ABSTRACT
The origins of the modern right of self-determination of peoples are to be found in the Enlightenment ideas pertaining to popular sovereignty. The principle of popular sovereignty had as its fundamental goal the transfer of sovereignty from the ruler to the ruled. Sovereignty, and therefore political legitimacy, were to be transferred from the absolutist monarch to the people. An individual’s loyalty was to pass from the monarch to the state. The American Revolution, and more significantly the French Revolution, were defining moments in the emergence of the modern right of peoples to self-determination.1
