Research On The Subject Of Self - Determination

The principle of self-determination is also called national self-determination or self-determination of peoples. At first, it was a political slogan favored by bourgeois revolutionaries, and becoming an important principle of the international law at length. It has played an undeniable role in national liberation and the establishment of national states. Nowadays, the principle of self-determination has been given the nature of collective human rights, becoming a human right widely recognized by the international community. Overall, it provides more extensive and universal protection on human rights, but it has also been exploited by some ethnic separatist forces as a weapon against the existing national structures, and by some powerful countries as the legal defense tool of their "new interventionism". And the main reason is that the broadness and ambiguities of the concept of self-determination subjects give these criminals the chance. Therefore, defining the scope of the subjects of the right to self-determination, analyzing their essential meaning, and then identifying the self-determination subject status of several highly controversial groups have a positive meaning against the abuse of the right to self-determination by the ethnic separatist forces and against the interference in the internal affairs of other countries by the foreign forces, as well as the better understanding of our national policy and legislation.Firstly, through sorting out the main points of domestic and foreign scholars and different understandings of the relevant provisions of the right to self-determination in the Charter of the United Nations, this paper locks the general direction of the range of self-determination subjects, namely "nation" and "peoples". Then, based on English linguistics theories, this paper discusses the basic concept of the subject of the right to self-determination----nation, and then from the perspectives of international law and international human rights law, it defines the essential connotation of nation, namely the nation as a whole associated with country in the macro sense and the nationality in colonization and encroachment. On the basis, it points out that Kosovo does not have the subject qualification of the right to self-determination. Secondly, with the same idea, this paper outlines the basic concept of the subject of the right to self-determination----peoples, and combined with the elements of "peoples" in international law, it explains the categories of peoples, namely colonial peoples, peoples oppressed by foreign military occupation or domination, as well as all the people of all sovereign states. Finally, on the basis of combining the theory of international law and practice of the international community, the paper analyzes the self-determination subject status of the minorities, national minorities, indigenous peoples and sovereign states, clarifying that the minorities and national minorities can only enjoy the minority rights regulated in the international human rights conventions but can not resort to self-determination of peoples. Whereas, the indigenous peoples can not only enjoy the minority rights, but also can enjoy the special right----self-determination of peoples. As for sovereign states, we should recognize that it is the subject of peoples’self-determination obligations, rather than the subject of the rights. And the realization and maintenance of peoples’ right to self-determination depends on the backing of state sovereignty.