Countries have rights and obligations specified in the UN Charter (e.g. Territorial Rights). A people have rights specified in the domestic constitutions and rights defined in various covenants such as the covenants on Civil and Political rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. // Here, as a People are considered governable communities from the size of villages to countries. Individual have rights granted by covenants and the Declaration of Human rights (most parts of which are considered customary international law).
Questions [to be] considered are: Who’s Land is It, who governs it (to which extent and which aspects) and who can benefit (from resources, from accumulated wealth, …) - whereby possible options for who are private persons, private companies, communities, countries, people of the world, intelligent beings … ?
23.9.23: in work - to clarify, to correct and to improve:
- Currently many sections are just a bag for references.
- Some sections are considered not good and also biased. These will be improved or commented out.
- Overall very fare away from a carefully thought through & written coverage of the topic.
23.9.23: Started some new sections such as Languages in Belgium and Connection between Separatism and Federalism. 23.9.23: corrections and clarifications. Not fitting/not good content commented out.
Whether and if yes under which circumstances a people have the right to secede from a parent country and against the will of the latter is a controversial topic in international law. The Normative Status of Self-Determination in International Law: A Formula for Uncertainty in the Scope and Content of the Right? considers different viewpoints by states and scholars.
The opinion advocated here:
- autonomy including self determined government.
- keeping local people out of geopolitics.
- no forceful measures
-> Advocated Path for Self Determination.
- clearer specification of self determination in international law. -> Self Determination in International Law
[in work] Both the UN charter and the covenants on Civil & Political Rights and on Economic and Cultural state a people have the right for self determination. A people is not specified however.
Self-determination including [regional] autonomy and the right for secession is ideally [clearer] specified. Then autonomy questions for regions all across the world can be handled according to specified principles. How the UK allows Scotland to decide itself is considered exemplary, however it is acknowledged that the situation is more complex in other settings when a more central/connecting part wants to secede (for example in Switzerland in 1848, some of the central Cantons wanted to form a ‘Sonderbund’, which was then prevented by the other cantons.
Matthew Saul, The Normative Status of Self-Determination in International Law: A Formula for Uncertainty in the Scope and Content of the Right?, Human Rights Law Review, Volume 11, Issue 4, December 2011, Pages 609–644, https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngr025
Recommended read.
Steven R. Fisher, Towards “Never Again”: Searching for a Right to Remedial Secession under Extant International Law, 22 Buff. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 261 (2016). https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/bhrlr/vol22/iss1/7
Interesting article. Here sometimes a different focus is taken, for example:
- When formulating laws for secession one needs to be careful not to discourage regional self governing and [granting] autonomy.
- To determine the right of secession, instead of a backward looking approach (i.e. was the right for self determination violated and were there human right violations?), here a forward looking approach is preferred: How a peaceful and feasible future (for which events in the past may have to be taken into account) in agreement with human rights and self determination is achieved (Preferred Path for Self Determination).
Self-determination, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
in work
Refs on Collective Ownership
Martinovic on Collective Ownership
Borja Martinovic, Collective psychological ownership and intergroup relations
recommended read.
In Belgium there two main languages: French and Dutch (called Flemish in Belgium).
Refs Languages in Belgium:
Blommaert J. The long language-ideological debate in Belgium. Journal of Multicultural Discourses. 2011 Nov 1;6(3):241-56.
Ogechi, Nathan Oyori. “On language rights in Kenya.” Nordic Journal of African Studies 12.3 (2003): 19-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Kenya
https://www.milestoneloc.com/official-languages-of-kenya/
The wikipedia article on languages of Russia gives an overview of the languages spoken and the flavor of the current language policies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Russia, 23.9.23
In Switzerland there are three main languages, namely Italian (native speakers about 10%), French (native about 20%) and German (about 60%, though learned first and spoken is mainly a local alemannic dialect, collectively referred as Swiss German). Additionally Romansh is an official language and spoken by about 0.5%.
Official notes from EDA: https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/gesellschaft/sprachen.html, Expatica: https://www.expatica.com/ch/education/language-learning/languages-in-switzerland-107845/, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland
Siroky, David S., and John Cuffe. Lost Autonomy, Nationalism and Separatism. Comparative Political Studies 48.1 (2015): 3-34.
”"”In his Second Treatise, John Locke observed that men are unlikely to cause revolutions for trivial reasons. This analysis shows that a tangible loss of autonomy is a nontrivial issue, and is robustly associated with separatism.”””
Cederman LE, Hug S, Schädel A, Wucherpfennig J. Territorial autonomy in the shadow of conflict: Too little, too late?. American Political Science Review. 2015 May;109(2):354-70.
Germann M, Sambanis N. Political exclusion, lost autonomy, and escalating conflict over self-determination. International Organization. 2021 Jan;75(1):178-203.
Forcible methods of any kind against [the will of] the local population by any party are not considered adequate. Only peaceful forms of protest [if self determination is not granted]. Especially no force before a clear perspective in
Here to achieve self-determination and living in a setting which takes local peculiarities into account, a federalist government structure is advocated: Local autonomy including a local government determined by the local people, fair participation in the senior state and respect for the local culture and language. Possibly independent ‘regional’ sport teams e.g. for football if wished, it works in the UK.
Reasons for autonomy based paths:
- Respect for each other and common base values such as human rights are considered important. It possibly helps to enable and encourage regional and interregional interactions and participation (for example free language courses, though no pressure or grading or participation options starting with regional policy) <!– notes below are commented out as not fitting here. Additionally content/formulations are unclear and overall just not good. currently biased due to reoccurring personal experiences which do not generalize. it was stupid to write this here with a wrong timing. Sorry. Possibly sometimes a corrected/rewritten version will be published on the people interactions site, where group interactions are considered.
- This only works, when there is respect [for one another]. // When [part of] subgroups (whether small or large) put group membership above respect, society or even human rights and team up to against non-group members, society may break [into pieces]. Additionally significant parts of subgroups using group membership against others may damage the reputation of the entire subgroup. Just no teaming up against others - keeping up cultures, customs and friendships is considered positive.–>
Highlighting benefits of multicultural countries, is an argument not to consider a uniform society as wish-worthy to achieve or to trying to preserve when history flows different - however it does not mean a uniform society is considered bad when it is like this - cultures tend to spread anyways due to people interactions; which are advocated here and driven by advances in transportation and communication. // What is uniform, is relative and depends on the features considered: For example Kenya diverse in languages (Languages in Kenya) and the North America is diverse in the origin of the last generations of ancestors which are from most parts of the world. // The last generations is emphasized, as when going back fare enough everybody likely has ancestors who once migrated from the lands of todays Kenya (wikipedia on migrations in prehistoric times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations, genetic evidence for example in López, S. et al. (2016). Human Dispersal Out of Africa: A Lasting Debate. https://doi.org/10.4137/EBO.S33489 and archeological findings are e.g. described in https://humanorigins.si.edu/research/east-african-research-projects/olorgesailie-kenya). –>
- In Europe, Switzerland managed to stay out of both world wars. Likely shared cultural space with all neighbors, namely France, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Italy helped to stay neutral and helped not to be drawn into.