right to self-determination and protection of minorities
The self-determination of peoples was first recognised as a fundamental principle of international law in the Charter of the UN in 1945, followed by the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights in 1966, which entered into force in 1976.
The right to self-determination has external and internal dimensions. External self-determination is the collective right of a particular ethnic, linguistic, cultural or religious community to establish and administer its own state (right to independent statehood, right to participate in international relations). Internal self-determination is the right of the people to choose the form of popular representation and the way of governing (democracy), i.e. the right of each people and nation to freely determine their own political destiny as well as their social and economic institutions (sovereignty, non-interference).
In the recent history of Europe three major waves of enforcement of self-determination have been observed. After the First World War historical states were re-established (e.g. Poland) and new states were created (e.g. Czechoslovakia, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes). In the decades after 1945 states liberated from colonial rule gained external and internal sovereignty. After 1990 during the democratic changes in Central and Eastern Europe the break-up of the federal states (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union) led to the emergence of new states.
In UN practice the right to self-determination has been used primarily as a legal basis for the abolition of colonialism. The UN had 51 members when it was founded in 1945; the number of members rose to 122 in 1966, 159 in 1990 and 193 in 2020. The UN distinguishes between the right of peoples to self-determination, as enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the protected rights (culture, religion, language use) of persons belonging to national, religious or linguistic minorities under Article 27. The exercise of the latter must not infringe the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a State Party (UN Declaration on the Rights of Minorities).
Attempts to link the right to self-determination and the protection of minorities have a particular resonance in some regions and are the subject of ongoing legal and political debate. The right to self-determination is defined in international law as a collective right while the protection of persons belonging to national, ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities – based on the right to identity (freedom of identity, right to identity) – is interpreted by the majority of states as an individual right. Some states may also take decisions to guarantee the collective rights of national or ethnic minorities living on their territory on the basis of the right to identity (collective rights), including various forms of autonomy.