As the previous chapter illustrated, there are different structural ways to interpret the right of external self-determination broadly in international law. This chapter examines the two general approaches taken in the post-Cold War literature and their implications for the identity of groups claiming self-determination. Some authors take what I call here the ‘categories’ approach. They broaden the interpretation of self-determination by establishing the independent existence of new categories and rules. Others achieve the same result by imposing coherence through global definitions, consistent rationales, overarching principles and other unifying devices. I call this the ‘coherence’ approach. Whereas the categories approach does not need to tell one story about decolonization and whatever other situations might give rise to a right to independence, the coherence approach imparts a single powerful story of identity. And since different authors create categories and coherence differently, the result is an emerging rivalry between and among hodgepodges and grand narratives of self-determination.

The object of this chapter is not to evaluate, whether doctrinally or normatively, the strengths and weaknesses of these competing understandings. It is to introduce the range of legally defensible interpretations of self-determination and the relationship of interpretation to identity that they instantiate. As such, the chapter develops further the practice of reading begun in Chapter 1, which situates the activity of interpretation in an international community that historically has marginalized precisely the groups for whom the concept of self-determination has the greatest significance.