Human Rights: Concepts, Contests, Contingencies

Two Concepts of Self-Determination

Two Concepts of Self-Determination Iris Marion Young In a speech before a 1995 meeting of the Open-Ended Inter-Sessional Working Group on Indigenous Peoples' Rights, established in accordance with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Craig Scott appealed to a meaning of self-determination as relationship and connection, not the commonly understood sense of separation and independence. If one listens, one can often hear the message that the right of a people to self-determination is not a right for peoples to determine their status without consideration of the rights of other peoples with whom they are presently connected and with whom they will continue to be connected in the future. For we must realize that peoples, no less than individuals, exist and thrive only in dialogue with each other. Self-determination necessarily involves engagement with and responsibility to others (which includes responsibility for the implications of one's preferred choices for others).... We need to begin to think of self-determination in terms of peoples existing in relationship with each other. It is the process of negotiating the nature of such relationships which is part of, indeed at the very core of, what it means to be a self-determining people.1 Scott does not develop a critical account of the concept of self-determination from which he distinguishes his own, nor does he explain the I am grateful to David Alexander, Rainer Baubock, Augie Fleras, Philip Pettit, and Franke Wilmer for helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay. 1. Craig Scott, "Indigenous Self-Determination and Decolonization of the International Imagination: A Plea," Human Rights Quarterly 18 (1996): 819. 26 HUMAN RIGHTS latter's meaning, justification, and implications. This essay takes up these tasks and argues for a relational approach along Scott's lines. My motive is to contribute to an understanding of the specific claims of indigenous peoples to self-determination. However, I believe that the concept of self-determination presented here applies to all peoples and relationships among peoples. First I briefly review the current status of a principle of self-determination in international law and recent developments in views of indigenous peoples. Then I elaborate the historically prevailing interpretation of this principle, which continues to hold the minds of many who write on the subject. This interpretation equates self-determination with sovereign independence, a circumstance in which the selfdetermining entity claims a right of nonintervention and noninterference . Drawing particularly on feminist critiques of a concept of the autonomy of the person as independence and noninterference, I argue that this first concept of self-determination ignores the relations of interdependence peoples have with one another, especially in a global economic system. Again following the lead of feminist theories of autonomy, I argue for a relational concept of the self-determination of peoples. Philip Pettit's theory of freedom as nondomination indicates that peoples can be self-determining only if the relations in which they stand to others are nondominating. To ensure nondomination, their relations must be regulated both by institutions in which they all participate and by ongoing negotiations among them. Self-Determination and International Politics Neither the United Nations Charter nor the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights mentions a right of self-determination. General Assembly Resolution 1541 appears to be the origin of the post-World War II discourse of self-determination. Passed with the project of decolonization in view, the resolution defines self-government as entailing either independence , free association with an independent state, or the integration of a people with an independent state on the basis of equality. It implicitly entails the "saltwater" test for ascertaining whether a people deserves recognition of their right to self-determination, that is, whether they have a distinct territory separated by long global distances from a colonial power from which they claim independence. Recognition of self-determination in these cases entails recognition of Two CONCEPTS OF SELF-DETERMINATION separate independent sovereign states if that is what the former colonies wish. Between the era of postcolonial independence and the early 1990S the international community showed great reluctance to apply a principle of self-determination to disputes among peoples in territorial contiguity . In two decades fewer than ten new states were established and recognized under such a principle. As international law on human rights has evolved, some scholars have argued that many issues of freedom and self-governance can be treated under principles...