ABSTRACT
Although the idea of self-determination of peoples has a long and varied historical ped-
igree-becoming politically prominent particularly at the end of the First World War
thanks to US President Woodrow Wilson and Russia’s Bolsheviks and then making its
way into the UN Charter (1945)—the beginnings of self-determination as an institutiona-
lized right in positive international law go back to the 1950s, when representatives of colo-
nial territories, along with numerous existing states supporting them, came to demand
independence from colonial powers. In 1960, the UN General Assembly (UNGA)
passed the central document of decolonization, Resolution 1514 (XV), also known as
the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples,
which proclaimed that ‘all peoples have the right to self-determination’ and ‘by virtue
of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic,
social and cultural development’.1 On the basis of the enunciated right, the resolution
stipulated:
Immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories or all
other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to
the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance
with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed
or color, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.
