Self-Determination, Minorities and Minority Rights

The four fields of self-determination, political status and economic, social and cultural development are wide and together they encompass what constitutes a state with its society. Free and democratic processes in these fields means that everyone has the possibility to participate in the shaping of economic, social and cultural development and can participate in the decision on the political status. 

Participation, or rather the possibility for participation, thus becomes the key word in self-determination. Not everyone takes advantages of the possibility to participate however, self-determination can only be filled meaningfully if everyone has the possibility to participate. Participation can be permanent, for a limited amount of time or recurring in intervals. The term participation suggests that one is not alone in the process. While self-determination suggests the opposite, it has been manifested that self-determination is never absolute. It is always limited by the others right to self-determination. 

Self-determination and minority rights seem to be contradictory or at least to exclude each other. The denial of self-determination is compensated with minority rights.This is not true. Wilson introduced a link between self-determination and minorities. Because of Wilson s focus on the consent of the people, minorities capable of constituting their own state were granted self-determination in the form of their own states. Wilson s vision for Europe, however, was originally based on self-determination within the existing boundaries. The League of Nations applied a limited version of self-determination on minorities.The tenuous link between minorities and self-determination was later broken up. 

Self-determination and minority rights have many issues and problems in common. It is an often read statement that minority rights are the crmsolation prize for those groups that are denied self-determination. The shift between these two was already mentioned in the Aland case where the Rapporteurs took up the issue of oppression.Put simply, stark oppression would have led to self-determination— in this case the reunification with Sweden. The rapporteurs propose a number of guarantees to the Alanders and conclude that only if these guarantees are not granted by Finland, this would then force us to advise the separatitm of the islands from Finland.This approach is echoed in the Friendly Relations Declaration some 50 years later. External solutions only become serious possibilities when internal solutions are unsatisfactory. Yet, it is important to note that the Alanders were a minority, while the Friendly Relations Declaration speaks of peoples. 

The rapporteurs were optimistic that an internal solution would be satisfactory. They did not see the need for separation. Furthermore, it would be unjust to take the Aaland Islands away from Finland. The solution was autonomy. As pointed out above, in my view autonomy is one form of internal self-determination not an alternative. At the same time autonomy is linked to minorities. Here, self-determination and minority rights overlap. 

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