The United Nations: Friend or Foe of Self-Determination? - Paperback

by Jakob R. Avgustin (Editor)

The purpose of this edited collection is to appraise the role of the UN in relation to the principle of self-determination. This book takes a very practical approach to discussing what role the UN plays in cases of self-determination and, importantly, it also ventures beyond this area's usual discussions of the inherent conflict between self-determination and sovereignty. The chapters address the pursuit of the right to self-determination through a variety of case studies, such as post-statehood in South Sudan and East Timor; Indigenous peoples; hybrid self-determination in post-intrastate conflict; the balancing of the human rights approach in Cyprus; remedial right to secede in the cases of failed states; Palestinian and Sahrawi resistance; geopolitics in Jammu and Kashmir; and the forgotten story of micro-states. Overall, this collection shows that the solutions might be in moving the paradigm beyond the state-centrism of the system and the UN itself.