‘Humanizing’ the Law of Self-Determination – the Chagos Island Case

Human rights are perceived more and more as a set of norms of all-encompassing effects determining all international action, in particular also those by the United Nations. The recent ICJ Opinion in the Chagos case seems to suggest, however, that the field of self-determination is not yet really affected by this development. The ICJ has dealt with this case in a very traditional manner declaring, as it was foreseeable, that the de-colonisation process of the Chagos Islands has not been lawfully completed. At the same time, the ICJ widely ignored the direful lot of the Chagossians. This article investigates whether it is still tenable to deal with a decolonisation case exclusively from the perspective of ‘classic colonial self-determination’ while barely considering the lot of the people directly affected by these events. The main proposition of this article is that the process of humanization of international law must not stop short from affecting also the law of self-determination. It is suggested, on the contrary, that in the 21th century the law of self-determination has to set the individuals composing the people in the forefront.