The Right of Peoples to Self-Determination

I. The Sentence That Promises Everything

"All peoples have the right to self-determination." So reads Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It is one of the most beautiful sentences in international law — and one of the most dishonest.

Not because the principle is wrong. But because it is used by everyone and taken seriously by no one. The right of peoples to self-determination is the universal currency of international politics: everyone spends it, no one backs it.

The British constitutional scholar Sir Ivor Jennings formulated the problem half a century ago with a clarity that no one has since surpassed:

"The people cannot decide until somebody decides who are the people."

In that single sentence lies the whole tragedy. For whoever decides who the people are also decides what they want. And whoever decides that is never the people themselves.

II. The Carousel of Hypocrisy

In 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. No referendum — a unilateral declaration. The United States and most European nations recognised it. Russia protested. The International Court of Justice found that declarations of independence do not violate international law. Russia's foreign minister Lavrov warned: this sets a precedent for separatists all over the world.

Six years later, in March 2014, Crimea held a referendum on joining Russia. The official result: 96.8 per cent in favour. Russia invoked the right to self-determination and the Kosovo precedent. The United States and Europe declared the referendum illegal. The UN General Assembly voted 100 to 11 not to recognise the Crimean vote.

The positions had reversed exactly. Those who had defended the right to self-determination in 2008 denied it in 2014. Those who had denied it in 2008 invoked it in 2014. The same arguments, the same articles, the same principles — merely placed in the other's mouth.

The United States said: Kosovo is a special case, "sui generis", not a precedent. Russia said: if Kosovo, then Crimea too. Both were right — and both were lying. For neither was interested in the question the sentence purports to answer: What do the people who live there want?

Eleven years after Crimea, Putin dropped the mask entirely. On 20 June 2025, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he told his audience:

"I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to be one people. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours."

And added: "Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours." The audience applauded and laughed.

One must read these three sentences slowly to grasp their structure. First sentence: we are one people — the brotherhood narrative, the embrace. Second sentence: therefore everything belongs to us — the property claim that follows from the embrace. Third sentence: where our soldier stands is our land — the right of the stronger, naked and unveiled.

From Crimea to SPIEF, it took Russia eleven years to travel the distance from the right to self-determination to the right of ownership. In 2014, the claim was: the residents of Crimea have the right to decide their future. In 2025, it was: all of Ukraine belongs to us, because we are the same people. The right to self-determination was merely the entrance door. Behind it always stood the imperial claim.

And then came Greenland — and proved that the West is not one bit better.

III. Greenland — Or the Unmasking

In January 2026, Donald Trump demanded that Denmark hand over Greenland to the United States. Not as a request. As a demand. He threatened tariffs on EU goods, appointed a "special envoy", spoke of military force, publicly linked the issue to NATO, and said in an interview that his own morality was the only thing that could stop him — not international law.

The Greenlanders answered with a clarity rare in international politics. A poll from January 2025 had shown: 84 per cent want independence from Denmark. 85 per cent reject a US takeover. In the March 2025 election, pro-independence parties won, but all — without exception, every party represented in parliament — declared that they wished to belong neither to the United States nor to Denmark, but to themselves. "We don't want to be Americans", said new prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. "We want to be Greenlanders."

There were demonstrations in Nuuk: "No means no", "Stop threatening us", "Yankee go home". Parliament passed a unanimous declaration demanding "respect" from the United States. Greenland banned foreign political donations to prevent interference.

Here, then, was the rare case: a people that clearly and unambiguously says what it wants. Not under occupation, not at gunpoint, not under manipulation — but in free elections and polls, confirmed by demonstrations and parliamentary declarations.

And what did the superpower that has styled itself guardian of self-determination since 1918 do? It ignored it. Trump called Greenland a "great real estate deal". He did not ask what the 57,000 Greenlanders want. He asked what he needs.

It is the perfect inversion of Wilson's promise. Woodrow Wilson, father of the modern right to self-determination, said in 1918: peoples may only be governed by their own consent. Self-determination is not a mere phrase, but an imperative principle of action. A century later, his successor in the same office declares that his personal sense of morality is the only thing standing between him and the annexation of foreign territory.

With this, Greenland achieved what no textbook of international law ever could: it made visible the difference between self-determination as a principle and self-determination as a weapon. Whoever understands it as a principle must ask the Greenlanders. Whoever uses it as a weapon asks only himself.

IV. The Pattern

Greenland is not an isolated case. It is the pattern, merely particularly clear.

Kosovo 2008: the Kosovars wanted independence — after a decade of repression, after expulsions, after war. Their will was real. But it was recognised not because it was real, but because it served the strategic interests of the United States and NATO. Had the Kosovars wanted to join Serbia, they would have been left alone.

Crimea 2014: whether the Crimean population majority wished to belong to Russia is disputed — an independent 2011 survey found 65 per cent in favour, which is substantial but not overwhelming. What is not disputed: the referendum took place under Russian military occupation, without international observers, with a ten-day notice period, and no option for the status quo. The will of the people was not ascertained — it was staged.

Catalonia 2017: 90 per cent of voters chose independence — but only 43 per cent of those eligible participated, because Spanish police stormed polling stations. Spain invoked its constitution, which prohibits secession. The EU — guardian of human rights — was silent. No EU state recognised the result. The Catalan president fled into exile; his vice-president and other members of the government were sentenced to long prison terms.

Scotland 2014: here it worked — because London consented. A fair referendum, international observers, a clear question, a clear answer: 55 per cent against independence. But Scotland only worked because the mother state permitted the vote. Had Westminster said "no", Scotland would have been Catalonia.

The Kurds: forty million people, spread across four states, with their own language, culture and history — and no prospect of their own state. Because Turkey is a NATO member. Because Iraq is unstable. Because Syria is collapsing. Because Iran won't allow it. The Kurds have everything the right to self-determination demands — a distinct identity, a contiguous territory, the clear will to self-govern. They lack only the one thing that counts: a powerful ally who wants it.

Taiwan: 23 million people in a functioning democracy, de facto independent since 1949, but recognised by fewer than twenty states — because China forbids it and the rest of the world complies. The Taiwanese have never voted in a referendum because any formal declaration of independence could trigger a war. Their right to self-determination exists in theory. In practice, it is a hostage of geopolitics.

The pattern is always the same: the right to self-determination applies when it serves the powerful. It does not apply when it harms them. And the question of what people really want is either never posed or, when posed, ignored.

V. What Do People Really Want?

This is the question nobody asks — because it might yield the wrong answer. For what people really want fits into no national narrative and no geopolitical strategy.

What the Greenlanders want: independence, yes — but not at the cost of their standard of living. 84 per cent want to be free, but 45 per cent not if it means less prosperity. They want both: dignity and security. Identity and welfare. Freedom and Danish money. That is not a contradiction — it is human.

What the Crimean residents wanted: probably a majority for Russia, but not under occupation and not without alternatives. They wanted to be asked — honestly asked, not staged. And many, especially the Crimean Tatars, wanted neither Russia nor a corrupt Kyiv, but autonomy and security.

What the Catalans want: many want independence — but the majority of the overall population is divided. What they all want, opponents of independence included: to be asked. For their voice to count. For Madrid to send not police officers but listeners.

What the Kurds want: a state, yes — but above all security. To no longer be persecuted. To speak their language. To raise their children in peace. For many Kurds, genuine autonomy within existing states would be acceptable, if only it were genuine — if it could not be revoked by the central state at any moment.

What the Taiwanese want: the status quo. Not reunification with China, not formal independence (which could mean war), but what they have: a functioning democracy, economic prosperity, and the absence of war. Pragmatism, not ideology.

The pattern behind the pattern: people almost never want what their leaders want for them. They do not primarily want national greatness, historical justice, territorial integrity, or strategic depth. They want security. Prosperity. Dignity. A voice. The freedom to live their own lives without being ground between powers that do not know their wishes and cannot pronounce their names.

The right of peoples to self-determination asks: which state do you want to belong to? The people answer: we want a good life. The question and the answer talk past each other.

VI. The Failure of the Principle

The right to self-determination has three structural defects that render it unfit as an instrument of justice.

First: who are the people? The principle presupposes a clearly definable "people" — but precisely this definition is the problem. Are the residents of Crimea a distinct people? Or the Russian-speaking majority among them? Or the Crimean Tatars, who have an entirely different history? Are the Catalans a people — or are they Spaniards with a regional identity? Is "people" an ethnic, a linguistic, a cultural, a territorial category? The answer is always political, never objective. And it is always given by those who have the power to enforce it.

Second: when may one ask? International law recognises an almost unrestricted right to self-determination in the colonial context — but outside the colonial context, external self-determination (that is, secession) is permitted only in extreme cases: under systematic oppression, when internal self-determination is impossible, as a last resort. This means: one must first be massively oppressed before one may leave. The Kosovars had to be expelled and massacred before the world accepted their independence. The Scots were allowed to vote because they were not oppressed — but had they been oppressed, London would never have permitted the vote. The right is a circle: it presupposes the oppression it is supposed to prevent.

Third: who verifies the result? Self-determination without a fair process is not self-determination — but who guarantees the fair process? The Crimean referendum was held under occupation. Kosovo declared independence without a referendum. Catalonia's referendum was prevented by police. Greenland is being threatened by a superpower that refuses to accept the answer. There is no international institution that bindingly and enforceably ensures that self-determination takes place fairly, freely and honestly. The Security Council is blocked by great power vetoes. The International Court of Justice can only issue advisory opinions, not binding judgments on sovereignty questions. And the General Assembly can vote but not enforce.

The result: a principle that applies universally but is enforced selectively. That is acknowledged by all and respected by none. That promises everything to the weak and costs nothing to the strong.

VII. Beyond the Principle — What Instead?

What instead? Not a better principle — but a more honest conversation about what people actually need.

The question "which state do you want to belong to?" is the wrong question. It forces people into a binary choice that does not capture their actual needs. It presupposes that belonging to a state is the most important thing — more important than security, prosperity, participation, culture, freedom. That is the logic of the nineteenth century: one people, one state, one flag.

The right question is: what do you need to live well? And how can that be organised — within or beyond existing state borders?

The Greenlanders do not need a flag — they need a functioning economy that does not depend on Danish subsidies. The Kurds do not need their own state — they need the guarantee that their culture, their language and their security will be respected within existing states, irrevocably. The Taiwanese do not need a declaration of independence — they need the certainty that no one will destroy their democracy. The residents of Crimea did not need a referendum — they needed the right to live in peace, regardless of the flag overhead.

The right of peoples to self-determination has asked the wrong question for a century — and always received the wrong answer. The right question is not: who owns the land? The right question is: who owns the decisions that determine people's lives?

That is the core of Akratia: not belonging to a state, but genuine participation in the decisions that affect one's own life. Not sovereignty over territory, but sovereignty over one's own fate. Not: who rules? But: who decides — and were they asked who should decide?

VIII. Five Demands Instead of a Principle

If we turn the right to self-determination right side up — if we ask what people truly want instead of what states concede to them — five demands emerge.

First: the right to be asked. Not "someday, when circumstances allow" — but as a rule. Every population that demonstrably and persistently seeks a different political status has the right to a fair, internationally supervised referendum on its future. Not under occupation. Not under time pressure. Not with a predetermined outcome. But free, fair, and binding.

Second: more than two options. The question "independence or belonging?" is almost always a reduction. Referendums must reflect the real range of possibilities: full independence, autonomy within the existing state, a federal solution, free association, shared sovereignty. Greenland's Self-Government Act of 2009 is a model: it permits Greenland independence by referendum, but it did not skip the intermediate stages.

Third: security as a precondition, not a consequence. Self-determination must not mean paying for the right to freedom with insecurity. No population should be forced to choose between its identity and its safety. International guarantees — from NATO, from the EU, from the United Nations — must ensure that exercising the right to self-determination cannot be answered with violence.

Fourth: economic honesty. Independence without an economic foundation is not liberation but another name for dependence. Every referendum must include an honest presentation of the economic consequences — not as a threat (as Spain employed against Catalonia), but as information. The Greenlanders know: 84 per cent want independence, but 45 per cent not at the cost of their living standard. Every people deserves this honesty.

Fifth: break the veto of the powerful. As long as five states on the Security Council can block any decision on self-determination, there is no right — only power. A reform of the UN system that removes self-determination questions from the veto mechanism — for instance through binding jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice or through qualified majorities in the General Assembly — is the precondition for the principle to become more than a platitude.

IX. The Answer Nobody Wants to Give

In the end, the uncomfortable truth remains: the right of peoples to self-determination has failed — not as an idea, but as a practice. It has brought the weak no freedom and imposed no obligations on the strong. It has become an instrument of the powerful, who use it when it serves them and discard it when it harms them.

Woodrow Wilson promised in 1918: self-determination is not a mere phrase, but an imperative principle of action. A century later, his successor threatens a people of 57,000 with military force because he considers their island a "real estate deal" — and says that only his own morality can stop him.

From Wilson to Trump, from the Arctic to the Black Sea, from Kosovo to Catalonia: the history of the right to self-determination is the history of a promise that was never kept. Not because it was a bad promise — but because those who should have kept it never intended to.

What do people really want? They want to be asked. They want their answer to count. And they want the powerful to stop speaking in their name — and start listening to them.

The people cannot decide until somebody decides who are the people. But people can very well say what they need — if only they are allowed to.