National self-determination: from Versailles to decolonisation

Detail

1. What the claim is

• National self-determination is a nation's claim to govern itself and decide its own future development.

• Other groups, such as trade unions, religious bodies or clubs, ask for rights inside a state. A nation asks for more. It wants international recognition as a separate political unit or state (a body with its own territory, people, government and sovereignty).

• Who usually makes the claim:

• people who have lived on one piece of land for a long time;
• people who share a common identity, such as language, history or culture;

• sometimes people who want a state where their culture is protected or given a special place.

• The claim is political. Shared culture alone does not make a nation. The demand for self-rule does.

2. "One culture–one state": the 19th-century European idea

• One culture–one state is the idea that every cultural group (a "nation") should have its own separate state, and that state borders should follow cultural lines.
• It became popular in 19th-century Europe. Giuseppe Mazzini, a leader of Italian unification, was one of its best-known voices.
• Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points:
• The US President gave this address on 8 January 1918 [4].
• He said the war should lead to more national self-determination, more open dealings between countries, and disarmament [5].
• The speech also caught on among colonised peoples. Independence movements in Asia and Africa later used Wilson's words against colonial rule [5].

3. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the redrawing of Europe

• After World War I, the peace settlement used "one culture–one state" to redraw Europe's borders.
• New small states were created or recognised, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, along with the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).
• The gap between ideals and practice:
• The treaty was handed to Germany on 7 May 1919. It was strongly criticised for going against the spirit of the Fourteen Points [6].
• Britain, France and Italy mainly wanted to make their own positions stronger and keep Germany weak. Wilson accepted almost any compromise on his Points as long as the treaty set up the League of Nations [7].

4. What the 1919 reordering cost

Cost	What happened
Not all demands met	Many groups that saw themselves as nations got no state
Mass migration	Millions were pushed out of homes their families had held for generations
Violence	Many people died in communal violence (violence between religious or ethnic communities)
Minorities left behind	The new states still held minorities, who were often treated as second-class, e.g. the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia
Patchwork fixes	The League of Nations minority treaties tried to protect these minorities, but they had little force

• The only real gain: groups that saw themselves as nations won political recognition.
• The Indian parallel: the Partition of India (1947) caused the same harm on a larger scale. Borders were redrawn along community lines, and the result was mass migration and communal killing (see nation-building).
• The lesson: borders can never be drawn so that each culture gets exactly one state. Every new border creates new minorities.

5. National liberation movements in Asia and Africa

• National liberation movements were anti-colonial struggles that used the right of self-determination to end foreign rule. India's freedom struggle was one of them.
• What they sought: dignity, recognition, justice, rights and prosperity for peoples ruled by colonial powers.
• In Europe, self-determination had meant one culture–one state. In the colonies, it came to mean freedom from foreign rule for the whole colonial territory, whatever cultures lived inside it.

6. Self-determination becomes international law

• UN Charter (1945):
• Article 1(2) lists among the UN's purposes "to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples" [8].

• Article 55 repeats the same words. On that basis, the UN must promote economic and social progress and human rights [9].

• UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV), 14 December 1960: the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, also called the Declaration on Decolonization [2].

• It called for a quick and unconditional end to colonialism [2].
• Its implementation freed about 750 million people, roughly one-third of the world's population at the time, and led to more than 80 new states in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania [2].

• In 1961, the UNGA set up the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24) through Resolution 1654 (XVI) to check how the Declaration was being carried out [3].

• ICCPR and ICESCR (1966), common Article 1: both human rights covenants open with the same article: "All peoples have the right of self-determination."

• The ICCPR is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
• The ICESCR is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

• India's declaration: India joined both covenants with effect from 10 July 1979. It declared that the right of self-determination in Article 1 applies only to peoples under foreign domination. It does not apply to sovereign independent states or to a section of a people or nation, which India called "the essence of national integrity" [10].

• Uti possidetis (Latin for "as you possess"): new states keep the colonial borders they had at independence. This prevented a scramble to redraw borders, but it locked many different peoples inside one state.

7. The paradox of self-determination

• The paradox:
• States that won freedom through struggle for self-determination →
• now face minorities inside them who claim the same right →

• and they resist those claims to protect their territorial integrity.

• Biafra (1967-70): the Igbo-majority south-east tried to break away from Nigeria. The civil war that followed ended in defeat for Biafra.

• Claims that succeeded:

New state	Year	Separated from
Bangladesh	1971	Pakistan
Eritrea	1993	Ethiopia
East Timor (Timor-Leste)	2002	Indonesia
South Sudan	2011	Sudan

• The problem continues: migration, border wars and violence over national claims still trouble Asia and Africa. The general solution is to accept minorities as equal citizens inside existing states, not to create new states for every group.

Prelims Hooks

• Fourteen Points were given by Woodrow Wilson on 8 January 1918. They made national self-determination a popular idea [4][5].
• Treaty of Versailles (1919) created or recognised Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Sudeten Germans were a minority left inside Czechoslovakia.
• "Equal rights and self-determination of peoples" appears in UN Charter Article 1(2) and Article 55. It does not appear in Article 2 [8][9].
• UNGA Res. 1514 (XV), 14 December 1960 is the Declaration on Decolonization [2].
• Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24) was set up in 1961 by UNGA Res. 1654 (XVI) [3].
• Common Article 1 of the ICCPR and ICESCR (1966) sets out the right of all peoples to self-determination.
• India's declaration on Article 1 (effective 10 July 1979): the right applies only to peoples under foreign domination, not to sovereign states or a section of a people [10].
• Uti possidetis means colonial borders stay unchanged after independence.
• Mazzini is linked with the 19th-century idea of one culture–one state.
• Order of secessions: Biafra failed (1967-70); Bangladesh (1971), Eritrea (1993), East Timor (2002) and South Sudan (2011) succeeded.

Mains Points

• Limits of one culture–one state: Versailles (1919) and Partition (1947) both show the same thing. Redrawing borders along cultural lines leads to mass expulsion and communal violence, and it still leaves new minorities behind. Protecting minority rights inside a democratic state is a safer answer than creating a new state for each group.
• The paradox for post-colonial states: states that used self-determination to end colonial rule now refuse it to their own minorities (Biafra 1967-70). India's 1979 declaration on ICCPR Article 1 [10] states this position clearly: external self-determination (freedom from foreign rule) is legitimate, but secession by a section of the people is not.
• Ideals vs power politics: the Fourteen Points spoke of self-determination, but the Versailles terms followed the interests of Britain, France and Italy [6][7]. The UN-era law that came later, from Res. 1514 to the 1966 Covenants, led to more than 80 new states [2]. It still stopped at uti possidetis, so colonial borders were kept.
• A way forward for diverse states like India: federalism, linguistic states, autonomy for regions and cultural rights (for example, Fifth and Sixth Schedule areas and Articles 29-30) answer internal self-determination claims without breaking up the state.