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• Twenty-One Years Later: What happened to “Self-Determination”?

There's a wealth of information regarding our RIGHTS which our 'leaders' are ignoring (for obvious reasons). The turks are winning the information war and the diaspora isn't doing its job....

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The document was calling on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “discuss the demand for reunification with Armenia with representatives of Nagorno Karabakh as well as representatives of the democratic movement (including members of Karabakh Committee recently released from confinement)”.

Hence, 21 years ago the US Congress’s Upper Chamber Commission allowed for a possibility of reunification of two Armenian entities.

The resolution also appealed to American diplomats to achieve “investigation by the highest instances of cases of violence against Armenians” in the bilateral negotiations with the Soviet administration.

Obviously, such a resolution could not help but encourage Armenians who were in a blockade. “We are not alone,” proclaimed the leaders of the movement.

Nations’ right to self-determination received international recognition in the process of collapse of the colonial system and was consolidated in the December 14, 1960, “Declaration on granting independence to colonial countries and peoples”.

The adopted declaration accelerated the liquidation of colonial regimes and about 100 new states emerged on the ruins of empires.

The Soviet Union was perceived as one such empire.

Besides the declaration, American law-makers were guided also by other international legal acts.

The “International pact on civil and political rights” (adopted in December, 1966) says: “All nations have a right to self-determination. As part of that right they are free to establish their political status and ensure their economic, social and cultural development. All the states participating in this Pact… must encourage the implementation of the right to self-determination and respect that right as provided for by the UN Charter”.

The Soviet Union was one of the participants.

It was on that international-legal ground that on November 19 1989 the US Senate approved the second Resolution on Nagorno Karabakh, supporting its people’s will to be reunited with Armenia.

The Resolution said in part: “Taking into consideration the fact that 80 percent of Armenians living on the territory of the Autonomous Region of Nagorno Karabakh (ARNK), have expressed their concerns… and the ARNK Special Administration Committee proved to be ineffective …it is necessary to assist in the course of bilateral discussions with the Soviet Union to fair settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, a settlement that would truly reflect the will of the people in that region.”

Another fundamental document American law-makers were guided by was the “Declaration on the principles of international law” (October 24, 1970), stating the right to “the creation of a sovereign and independent state, freedom to join an independent state or unification with it, or establishment of any other political status ”.

Today’s political map and contours of borders are the result of implementation of the national right to self-determination.

A question naturally comes up: then how was the principle of territorial integrity defined by law-makers in 1989?

The nuance is that this principle was interpreted exceptionally on the background of defending states from foreign aggression. The implementation of the principle of territorial integrity was in fact subordinate to nations’ right to self-determination, stated in the Declaration on the principles of international law.

The very fact that more than 30 new states have been recognized only within the past 20 years, demonstrates that the formation of independent entities of international law is a continuous process and that it is done based on the principle of national self-determination.

Or, if put otherwise, based on the volatility of state borders.

By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union international law was interpreted quite unambiguously and clearly. And the first document allowing for reunification of Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia was adopted 21 years ago in Washington.