Self-determination is the principle in international law and political theory that a people has the right to form its own political entity, choosing among outcomes ranging from independence to federation to autonomy. It gained American backing through Woodrow Wilson's 1918 Fourteen Points, was applied unevenly by the League of Nations, and was placed formally into international law by the 1945 United Nations Charter.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearWoodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points address (February 1918) is the point most often cited for reviving the principle in modern international politics, though the underlying idea draws on nineteenth-century nationalism and the American and French Revolutions; the principle was not made binding in international law until the 1945 UN Charter. Founding ContextAdvanced as a guiding principle of the post-First World War settlement by United States President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points of January 1918, which called for the peoples of Europe's collapsing empires to have their political status settled by their own wishes, and later written into international law through the United Nations Charter of 1945 and the two 1966 human rights covenants, which name self-determination as a right of all peoples. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Self-Determination (Wikipedia)
Source Self-Determination (Wikipedia)
Source Self-Determination (Wikipedia)
Influenced By
Source International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (OHCHR)
Many read Article 2's guarantee of tino rangatiratanga as a guarantee of Maori self-determination over their own affairs, though the term's exact scope remains debated.
Source The Treaty in Brief (NZHistory)
Source Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Britannica)
Sources
1. Self-Determination (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia- lead section
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (1918)
In January 1918, Wilson issued his Fourteen Points of January 1918 which, among other things, called for adjustment of colonial claims, insofar as the interests of colonial powers had equal weight with the claims of subject peoples.
- Associated With: Decolonization
- Associated With: Charter of the United Nations
- Associated With: League of Nations
View the Source Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaInfluenced By: Universal Declaration of Human RightsView the Source International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (OHCHR)
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human RightsInfluenced By: International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsView the Source The Treaty in Brief (NZHistory)
New Zealand Ministry for Culture and HeritageInfluenced By: Treaty of WaitangiView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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