Right of nations to self-determination: lifeboat for ones, taboo for the others.
On July 9 one more country joined the number of community of independent states - the South Sudan, which hopefully put an end to the long-lasting civil war in Africa by fully implementing its right to self-determination. And during these three days that country got the official recognition of 53 UN member states and four others. On July 12 the President of the South Sudan officially applied to the UN Secretary General to gain the status of full member of the United Nations, and it’s expected that the appropriate decision will be made by the end of this week. Let’s agree - quite fast developments.
But during the last three-four years the South Sudan was not the only enclave that tried to secure the existence of its population by declaring independence based on peoples’ inalienable right freely to decide their future in all aspects. We already had approximately the same developments in different parts of the world. Sure, the details of the process are different, but the whole concept is the same: whenever your rights are periodically violated and there are no security guarantees of your live, you will try to gain and protect those rights even by force. The same happened in Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Though in the case of the first one, Kosovo’s independence on 17 February 2008 and so far is recognized by 76 UN member states and one non-member state, though that country is still too far from becoming full member of UN. Completely other situation is with the recognition process of Abkhazia and the South Ossetia, which declared their independence in 2008, followed the South Ossetia War between Georgia and Russia. These countries are recognized only by four UN member states: Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru.
And list of countries that gain their independence on the basis of right to self-determination is not limited only by the abovementioned countries; we have a lot of them at least in the post-Soviet territory.
So all this historic review was mentioned only for one purpose: why the practicing of peoples’ right to self-determination, being acceptable towards some nations, is a unique “taboo” for the others? And how we can explain the selective approach towards the recognition of self-determined nations? And if I can find justification of such actions through the prism of geopolitical interests (here again “oil policy” has its specific role), anyway, by International Law it makes no sense.
So, which are the criteria on the basis of which we can be sure that this or that country can gain international recognition?
In case of Sudan we can mention all the points that path a way for “justifying” the realization of the highest form of self-determination - independence: the Arabic and on-Arabic parts of former Sudan cannot coexist together, there was oppression by the Sudanese Government of non-Arab Sudanese in favour of Sudanese Arabs, war, killings, ethnic-cleansing and ect.
But we have the same in the cases of other self-determined and still not recognized countries (for example, Kosovo, Nagorno Karabakh, Cyprus, Basques in Europe, West Bank, ect). So whether here the main accent is done on the fact in which case how many people have been killed - so we can say there is an international level of death tolls, according to which you can ensure that your right to self-determination can be realized or you should wait till reaching the appropriate level.
Anyway, we should be proud that we got another example of civilized settlement of conflicts, which can be a good message for the others that haven’t realized yet - military actions don’t solve problems, they just create another lead to new negotiations.
But during the last three-four years the South Sudan was not the only enclave that tried to secure the existence of its population by declaring independence based on peoples’ inalienable right freely to decide their future in all aspects. We already had approximately the same developments in different parts of the world. Sure, the details of the process are different, but the whole concept is the same: whenever your rights are periodically violated and there are no security guarantees of your live, you will try to gain and protect those rights even by force. The same happened in Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Though in the case of the first one, Kosovo’s independence on 17 February 2008 and so far is recognized by 76 UN member states and one non-member state, though that country is still too far from becoming full member of UN. Completely other situation is with the recognition process of Abkhazia and the South Ossetia, which declared their independence in 2008, followed the South Ossetia War between Georgia and Russia. These countries are recognized only by four UN member states: Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru.
And list of countries that gain their independence on the basis of right to self-determination is not limited only by the abovementioned countries; we have a lot of them at least in the post-Soviet territory.
So all this historic review was mentioned only for one purpose: why the practicing of peoples’ right to self-determination, being acceptable towards some nations, is a unique “taboo” for the others? And how we can explain the selective approach towards the recognition of self-determined nations? And if I can find justification of such actions through the prism of geopolitical interests (here again “oil policy” has its specific role), anyway, by International Law it makes no sense.
So, which are the criteria on the basis of which we can be sure that this or that country can gain international recognition?
In case of Sudan we can mention all the points that path a way for “justifying” the realization of the highest form of self-determination - independence: the Arabic and on-Arabic parts of former Sudan cannot coexist together, there was oppression by the Sudanese Government of non-Arab Sudanese in favour of Sudanese Arabs, war, killings, ethnic-cleansing and ect.
But we have the same in the cases of other self-determined and still not recognized countries (for example, Kosovo, Nagorno Karabakh, Cyprus, Basques in Europe, West Bank, ect). So whether here the main accent is done on the fact in which case how many people have been killed - so we can say there is an international level of death tolls, according to which you can ensure that your right to self-determination can be realized or you should wait till reaching the appropriate level.
Anyway, we should be proud that we got another example of civilized settlement of conflicts, which can be a good message for the others that haven’t realized yet - military actions don’t solve problems, they just create another lead to new negotiations.