ABSTRACT
The international legal scholarship hardly resists the temptation to regard so-called liberalism as the basis of contemporary international law after the Berlin Wall collapsed. Gerry Simpson characterized one type of liberalism. In the context of international law, it is the only truth that either Charter liberalism or liberal anti-pluralism embodies both interpretations of liberalism, namely, they aim at promoting the international communities wellbeing through the advocacy and practice of plural diversity and procedural justice. Undoubtedly, national self-determination in international legal discourse is one of the youngest offspring of modern international law. In addition, it is also non-negligible that one believes that John Locke's theory of the Social Contract, commonly regarded as the first elucidation of early liberalism and individualism. The long-term restraining context determined that liberalism and self-determination conflicted in most situations. Indeed, the two ideas might have compromised with each other, particularly in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the conclusion of the House of Habsburg.
