The concept of nation-state was imposed on the African continent. The African state is not the product of natural growth of the African peoples from tribal societies to nations.The colonial masters brought to Africa a nation-state that was based on legal and philosophical principles evolved elsewhere in the world.These principles became the measurements against which any nation should be tested to qualify for statehood. Accordingly, African borders were drawn. The two conflicting principles of self-determination and territorial integrity are amongst those principles. The former entails the right to peoples to determine their destination both politically and economically. The latter protects countries from fragmentation. The irony is how to ensure that all peoples achieve their right to self-determination and at the same time, national states are protected from dissolution. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2010. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Magnus Killander of the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. 2010. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

<p> </p><p><em>The universal citizenship rights can not protect the interests of national minorities by systematically excluding them from social, economic and political life. It does this by denying national minorities access to their own societal cultures-a choice enabling background conditions. In order to enable meaningful choice, such cultures needs to be developing. The societal cultures of national minorities will, instead of being a living and developing ones, be condemned to an ever-increasing marginalization if the state follows a hands off approach to ethnicity. Thus the state must give a positive support to national minorities to help them develop their cultures in their own homeland. This can be done by drawing the boundary of the state in such a way that the ethnic minority can constitute a local majority to form a nation, and thus can be entitled to group-differentiated citizenship rights. This inevitably creates mutual-indifference among various nations, and seems to threaten the territorial integrity of the state. But as far as the multinational federation is the result of voluntary union of nations, though the social tie among these nations is weaker than the one found in a nation-state, it can nonetheless be enduring.</em></p><p>                              </p>

The universal citizenship rights can not protect the interests of national minorities by systematically excluding them from social, economic and political life. It does this by denying national minorities access to their own societal cultures-a choice enabling background conditions. In order to enable meaningful choice, such cultures needs to be developing. The societal cultures of national minorities will, instead of being a living and developing ones, be condemned to an ever-increasing marginalization if the state follows a hands off approach to ethnicity. Thus the state must give a positive support to national minorities to help them develop their cultures in their own homeland. This can be done by drawing the boundary of the state in such a way that the ethnic minority can constitute a local majority to form a nation, and thus can be entitled to group-differentiated citizenship rights. This inevitably creates mutual-indifference among various nations, and seems to threaten the territorial integrity of the state. But as far as the multinational federation is the result of voluntary union of nations, though the social tie among these nations is weaker than the one found in a nation-state, it can nonetheless be enduring.

The aim of this paper is to describe the way of creation of cartographic papers in ArcGIS programme. I would like to also mention the display possibilities of the programme and point out potential difficulties in the work with more shapefile layers, grid system, cartographic schemes and as well with the portrayal of the plan which influences the final form of the map essentially. Created cartographic papers show the real historical setout of the territorial integrity in the time and space. Morover the time resolution is able to provide the chance to compare and peep into the emergence of the state boundaries in 20 th century. The result of this paper is the set of historical and geographical maps which can be used not only in history and geography education.

This thesis focuses on the correlation of the UNSC voting behaviour of the People's Republic of China and its foreign policy. China's importance as a global power at the platform of the UN has been rising ever since 1971, the year of China's admittance as a new member of the UN and more importantly also the permanent member of the Security Council with the power of veto. Given that the veto power strongly influences the actions of the UNSC, its use has served as a major indicator of what issues are considered as most unfavourable and threatening to China's national interests and foreign policy goals. This thesis elaborates on the development of the foreign policy of China, which has changed significantly since the year of its acquired UN membership but has also kept many principles, present even before the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By specifically concentrating on the individual cast vetoes, also considering the use of a so-called hidden veto and the reasons behind them being cast, this thesis tries to find out, how China has been using its veto power with regards to its declared foreign policy objectives within the UN Security Council.

The thesis examines the undergoing peace process in Turkey between the Turkish state and the PKK organisation and seeks to assess how this development is affected by one of the principles of the Turkish national state: territorial integrity. Examining the preservation of territorial integrity as a factor shaping the pacification is crucial to understanding the dynamics of the current peace process and how distant the prospect of achieving a long lasting peace is. I investigate the PKK peace process using the works of scholars developing on conflict resolution and the specificities of Turkish politics and I address the relevance of their theories to the case of the PKK.

The African Union (AU) was established by the African Union Constitutive Act in 2000 to address the shortcomings of its predecessor the Organisation for African Unity (OAU). One of the main considerations for the establishment of the AU was the OAU’s strict adherence to the principle of non-intervention. The OAU was established on the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity but the leaders of Africa realised that while the protection of sovereignty and territorial integrity was important ambitions for the African continent, it was just as important that African conflicts are resolved more effectively. While the AU Constitutive Act restates the commitment of the AU to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the AU Constitutive Act also provides for protection of human rights and, most significantly, for the limited intervention by the AU in grave circumstances. Article 4(h) of the AU Constitutive Act provides the “right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”. The right to intervention contain in this article provide a great opportunity to improve the effectiveness of conflict management on the African continent. However, Articles 2(4) and 2(7) of the United Nations Charter pose a strong challenge to the legality of intervention under article 4(h) of the AU Constitutive Act. It is generally accepted that consent or invitation by the state concerned precluded any wrongfulness of the prima facie violation of international law and in particular a valid exception to the prohibition on the use of force. By signing the AU Constitutive Act the member states of the AU consented in advance to the possibility of intervention and consequently there is no conflict between the right to intervene and the prohibition of the use of force, as long as the AU remains within the bounds set out in the AU Constitutive Act and the succeeding mandate given by the Assembly. It might be argued that the prohibition on the use of force is a ius cogens norm that cannot be contracted out and that any agreement to this effect is void. However, the commentaries to Article 26 of the Articles on State Responsibility state that consent may be relevant when applying such a peremptory norm. Furthermore, only the prohibition on aggression is peremptory in nature. The definition of aggression states inter alia that aggression is the use of armed force on the territory of another in contravention of an agreement between the parties concerned. Thus, use of force undertaken in the territory of a state within the bounds of the agreement between the parties is not aggression and thus not a violation of a peremptory norm. The increased international focus on human rights and human security has influenced the way the notion of sovereignty and the principle of non-interference are understood. In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty’s report “The Responsibility to Protect” introduced the twin norms of sovereignty as a responsibility and the Responsibility to Protect. The notion of sovereignty as a responsibility implies that every state has the responsibility to protect its people from gross human rights abuses, while the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) refers to the responsibility of the international community to act should as state be unwilling or unable to fulfil its responsibilities towards its citizens. By incorporation of the right to intervention in its Constitutive Act, the AU has embraced the concept of Responsibility to Protect. While the international endorsement of this concept and the constant paralysis of the SC, especially in respect of Africa, adds considerable legitimacy to possible intervention by the AU in terms of article 4(h). / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Public Law / Unrestricted

A central tenet of international law is the right to territorial integrity, a right for which states may have their reasons to interpret differently. This thesis sets out to give insights to how Russia approaches breaches to said right to territorial integrity depending on their own national interests, and how they frame said interests in the European cases of Kosovo and Crimea. This thesis uses realist, neoliberalist and constructivist lenses to shed light on this question, employing key concepts from these theories through a qualitative content analysis on documents from the United Nations Security Council as well as the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that display Russia’s position in above mentioned cases. This study reveals a change of the Russian perspective between both cases, as well as determining that Russia frames their reactions in a way that serves its own interests best.

Self-determination is a peoples' right to freely determine their political, economic and cultural destiny without external interference. However, the cultivation of a culture of respect for self-determination remains the greatest challenge to post-colonial Africa. Dictatorships and other oppressive regimes very substantially affected Africa's efforts to develop a culture of constitutionalism and respect for the right of peoples to selfdetermination. Most African countries typify the failed effort of trying to establish an enduring democracy and respect for the right of peoples to take part in the government. After five decades of transition from colonialism to constitutional democracy, most African peoples are still under the yoke of governments they consider undesirable or oppressive. This work primarily sets out to investigate if the denial of the right of peoples to self-determination justifies the use of force to secure such a right. Since independence, Africa has experienced armed rebel groups seeking either to effect radical transformation of the whole state or to separate from the state to which they belong in order to create a new state. In the main, this study explores the extent to which rebel groups acting on behalf of peoples are or are not allowed to use force for the attainment of self-determination. The thesis begins with an historical development of the right to self-determination in international law. It initially examines how self-determination has developed from a political principle to a legal right. Despite the fact that self-determination is one of the core principles of the UN Charter, there are still many controversies over its precise meaning, scope and application. The thesis considers the two aspects of selfdetermination: external self-determination and internal self-determination. The external aspect implies the right of people to form a new, sovereign and independent state, whereas the internal aspect implies the right of people to participate in the political framework of an existing state. The thesis also assesses the state of the academic literature over the right of peoples to self-determination, with a view to determining whether the right can be used by a group of people whose internal self-determination has been denied to effect secession from the state. It advocates that, outside the colonial context, the right of self-determination does not equal to a "right to secession and independence". The thesis argues, however, that in exceptional circumstances such as gross violations of human rights and the denial of internal self-determination, people should be endowed with a right to secession in the manifestation of a right to unilateral secession as a remedy of such injustices. The thesis further turns to the mechanisms for the protection of the peoples' right to self-determination, the problems and challenges in Africa. The challenges do not only include the legality of the use of force by rebel groups and national liberation movements in seeking to attain self-determination, but also the right of other states to assist them in their struggles. The work probes the nature of international law and critically assesses whether the persistent denial of demands for self-determination led to calls for drastic remedies, including the use of armed force. Before this theory is critically assessed, the thesis defines the differences between national liberation movements and rebel groups. It argues that as far as self-determination struggles are concerned, there must be representative organisations acting on behalf of people whose right of self-determination has been denied. In the light of these contentions, the study examines the general ban on the use of force as laid down by the UN Charter, and finds that the Charter does not expressly refer to self-determination as a situation where people may resort to the use of force for the attainment of such a right. It then turns to the history of and circumstance surrounding the use of force, examines the jus ad bellum regarding "liberation struggles", and concludes that the use of force by national liberation movements against colonial and racist regimes has strong theoretical foundations and support in state practice. Outside of the colonial and apartheid contexts, however, the argument that rebels acting on behalf of oppressed peoples may legitimately use force in pursuit of selfdetermination thus remains ambiguous. In that context, this thesis examines the practice relating to the use of force by rebel groups and the laws of war provisions that apply in civil wars, and concludes that none of them proves that the international community of states accepts rebels' right to use force as a legal entitlement. Finally, based on the lessons learned from and lacunae identified in all norms relating to the enforcement mechanisms of the right of self-determination, this study concludes with a set of suggestions and recommendations. / LLD (Law), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Self-determination is a peoples' right to freely determine their political, economic and cultural destiny without external interference. However, the cultivation of a culture of respect for self-determination remains the greatest challenge to post-colonial Africa. Dictatorships and other oppressive regimes very substantially affected Africa's efforts to develop a culture of constitutionalism and respect for the right of peoples to selfdetermination. Most African countries typify the failed effort of trying to establish an enduring democracy and respect for the right of peoples to take part in the government. After five decades of transition from colonialism to constitutional democracy, most African peoples are still under the yoke of governments they consider undesirable or oppressive. This work primarily sets out to investigate if the denial of the right of peoples to self-determination justifies the use of force to secure such a right. Since independence, Africa has experienced armed rebel groups seeking either to effect radical transformation of the whole state or to separate from the state to which they belong in order to create a new state. In the main, this study explores the extent to which rebel groups acting on behalf of peoples are or are not allowed to use force for the attainment of self-determination. The thesis begins with an historical development of the right to self-determination in international law. It initially examines how self-determination has developed from a political principle to a legal right. Despite the fact that self-determination is one of the core principles of the UN Charter, there are still many controversies over its precise meaning, scope and application. The thesis considers the two aspects of selfdetermination: external self-determination and internal self-determination. The external aspect implies the right of people to form a new, sovereign and independent state, whereas the internal aspect implies the right of people to participate in the political framework of an existing state. The thesis also assesses the state of the academic literature over the right of peoples to self-determination, with a view to determining whether the right can be used by a group of people whose internal self-determination has been denied to effect secession from the state. It advocates that, outside the colonial context, the right of self-determination does not equal to a "right to secession and independence". The thesis argues, however, that in exceptional circumstances such as gross violations of human rights and the denial of internal self-determination, people should be endowed with a right to secession in the manifestation of a right to unilateral secession as a remedy of such injustices. The thesis further turns to the mechanisms for the protection of the peoples' right to self-determination, the problems and challenges in Africa. The challenges do not only include the legality of the use of force by rebel groups and national liberation movements in seeking to attain self-determination, but also the right of other states to assist them in their struggles. The work probes the nature of international law and critically assesses whether the persistent denial of demands for self-determination led to calls for drastic remedies, including the use of armed force. Before this theory is critically assessed, the thesis defines the differences between national liberation movements and rebel groups. It argues that as far as self-determination struggles are concerned, there must be representative organisations acting on behalf of people whose right of self-determination has been denied. In the light of these contentions, the study examines the general ban on the use of force as laid down by the UN Charter, and finds that the Charter does not expressly refer to self-determination as a situation where people may resort to the use of force for the attainment of such a right. It then turns to the history of and circumstance surrounding the use of force, examines the jus ad bellum regarding "liberation struggles", and concludes that the use of force by national liberation movements against colonial and racist regimes has strong theoretical foundations and support in state practice. Outside of the colonial and apartheid contexts, however, the argument that rebels acting on behalf of oppressed peoples may legitimately use force in pursuit of selfdetermination thus remains ambiguous. In that context, this thesis examines the practice relating to the use of force by rebel groups and the laws of war provisions that apply in civil wars, and concludes that none of them proves that the international community of states accepts rebels' right to use force as a legal entitlement. Finally, based on the lessons learned from and lacunae identified in all norms relating to the enforcement mechanisms of the right of self-determination, this study concludes with a set of suggestions and recommendations. / LLD (Law), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015