TWENTY-ONE YEARS LATER: WHAT HAPPENED TO “SELF-DETERMINATION”?
By Aris Ghazinyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Map:
20.07.10 | 16:15
Analysis
Twenty-one years ago this week the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US
Senate passed a Resolution on “US assistance to the peaceful settlement
of the Nagorno Karabakh issue in accordance with the people’s will
of Soviet Armenia”.
The document was calling on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to
“discuss the demand for reunification with Armenia with representatives
of Nagorno Karabakh as well as representatives of the democratic
movement (including members of Karabakh Committee recently released
from confinement)”.
Hence, 21 years ago the US Congress’s Upper Chamber Commission allowed
for a possibility of reunification of two Armenian entities.
The resolution also appealed to American diplomats to achieve
“investigation by the highest instances of cases of violence
against Armenians” in the bilateral negotiations with the Soviet
administration.
Obviously, such a resolution could not help but encourage Armenians
who were in a blockade. “We are not alone,” proclaimed the leaders
of the movement.
Nations’ right to self-determination received international recognition
in the process of collapse of the colonial system and was consolidated
in the December 14, 1960, “Declaration on granting independence to
colonial countries and peoples”.
The adopted declaration accelerated the liquidation of colonial
regimes and about 100 new states emerged on the ruins of empires.
The Soviet Union was perceived as one such empire.
Besides the declaration, American law-makers were guided also by
other international legal acts.
The “International pact on civil and political rights” (adopted in
December, 1966) says: “All nations have a right to self-determination.
As part of that right they are free to establish their political status
and ensure their economic, social and cultural development. All the
states participating in this Pact… must encourage the implementation
of the right to self-determination and respect that right as provided
for by the UN Charter”.
The Soviet Union was one of the participants.
It was on that international-legal ground that on November 19 1989
the US Senate approved the second Resolution on Nagorno Karabakh,
supporting its people’s will to be reunited with Armenia.
The Resolution said in part: “Taking into consideration the fact that
80 percent of Armenians living on the territory of the Autonomous
Region of Nagorno Karabakh (ARNK), have expressed their concerns… and
the ARNK Special Administration Committee proved to be ineffective
…it is necessary to assist in the course of bilateral discussions
with the Soviet Union to fair settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict, a settlement that would truly reflect the will of the people
in that region.”
Another fundamental document American law-makers were guided by was
the “Declaration on the principles of international law” (October
24, 1970), stating the right to “the creation of a sovereign and
independent state, freedom to join an independent state or unification
with it, or establishment of any other political status “.
Today’s political map and contours of borders are the result of
implementation of the national right to self-determination.
A question naturally comes up: then how was the principle of
territorial integrity defined by law-makers in 1989?
The nuance is that this principle was interpreted exceptionally
on the background of defending states from foreign aggression. The
implementation of the principle of territorial integrity was in fact
subordinate to nations’ right to self-determination, stated in the
Declaration on the principles of international law.
The very fact that more than 30 new states have been recognized
only within the past 20 years, demonstrates that the formation of
independent entities of international law is a continuous process and
that it is done based on the principle of national self-determination.
Or, if put otherwise, based on the volatility of state borders.
By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union international law was
interpreted quite unambiguously and clearly. And the first document
allowing for reunification of Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia was adopted
21 years ago in Washington.
From: A. Papazian