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.
The fact that the present-day inhabitants of the Falklands/Malvinas do not constitute a separate people, holders of the right of self-determination, does not mean that they do not enjoy other rights. They are of course entitled to human rights, both individually and collectively. Argentina has committed itself in its constitution to respect the inhabitants’ way of life.
Britain’s manipulation of this principle is clear. First, it is the UN, and not the colonial power, in charge of determining the procedures to put an end to a colonial situation, and the UN has never applied such a principle to the inhabitants of the islands. Second, this is a special case of colonialism in which the victim of the colonial action was a recently established state. Third, after the dispossession of Argentina, the British government established their own settlers. Fourth, since then, it has controlled the migration policies. And lastly, the current residents do not constitute a separate “people” victim of colonial actions.
Accepting that the British subjects living in the islands may themselves decide the Anglo-Argentine dispute would mean a flagrant and arbitrary example of imposing a fait accompli. If there is a people, a victim of colonialism to whom the principle of self-determination can be applied here, that people is the Argentine people.
Facundo D Rodriguez
Professor of international law, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
