The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/The principle of self determination

THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF DETERMINATION

 

In the “Právnicke Rozhledy” (Legal Review). Dr. J. Kollab discusses “Self-determination of Nations as a Legal Principle.” He argues among other things against two incorrect deductions of which the enemies of this principle make use. Some declare that the idea of self-determination of nations cannot be realized, because in almost every territory one find; members of foreign nations. Those who reason;a this way confuse the principle of self-determination of nations with the principle of civic liberty, bort are derived from the principle of people’s sovereignty. Civic liberty, however, determines the legal status of each individual, whereas the self-determination of nations determines the status of entire nations. The nation as whole, as a cultural unit, can not be subordinate to any one else; but that does not mean that every individual whom fate might have blown into the midst of another nation is entitled to demand the right of self-determination. He, like everyone else is entitled to civic liberty,.

The self-determination of nations is therefore something substantially different from national autonomy. National autonomy is the right of citizens of a certain nationality to have the conditions of their cultural development guaranteed in a state ruled by another culture, or the manner in which the state shall guarantee to members of a foreign nationality their civic liberty. Self-determination, on the other hand, constitutes the demand that the nation as a whole shall have the opportunity to mate use of all its powers in the service of its national interests so that it would enforce its individuality in all directions, including the life of the state, of course within the limitations set by international law.

Others again try to make the principle of self-determination ridiculous by demanding that it be applied to self-determination of uncivilized nations of Africa and Asia. In the same way the enemies of civic freedom a hundred years ago derided this demand by claiming that a child or an insane person should be given as much liberty as the adult citizen. In both cases people overlook, or rather intentionally will not see, that liberty is something far different from license. Just as protection granted to those who are unable to dispose of themselves rationally is not the limitation, but protection of their liberty, so the principle of self-determination of nations does not exclude the protection of races so backward in civilization that they are unable to make use of the means of progress which the contact of all nations in cultural life affords.

If we therefore take self-determination of nations seriously, we can not compare the status of adult nations of Europe with the status of the wild tribes of Central Africa, just as we do not measure the legal status of a grown man by the restrictions that must be applied to a five-year-old child.