ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that rights claims are taken seriously, and that in the hierarchy of international norms, individual rights are beginning to trump sovereign rights. Rights observance represents a minimal morality, is an exemplar of the counter argument: justice as impartiality, or non-discrimination, that postulates justice as universal. The strength of this approach is that it can accommodate different conceptualization of good, and although it makes only modest claims, it rules out any possibility of first and second-class citizens. Impartial rights are a precondition for the realization of justice, and are more likely to be secured in some form of democratic polity, although this is no guarantor of impeccable rights respect or perfect justice. A commitment to these values is likely to form the basis on which any evaluation of a nation's claim to self-determination is made. Self-determination is instrumental, it is claimed as the antidote to injustice, so the evaluation will be of the injustice itself.
