Britain has manipulated the principle of self-determination in the Falkland Islands

‘It is the UN, and not the colonial power, in charge of determining the procedures to put an end to a colonial situation.’ Stanley, the Falklands capital, viewed from the air. Photograph: Pablo Porciuncula Brune/AFP/Getty Images

Re your letters on the Falkland Islands (30 November), self-determination is a fundamental principle of contemporary international law. For a number of years, the UK denied the legal – and therefore binding – nature of it and recognised its importance only with the aim of justifying its colonial position with respect to the cases of the Falklands/Malvinas and Gibraltar.

None of the more than 50 resolutions passed by the UN have recognised the existence of a separate people on the territory of the Falklands/Malvinas, and these resolutions have therefore taken other paths regarding the manner in which to proceed to the decolonisation of the islands: negotiation between Argentina and the UK to solve the dispute over sovereignty, taking into account the interests of the population of the islands. When the UK attempted to incorporate an express mention of self-determination in what became Resolution 40/21, the general assembly rejected it outright.