The meaning of self-determination

This chapter considers whether the term “self-determination” can be given an all-embracing definition despite the variety of contexts in which it is used. It begins with the moral or political conception of self-determination employed by Kant, Lenin, Wilson, and others, the essence of which is a capacity for free will. Then the chapter surveys a number of manifestations of self-determination in international law: external self-determination as a right held primarily by colonized peoples, internal self-determination, self-determination as indigenous autonomy, self-determination as a right against intervention, and economic self-determination. These have little in common. In each case, self-determination functions as a different type of capacity held by a different type of self – usually described as a people – and involves an exercise of will over different types of questions. The chapter concludes that, although self-determination can be defined at an abstract level as a capacity for free will, much greater meaning can be wrung out of the concept when one specifies which of its diverse manifestations one has in mind.