The Right of Self Determination of Peoples: Examining Legality of Territorial Secession under International Law.

Nyangaga, Joseph Ooko (2023) The Right of Self Determination of Peoples: Examining Legality of Territorial Secession under International Law. Doctoral thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

More often the communities have continued to demand territorial secession as a right of self-determination of peoples under international law. In contrast, states continue to maintain that secession is an affront to the international law’s principle of territorial integrity and undermines states’ sovereignty. The contestation on whether there is right to secede under international law continues to account for most domestic armed conflicts around the world, resulting in human rights violations and civilian deaths. The study employed doctrinal and qualitative research methods to investigate the legality of territorial secession as a right of self-determination of peoples under international law. The study revealed that, even though territorial self-rule is legally attainable through the right of self-determination of peoples in the context of decolonization under Article 73 of the United Nations Charter 1945 and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) (1960). There is no specific international law rule that either expressly or implicitly supports or prohibits acts of territorial secession in international law. The study further discovered that, in general, the right of self-determination of peoples is primarily concerned with enforcing respect for human rights as its integral aspect. But, where human rights violations are exercised by the state as a policy against the peoples, territorial secession is acceptable as a remedy to human rights violations. The study concludes that territorial secession is neither legally permitted nor prohibited under international law, and therefore it does not violate international law, but rather lacks a legal framework to regulate its character under international law

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