The conclusion of the book calls for a renewed international law approach to minority rights and the question of statehood – one that takes into account the unique nature and background of postcolonial states and, at the same time, pays attention to minority perspectives going beyond state-centrism, liberal individualism, and neoliberal developmentalism. In this regard, I critically examine a wide range of possible ways out and reform agendas to propose a more humane interrelationship between minorities, postcolonial states, and international law. My reflections, offered as potential approaches to redefining international legal architectures to the advantage of minority groups, cover a wide range of avenues: from revisiting colonial boundaries in principled ways, to accommodating more robust protection for minorities within existing state structures, to radically reconceptualising the state itself through feminist and historiographic revision. I conclude that it is through these alternative approaches to minorities that international law can finally make sense of humanitarian catastrophes in postcolonial states and its involvement therein. Given that the book exposes the way in which international law advances the ideological making of the postcolonial state vis-à-vis minorities, this normative argument can also be replicated in cases beyond the Rohingya and the CHT hill people.

Chapter three deals with the role of international law in the ideology of the postcolonial ‘national’ state. With its ambition of achieving a homogeneous and unified sovereign entity, the postcolonial state essentially relies on international law principles for the continuity of colonial boundaries (uti possidetis), territorial integrity, sovereign equality, and non-interference in internal affairs. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the uti possidetis principle helps in the maintenance of peace and order, I argue that uti possidetis is a key problem. Far from being a corrective mechanism halting potential ‘disorder’ emanating from decolonisation, the continuation of arbitrarily drawn colonial boundaries undermines the legitimate right to self-determination of numerous ethnic minorities in postcolonial states and often results in violent ethnic conflicts. The argument for uti possidetis in international law is also normatively inconsistent as it depends upon the capacity of the postcolonial state to efface ethno-nationalism while simultaneously allowing the state to produce its own sustaining nationalist ideology in majoritarian terms. The minority problem is thus embedded in the very ideological making of the postcolonial ‘national’ state in international law. My arguments in this chapter are substantiated with in-depth case studies on the Rohingya and the CHT hill people.