National Self‐determination—Forgotten and Remembered

Abstract

IN THE PROCESS of drawing new territorial boundaries the big powers seem, at present, to be determined to disregard a principle which was once proclaimed as essential for the establishment of a just and durable peace. It is the principle of national self-determination to which Woodrow Wilson referred in the famous words: Self-determination is not a mere phrase. . . . Peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game. Later the Soviet government solemnly proclaimed the same principle and even inserted it into the Soviet Constitution, specifically granting to its peoples the right of secession. At Teheran, at Yalta, at Potsdam, in London, in New York, at virtually all important war and post-war conferences, the question of new boundaries has formed the foreground or the background of many of the most basic decisions. Evidently no other principle, therefore, merits closer attention and scrutiny in our days than this principle which will have either to be abandoned, if harmful, or else to be used, if, as Wilson thought, indispensable. The worst course would be to render to it demoralizing lip-service. The principle of natural self-determination is related to another principle, that of self-government. Nevertheless, it is