ABSTRACT

On January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson delivered his Fourteen Points Address before the United States Congress and thus dramatized to the twentieth century the concept of national self-determination. A significant number of international lawyers are of the opinion that the "right" of self-determination can only be exercised one time by a particular people within a specific geographic area. In each case, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic differences, and the deprivation of civil and political rights, finally led to secession and civil war with the rebel leadership proclaiming their independence in accordance with the principle of self-determination. Decolonization had become a significant factor in world politics, and self-determination was to provide its legal and moral rationale. Once independence was achieved, however, the danger of further political disintegration due to racial, cultural, economic, and religious antagonisms places self-determination in a new and disadvantageous light.