The Right of Self-Determination of Peoples

THE RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION AS DISCREDITED PRINCIPLE AND AS A BEACON OF HOPE

Since 1917, the formula of the right of self-determination of peoples had proven to be an enormously effective propaganda instrument. If after the Second World War both victors and the defeated nevertheless rigorously avoided its use, there must have been serious grounds for doing so. Hitler's purely tactical treatment of the right of self-determination in the later years of the interwar period had discredited the instrument. Then its perversion during the war, which had led to mass extermination and expulsions, no longer had anything at all to do with the original idea. Regardless of the Atlantic Charter, the war had been primarily a traditional power struggle, in which victory and defeat had decided the territorial divisions, and not the wishes of the people affected. In 1945 one could assume that the right of self-determination would at least provisionally, perhaps even definitively disappear.

In the colonies one had a different view. Most of the colonies, while formally among the victors, did not by any means feel as such. They had not achieved their aim – autonomy and ultimately independence. For this very reason, the demand for self-determination was their central watchword, despite the negative attitude of the victorious powers. Unlike the defeated states, the colonies did not have to give so much consideration to the victors’ interests and could dare to demand self-determination for themselves.

However, if the victorious powers had put up a unified front, they could have held the colonial regions in check and, if necessary, silence their demands. But after the Cold War had commenced, the new independent states became sought-after allies. This happened for the first time in the summer of 1945, when at the United Nations founding conference in San Francisco the Soviet Union introduced the “principle of self-determination” into the UN Charter. This secured the Soviet Union the approval of the colonial regions. The coalition of the Second and Third World thereby gained the initiative in matters of self-determination at least until the end of the Cold War. It was a leadership position in at least two respects. On the one hand, the coalition succeeded in codifying the right of self-determination as universally valid law. On the other hand, self-determination became defined, or at least came to be understood essentially as decolonization.