Right to Self-Determination of Peoples and the Emerging World Order

Abstract

In the paper, the author attempted to reveal the influence of the idea of self-determination on the emerging (in the historical and legal context) world order, taking into account the rapidly developing political and legal processes in the 18th-21st centuries. Attention is given to the use of the relevant law by certain states in their national interests, which, in the conditions of instability of the international system, makes self-determination an object of numerous influences, interpretations and restrictions. Considering cases from international practice and documents, the author concludes that over the centuries the concept of self-determination has undergone many transformations and was considered as a tool for redrawing the borders of Europe in the early and middle of the 19th century, after the end of the First World War and before the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia. As a mechanism of decolonization, and at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries — as a tool for fragmenting the political map of the world using the ethnic factor as a basis. Quite interesting are the conclusions about the impact of the institution of human rights, remedial secession, external and internal forms of self-determination, globalization processes on the development of the relevant law. The paper, along with other examples, examines the impact of real politics and the existence of double standards when considering issues of international legal recognition of Kosovo in the event of secession from Serbia and the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation.