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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
In the history of modern Africa the issue of self-determination has always been of special significance. For a better part of a century and in some cases more, almost the entire continent was subject to colonisation by various European powers. The end of the Second World War and the subsequent adoption of the United Nations Charter, incorporating the principle of self-determination, heralded a new phase for the African colonies in international relations. Defined in its simplest terms, self-determination is the principle by virtue of which a people freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Selfdetermination is in essence the right of self-government. A territory exercises the right by either opting to establish itself as an independent state, associating with an existing state or by accepting to be integrated into an existing state. Self-determination so defined was thus used as the basis for decolonisation in Africa and provided the foundations for equal statehood for the former colonies of Africa in international relations.
After decolonisation, the issue of self-determination still persists in Africa attracting sentiments and implications well exemplified by the conflicts Over Biafra and Katanga in the 1960s and currently in Eritrea, the Tigray province of Ethiopia and the Southern Sudan. The very successful propagation of self-determination as the right of every people to self-government by African nationalists during the colonial days seems to have left behind a legacy of a question for post-independence Africa—is the ideal of self-determination
1 On the principle of self-determination see generally Johnson, H. S., Self-Determination in the Community of Nations, Leyden, 1967;Google ScholarOfuatey-Kojoe, W., Self-Determination in International Law, New York, 1976;Google ScholarSuneda, R., The Evolution of Self-Determination: A Study of United Nations Practice, Leyden, 1974;Google ScholarPomerance, M., Self-Delermination in Law and Practice. The Doctrine in the United Nations, The Hague, 1982.Google Scholar
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46 The Assembly only deleted the word “Africa” from the title African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights and replaced it with “Banjul”, the capital of the Republic of Gambia where most of the deliberations on the draft and the Assembly itself were held. The change was instituted to avoid any confusions between a title such as African Charter … with the “Charter of the Organisation of African Unity”, (O.A.U. Diary, 06 1981).
