948, p. 119Google Scholar; De Nova, , The International Protection of National Minorities and Human Rights, Howard Law Journal, 1965, p. 276.Google Scholar

13 The view is held by von Gensau, Alting, op. cit., pp. 13–17Google Scholar, who, therefore, extends his subject beyond all bounds.

14 Comp. Price, , Power and the Law. A Study in Peaceful Change with Special Reference to the British Commonwealth and the United Nations (Dover, 1954), p. 142Google Scholar; von Geusau, Alting, op. cit., p. 11.Google Scholar

15 Comp. Emerson, , Self-Determination, Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1966, p. 138.Google Scholar

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17 Ibid., p. 130.

18 Ibid., p. 131.

19 Lüthy, , Colonization and the Making of Mankind, in Imperialism and Colonialism (Nadel, and Curtis, , ed.) (New York, 1964), p. 35Google Scholar; see also Emerson, , op. cit., p. 384.Google Scholar

20 von Gensau, Alting, op. cit., p. 11Google Scholar, citing Claude.

21 De Visscher, , Théories et réalités en droit international public, 2nd. ed. (Paris, 1955), p. 394.Google Scholar

22 Jenks, , The I.L.O. and Peaceful Change, New Commonwealth Quarterly, 1938–1939, p. 367Google Scholar (quoted after von Geusau, Alting, op. cit., p. 17).Google Scholar

23 von Geusau, Alting, op. cit., pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

24 See p. 362 supra.

25 Ambruster, , op. cit., p. 252.Google Scholar

26 Ibid. Comp. Resolution 742 (VIII) of the General Assembly of the United Nations (27 November 1953) on self-government and the conditions to be taken into account, and Engers, , Hoofdstuk XI van het Handvest van de Verenigde Naties (Amsterdam, 1956), pp. 152–159.Google Scholar

27 Op. cit., p. 253.

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29 A former Netherlands Permanent Representative at the United Nations, Dr. J. G. de Beus, was reported to have used the following language: “The admission (to the United Nations) of micro-States is not correct. If that continues, the Organization may, in the end, count 200 or more Members, mostly coral-atolls and small sheikhdoms”. See Wordende Wereld, 11 1967, p. 3 (translation supplied).Google Scholar

30 Lauterpacht, , International Law and Human Rights (London, 1950), p. 69Google Scholar: “in relation to both rights and duties, the individual is the final subject of all law”; see also Glaser, , La protection internationale des valeurs humaines, R.G.D.I.P., 1957, p. 211.Google Scholar

31 François, , Annuaire de l'Institut de Droit International, 1950, Vol. II, p. 200.Google Scholar

32 As by Decker, , op. cit., p. 242.Google Scholar

33 Northedge, , National Self-Determination. The Adventures of a Moral Principle, International Relations, 1955, p. 94.Google Scholar

34 Decker, , op. cit., p. 302.Google Scholar

35 Ambruster, , op. cit., p. 253.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., p. 254. Bowett, , op. cit., p. 133Google Scholar, rejects individual intervention. Decker, , op. cit., pp. 199 and 231Google Scholar, on the contrary, seems to admit a right of intervention on the part of the United Nations, but very definitely he does so with regard to intervention on the part of the neighbouring nation-State: see p. 302 on the war of liberation.

37 See to that effect Verzijl, , International Law in Historical Perspective, Vol. I (Leyden, 1968), pp. 321Google Scholaret seq., François, , Grondlijnen van het volkenrecht, third ed. (Zwolle, 1967), p. 102Google Scholar, Röling, , International Law in an Expanded World (Amsterdam, 1960), p. 78Google Scholar, Van der Molen, , Enkele opmerkingen over het zelfbeschikkingsrecht der volken, Antirevolutionaire Staatkunde, 1962, p. 76.Google Scholar

38 See p. 362 supra.