OUVRAGE : T. Sparks, Self-Determination in the International Legal System: Whose Claim, to What Right?

Tom SPARKS

This open access book brings conceptual clarity to the study and practice of self-determination, showing that it is, without doubt, one of the most important concepts of the international legal order. It argues that the accepted categorisation of internal and external self-determination is not helpful, and suggests a new typology. This new framework has four categories: the polity-based, secessionary, colonial, and remedial forms. Each will be distinguished by the grounds, or the legitimacy-claim, on which it is based. This not only ensures consistency, it moves the question out of the purely conceptual realm and addresses the practical concerns of those invoking self-determination. By presenting international lawyers with a typology that is both theoretically consistent and more practically useful, the author makes a significant contribution to our understanding of this keystone of international law.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. A Struggle for Self-Determination: Whose Claim, to What Right?

I. Introduction
II. The Self-Determination Problem
III. Four Forms of Self-Determination
IV. Vocabulary and Categorisation: The Forms of Self-Determination and their Interrelation
V. Conclusion

2. Self-Determination's Origins: 1320-1920

I. A Prehistory of Self-Determination?
II. Self-Determination Takes Centre Stage: 1776 and 1789
III. The Age of Revolution and the Long Nineteenth Century: 1789-1920
IV. Conclusion

3. Self-Determination and Decolonisation: 1920–1970

I. Imperialism and Decolonisation
II. First World War Rhetoric: Lenin and Wilson on Self-Determination
III. The Mandates System
IV. The United Nations and the Trusteeship System
V. Self-Determination in the Law of the United Nations
VI. Conclusion

4. Judicial Treatments of Self-Determination 1945–2004

I. Courts and Self-Determination
II. Advisory Opinion on Namibia (South West Africa)
III. The Western Sahara Advisory Opinion
IV. Badinter Arbitration Commission
V. East Timor
VI. Katangese Peoples' Congress v Zaire
VII. Reference Re Secession of Quebec
VIII. The Wall Advisory Opinion
IX. Conclusion

5. The Kosovo Advisory Opinion

I. The Advisory Opinion
II. The Court's Decision
III. Kosovo Applied: Russian Rhetoric and the Invasions of Ukraine
IV. Conclusion

6. The Chagos Archipelago Advisory Opinion

I. The Advisory Opinion
II. Self-Determination in the Chagos Advisory Opinion
III. Disambiguation: A Continuing Failure of Definition
IV. Conclusion

7. Interregnum

Tom SPARKS, Self-Determination in the International Legal System: Whose Claim, to What Right?, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2023 (280 pp.)