50 Anyangwe/Right to self-determination under the African Charter determination prevails over territorial integrity. According to still another theory, the expansion of global markets and cross-border cooperation diminishes the significance of territorial integrity, allowing for somewhat greater recognition of greater self-determination of peoples. A fourth theory ambitiously calls for political power to shift to a world government which would make secession and change of boundaries a relatively easy administrative matter, entailing the de facto end of self-determination of national groups.2 2.2 Self-determination in colonial and non-colonial contexts Under the UN’s decolonisation agenda, the right to self-determination could be exercised by dependent peoples and territories within existing colonial boundaries.3 In this setting, this right became a legitimate basis for statehood because it proclaimed the right of every people to establish a state within which they conduct their political affairs free from outside interference.4 The exercise of self-determination reinforced the state-centred system of international law and the perception of that right as an ‘end norm’, as a goal to be achieved. That goal is the establishment of a state that is independent from the colonial state, and is sovereign over the territory concerned. For, as Judge Dillard declared in the Western Sahara Advisory Opinion, ‘[i]t is for the people to determine the destiny of the territory and not the territory the destiny of the people.’5 When asserted within colonial boundaries, self-determination reinforces the principle of territorial integrity in protecting the territorial framework of the decolonised territory. As an inalienable and continuing collective human right, self-determination has developed to the point where it applies to situations of peoples within the territory of independent states.6 The UN itself extended the application of selfdetermination to two non-colonial situations, that of alien occupation (Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories) and that of racial discrimination (by white minorities in Zimbabwe and South Africa). International law-making since the adoption of the ICCPR and ICESCR in 1966 leaves no doubt that the right of self-determination applies beyond the context of decolonisation. For example, the 1970 2 3 4 5 6 A Pavkovic & P Radan ‘In pursuit of sovereignty and self-determination: peoples, states and secession in the international order, index of papers’ (2003) 1 Macquarie University Law Journal 1. UN General Assembly ‘Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples’ UNGA Res 1514 (XV) 14 December 1960A/RES/1514(XV). R Bereketeab Self-determination and secession in Africa (2014). Western Sahara Advisory Opinion ICJ (16 October 1975) (1975) ICJ Reports 12. MN Shaw International law (1997) 216; R McCorquodale ‘Self-determination beyond the colonial context and its potential impact on Africa’ (1992) 4 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 592; A Cassese Selfdetermination of peoples: a legal appraisal (1998); A Cassese Self-determination of peoples: a legal appraisal (1999).

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