Lasting challenges of state-building after independence through the right to self-determination

抄録

As the use of force is mostly prohibited in today’s inter-state relations, political and often militarized conflicts among sub-national groups are what will threaten peace and human security the most. However, the primary interest of international legal scholarship has not been the structural instabilities of internal governance, but rather, the post-hoc management of the ensuing humanitarian atrocities. In reality, such political unrest is rooted in international relations, without an understanding of which we could not reach the appropriate solutions to this problem. Of particular importance is the fact that the requirements for statehood under international law went through a profound change in the process of post-war decolonization, significantly influencing the internal structure of newlyindependent states. In this paper, I attempt to shed light on the essential background of political instabilities in these new states through an analysis of the functions of the “right to self-determination.” On the one hand, this right forcefully advanced the independence of colonies, even though these colonies generally lacked an effective governmental structure. On the other hand, it required each new state to implement statehood after achieving independence by making the government truly representative of all citizens. This logical link between the external and internal aspects of self-determination is the conceptual basis that enables us to identify the root cause of social unrest in developing countries, and to find an effective remedy for it.