Self-Determination in Human Rights Instruments

This chapter concludes the survey of instruments on self-determination by focussing on four human rights treaties. The four instruments that will be considered in this chapter are: the Twin Human Rights Covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966; and two regional instruments, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights 1981 and the Arab Charter on Human Rights 2004. Connected to both the relationship between self-determination and human rights and the role of the right in decolonisation and within states is the distinction between internal and external aspects of the right. This chapter has considered four human rights instruments containing self-determination, the interpretations of the content that right and the challenges that they have faced in implementing it.Keywords: African Charter on human and peoples' rights; Arab Charter on human rights; International Covenant on civil and political rights; International Covenant on economic social and cultural Rights; self-determination; twin human rights covenants