Redesigning the Map of Eritrea and Ethiopia

Abstract

The paper focuses on current political and legal discourses within Eritrea’s Opposition which operates outside of Eritrea for lack of democratic space inside the country. This state of affairs of the Opposition has created a legal vacuum which is worsened by the Opposition’s inability to develop acceptable structured central governance which can produce and enforce laws. While this task is admittedly difficult for any diaspora-based political forces, the Opposition which has been characterized by disputations has made it almost impossible. So far the only normative document the opposition developed is one inadequate charter. The problem of legal vacuum is worsened by the opposition’s inability to agree on the 1997 Constitution of Eritrea drafted and adopted under the supervision of the Government of Eritrea. The perils of operating in unregulated political environment being too clear, a part of the opposition has lately resolved to produce in a year a “road-map” which is understood to be a constitution. The paper intends to address the problem of legal vacuum in which environment the opposition operates. It argues that the opposition is bound by the international human rights treaties Eritrea has so far accepted but, unfortunately, remained being the known unknown to the Opposition. The paper further asserts that not only has international human rights law increasingly become involved in issues concerning the way in which governments ought to be structured but this body of law also overrides national (municipal) law. The peoples’ rights of self-determination by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development; and the will of the people as the basis of the authority of government are two main contents of international human rights law pertinent to issues of politics and governance. The paper takes these two norms essentially as gap-fillers which permits national authorities to legislate without offending international human rights law. The paper discuses the implication of this relationship between the two sets of laws. Taking on the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples along with these two norms, the paper highlights that international human rights law tends to favor but does not require multi-ethnic states to adopt a federal form of government as that body of law assumes internal self-determination can be realized in other forms of governance too. Only violations of the right of internal self-determination of gross and perpetual scale justify secession. Yet, the paper notes a new opinion from the International Court of Justice which seems to have lifted the obligation to respect territorial integrity of states from the shoulders of aspirant secessionist. If this stays and given that consensual revision of boundaries has not been problematic, the paper discusses desirability and possibility of redrawing the map of the Horn of African towards creating ethnically homogeneous states which would then make democracy easier.