Developing “friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples” is one of the purposes of the United Nations Organization, as stated in the founding charter of 1945. The principle of self-determination has even become a right through the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (December 1960). The Declaration states that: “All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Self-determination has thus entered international law. Strangely enough, however, nowhere are the bearers of this right defined: who are the peoples entitled to claim self-determination? This omission is not there by chance. Indeed, the definition of peoplehood is far from evident. Should a people be defined on a territorial basis, i.e. include all the population living within a given territory delimited by given boundaries?