Juxtaposition Of Right To Self-determination And Terrorism Under International Law

Abstract

The right to self-determination is one of the jus cogenslaws under international law, which denotes the legal right of people to decide their political, economic, and social affairs within the borders of a territory. This right essentially grants the people, to some extent a legal right to use force in exercising their right to self-determination. The national liberation movements (NLMs) for example, whose rights and struggle for independence havelong been recognised by international law, in many instances have been conflated with the act of terrorism. One of the reasons is the absence of a universally accepted definition of terrorism. This paper aims to investigate how the conflation of NLMs as terrorists has affected the exercise of the right to self-determination. The study analyses relevant legal laws and juristic opinions on the issues at hand using a qualitative approach via library-based methodology. The result of this study reveals that, despite having provisions for countering international terrorism, due to the absence of a universally accepted definition of terrorism, the current international counterterrorism law is influenced by state municipal lawsas the crime of terrorism is outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Some states used their liberal power to define and designate NLMs as terrorist organisations which have allowed them to misuse municipal law against such movements. In short, whilst the use of force in exercising the right to self-determination is governed by international humanitarian law, the lack of a universally accepted definition of terrorism enables States to label NLMs as terrorists, criminalising the liberation movement as a whole.