(2018) 2 African Human Rights Yearbook 69 resolutions to indicate that Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands are part of the territory of Namibia.59 He also notes, still in the case of Namibia, that the UN appealed to that principle in order to prevent the government of apartheid South Africa from declaring Namibia a fifth province of South Africa. The Declaration on Principles of International Law prohibits any action which will dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign independent states conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and selfdetermination of peoples. On the face of it, this prohibition establishes the primacy of the principle of territorial integrity over the right of selfdetermination. In reality, that primacy holds only where the principle of territorial integrity and the right of self-determination conflict. It ceases to hold where the state concerned does not conduct itself ‘in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples’, or where it is not ‘possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.’ Besides, the international community is likely to be more sympathetic towards secession (breach of the principle of territorial integrity) and consider it legitimate in the following circumstances: where, as stated in Katanga, the population of a defined territory are the subject of massive individual human rights violations and are denied participation in the governance of the country from which they want to secede; where past claims to territorial sovereignty have been overridden; where serious human rights violations have been perpetrated against a population of a definable territory; where a federal state made up of distinct nationalities breaks up; where the people seeking secession differ in ethnicity, religion, culture and language and are separated geographically be land or water; where part of the territory of a state secedes following a self-determination referendum conducted with the consent of the national government; where it is apparent that internal self-determination is absolutely beyond reach; or in cases of extreme and unremitting persecution and there is no reasonable prospect for peaceful change.60 5 CONCLUSION The principle of self-determination does not necessarily conflict with that of territorial integrity. According to the UN, the ICJ, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and international law scholarship, there is no contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, with the latter taking precedence.61 The principle of territorial integrity is confined to the sphere of relations between states. 59 60 61 S Akweenda ‘Territorial integrity: A brief analysis of a complex concept’ (1989) 1 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 500 at 505. Cassese (n 6) 120; R Rosenstock ‘The declaration on principles of international law’ (1971) 65 American Journal of International Law 713 H Hannun Autonomy, sovereignty and self-determination: the accommodation of conflicting rights (1996)