The Right of Self-Determination of Peoples: The Domestication of an Illusion (Human Rights in History)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/10/2015
EAN 9781107688209, ISBN10: 1107688205
Paperback, 350 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English
The right of self-determination of peoples holds out the promise of sovereign statehood for all peoples and a domination-free international order. But it also harbors the danger of state fragmentation that can threaten international stability if claims of self-determination lead to secessions. Covering both the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century independence movements in the Americas and the twentieth-century decolonization worldwide, this book examines the conceptual and political history of the right of self-determination of peoples. It addresses the political contexts in which the right and concept were formulated and the practices developed to restrain its potentially anarchic character, its inception in anti-colonialism, nationalism, and the labor movement, its instrumentalization at the end of the First World War in a formidable duel that Wilson lost to Lenin, its abuse by Hitler, the path after the Second World War to its recognition as a human right in 1966, and its continuing impact after decolonization.
Prologue
national unity and secession in the symbolism of power
Introduction
a concept and ideal
Part I. Theory of Self-Determination
1. Individual self-determination
2. Collective self-determination
3. The people
4. Self-determination and the right of self-determination
Part II. Self-Determination in Practice
5. The early modern period in Europe
precursors of a right of self-determination?
6. The first decolonization and the right to independence
the Americas, 1776–1826
7. The French Revolution and the invention of the plebiscite
8. From the European Restoration to the First World War, 1815–1914
9. The First World War and the peace treaties, 1918–23
10. The interwar period, 1923–39
11. The Second World War
the perversion of a great promise
12. The Cold War and the second decolonization, 1945–89
13. After 1989
the quest for a new equilibrium
Epilogue
the right of the weak.