60 Anyangwe/Right to self-determination under the African Charter state.39 The complaint in Cabinda included allegation of neocolonialism in the form of exploitation of the natural resources in Cabinda by the Angolan government and economic and social marginalisation of the Cabinda people. The Commission applied its mind to this neo-colonialism argument in paragraphs 59-62 and 90 and did not reject it on formal grounds; nor did Angola itself. Similarly, in Gumne the argument of re-colonisation or black-on-black colonisation was made. This too was not formally rejected. In that case, Commission simply grounded its argument on the anti-secession rhetoric by claiming dogmatically that secession is not a variant of selfdetermination under the African Charter and that allowing it would imperil the territorial integrity of the respondent state. The Commission in effect ousts the applicability of selfdetermination within independent states. It interprets selfdetermination under the Charter as limited in time and space: selfdetermination inapplicable in a post-colonial context and meant to apply only to those territories which as of 1981 were still under white colonial domination. Going by the reasoning of the Commission, since the remnant of white colonialism in Africa was vanquished by 1994, self-determination became irrelevant in Africa; art 20 though not expunged from the Charter, is devoid of content; it is dead law and has become an empty shell. This denial of the applicability of selfdetermination in contemporary Africa is tantamount to denial of a remedial right to secede from an oppressive state. And yet in Sudan Human Rights Organisation and Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) v Sudan, the Commission itself stated that the African Charter was enacted ‘to protect human and peoples’ rights of the African peoples against both external and internal abuse.’40 If the framers of the Charter intended self-determination to be confined to the situation of white colonialism, they would surely have said so. Furthermore, many African countries do recognise that selfdetermination is an ongoing right, claimable not only by colonised peoples.41 Additionally, there are exceptional situations in which reasons for secession, by a people from an existing state, are particularly compelling and legitimate.42 International law scholarship endorses remedial secession as a derivative of the right of selfdetermination. In the case Accordance with International Law of the 39 40 41 42 S Salomon ‘Self-determination in the case law of the African Commission: Lessons for Europe’ (2017) 50 Verfassung und Recht in Übersee 217-241 https:// www.nomos-elibrary.de/agb (accessed 1 August 2018). Salomon argues that besides the largely historical meaning of ‘colonized people’, ‘colonialism might continue in the hyphenated terms of post-colony or neo-colonialism, that is, the domination or marginalization of a group by a state or another group within the state’. Darfur case (n 10) para 222. Higgins (n 38). A Cassese Self-determination of peoples (1995) 120; J Stromseth ‘Selfdetermination, secession and humanitarian intervention by the UN’ (1992) American Society of International Law Proceedings 370; C Okeke The theory and practice of international law in Nigeria (1986) 276; L Brilmayer ‘Secession and self-determination: a territorial interpretation’ (1991) 16 Yale Journal of International Law 177; M Haile ‘Legality of secession: the case of Eritrea’ (1994) 8