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2. European international society was also built on a balance of power, of course. Power is not a moral category, however, and its balance is not therefore an institution of international legitimacy properly speaking. See Oakeshott, Michael.‘The Vocabulary of a Modern European State’, Political Studies, XXIII (1975), pp. 319–341CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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24. Mestizo populations formed in Portuguese Africa and also in South Africa—the coloured population. In the former they not only sided with but frequently led the anti-colonial movements. In the latter they are defined as non-white by apartheid.

25. Latham, R. T. E., ‘The Law and the Commonwealth’, in Hancock, W. K. (ed.), Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, Vol. 1: Problems of Nationality (London, 1937), pp. 516–517Google Scholar.

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34. The key article of the OAU Charter—Article III—identifies the basic rules of forebearance, including: ‘1. The Sovereign equality of all Member States; 2. Non-interference in the internal affairs of States; 3. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence; 4…; 5. Unreserved condemnation, in all its forms, of political assassination as well as subversive activities…’ See Brownlie, Ian (ed.), Basic Documents on African Affairs (Oxford, 1971), p. 3.Google Scholar

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39. Kinsley, F. H., Sovereignty (London, 1966)Google Scholar, ch. V.

40. ‘Sovereignty, in its origins merely the location of supreme power within a particular territorial unit, necessarily came from within and therefore did not require the recognition of other states or princes. ’ J. Crawford, British Yearbook of International Law, 1976–77, p. 96. Also see Manning, C. A. W., ‘The Legal Framework in a World of Change’, in Porter, Brian (ed.), The Aberystwyth Papers (London, 1972), p. 307Google Scholar.

41. Berlin, Isaiah.Four Essays on Liberty (London, 1969), p. 131Google Scholar. The author is referring to freedom rather than sovereignty, but the concept is generally applicable to the latter.

42. Brierly, J. L., The Law of Nations (London, 1936), pp. 102–103.Google Scholar

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46. See Hedley Bull ‘The Revolt Against the West’, in Bull and Watson, op. cit. note 45, ch. 14.

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49. ‘Most of the African State entities are new States…, and reversion to sovereignty has no application.’ Alexandrowicz, C. H., ‘New and Original States: The Issue of Reversion to Sovereignty’, International Affairs, 45 (1969), p. 473Google Scholar.

50. Robinson, Ronald, ‘Andrew Cohen and the Transfer of Power in Tropical Africa’, in Morris-Jones, W. H. (ed.), Decolonization and After (London, 1980), p. 52Google Scholar. This has become a major proposition of British revisionist colonial historiography based on the post-1945 imperial archives. For a recent analysis and critique see Crook, Richard C., ‘Decolonization, the Colonial State, and Chieftaincy in the Gold Coast’, African Affairs, 85 (1986), pp. 77–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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52. On the important role of the United States in particular see Louis, Wm. Roger and Robinson, Ronald ‘The United States and the Liquidation of the British Empire in Tropical Africa, 1941–1951’, in Gifford, Prosser and Louis, Wm. Roger (eds.), The Transfer of Power in Africa (London, 1982), pp. 31–56Google Scholar.

53. Such confrontations were, of course, later experienced by the Portuguese and by Ian Smith and may yet be experienced by Pretoria.

54. This view was, according to J. M. Lee, a working assumption of British colonial policy until the late 1940s. See his Colonial Development and Good Government (Oxford, 1967), p. 280Google Scholar.

55. See Nkrumah, Kwame, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (London, 1959), p. 93.Google Scholar

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58. Berlin, op. cit. note 41, p. 123. Negative liberty and negative sovereignty differ in the extent to which they can reasonably postulate the capacity to enjoy non-interference, which is arguably greater in the case of the former owing to the more definite agency and will that individuals possess as compared to states or even governments. Negative sovereignty may amount to nothing more than the international protection and privilege of rulers whose subjects languish.

59. Everyman's United Nations: A Complete Handbook of the Activities and Evolution of the United Nations During its First Twenty Years, 1945–1965 (New York, 1968), pp. 370–371Google Scholar, 396–99. In practice the right is carefully restricted to ex-colonial jurisdictions and is not therefore available to all peoples as such. Otherwise the existing state jurisdictions in most of Africa and much of the world elsewhere would be seriously threatened in an epidemic of competing claims to self-determination.

60. See Gross, Leo, ‘The Right of Self-Determination in International Law’, in Kilson, M. (ed.), New States in the Modern World (London, 1975), pp. 153–154Google Scholar and Sorensen, Max (ed.), Manual of Public International Law (New York, 1968), p. 771CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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62. The World Bank and the Economic Commission for Africa have used these terms. See Toward Sustained Developments in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, 1984)Google Scholar and ECA and Africa's Development 1983–2008 (New York, 1983)Google Scholar.

63. For the distinction between imposed and solicited intervention see Wight, Power, op. cit. note 1, ch. 18.

64. Martin Wight remarked on another aspect of this ironic double standard some three decades ago: ‘The existence of the United Nations has exaggerated the international importance of the have-not powers…The paradoxical consequence has been that powers which, taken collectively, exhibit a low level of political freedom, governmental efficiency, public probity, civil liberties and human rights, have had the opportunity to set themselves up in judgement over powers which, taken collectively, for all their sins, have a high level in these respects.’ Power, op. cit. note 1, p. 238.

65. Kidron, M. and Segal, R., The New State of the World Atlas (London, 1984).Google Scholar

66. See Kuper, Leo, Genocide (Harmondsworth, 1981)Google Scholar, chs. 4, 6 and 9.

67. Brownlie, Principles, op. cit, note 6, p. 76.

68. South Africa is not the only oppressive regime in the world, nor even the only one which practices racism; its offence in the eyes of the world community is that is is the only one which has institutionalized racism. Legum, Colin, ‘The International Moral Protest,’ in Carter, G. M. and O'Meara, P. (eds.), International Politics in Southern Africa (Bloomington, 1982), p. 223Google Scholar.

69. Also see R. J. Vincent, ‘Racial Equality’, in Bull and Watson, op. cit. note 45, ch. 16.

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71. Whether most African countries were disadvantaged by colonialism or developed by it is a difficult empirical question that cannot be considered here.

72. See, for example, Partners in Development: Report of the Commission on International Development (Pearson Report) (New York, 1969)Google Scholar and North-South; A Program for Survival (Brandt Report) (Cambridge, MA, 1980)Google Scholar.

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74. The large literature on dependency and international political economy deals with them.

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77. W. E. Hall, a 19th century British legal scholar, quoted by Wight, Systems, op. cit. note 5, p. 115.

78. Mill, J. S., ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’, in Himmelfarb, G. (ed.), Essays in Politics and Culture (New York, 1963), pp. 377–378Google Scholar.