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Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]

Self-Determination

Daniel Thürer, Thomas Burri

Content type:
Encyclopedia entries
Product:
Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law [MPIL]

Module:
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]
Article last updated:
December 2008

From: Oxford Public International Law (http://opil.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved.date: 01 December 2023

Subject(s):
Secession — Sovereignty — Self-determination — Unification

Published under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law under the direction of Professor Anne Peters (2021–) and Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum (2004–2020). 

1 The political origins of the modern concept of self-determination can be traced back to the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America of 4 July 1776, which proclaimed that governments derived ‘their just powers from the consent of the governed’ and that ‘whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it’. The principle of self-determination was further shaped by the leaders of the French Revolution, whose doctrine of popular sovereignty, at least initially, required...
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