Léo Matarasso

in Popoli / Peuples / Peoples / Pueblos, n.ro 3 (février 1984)

Seven years have passed since several personalities met in Algiers and without any official mandate took the initiative, an unusual one, of nothing else, of proclaiming on 4th July 1976 (1) a universal declaration of the rights of peoples (2). The promoters of this declaration can only be satisfied with the repercussions thereof: many studies or comments have been dedicated to it (3), it has been referred to in international official or unofficial meetings and has even influenced certain international resolutions.
Certainly, the notion of the rights of peoples is not new, nor is the idea that peoples are subjects of rights. But though human rights have been enumerated and classified in numerous national or international juridical instruments, the issue of the rights of peoples was, until then, scattered in several documents. It was necessary – and that is the essential merit of the Algiers declaration – to define more specifically and to reassemble this “fragmentary and dislocated” issue.
Preceded by a preamble exposing the arguments which inspired it, the declaration contains 30 concise articles, separated into seven sections, pertaining respectively to the right to existence, to political self-determination, to economical rights of peoples, to the right to culture, to environment and common resources, to the rights of minorities and to guarantees and sanctions.
Generally, the declaration was received favourably. A few criticisms, often contrary, were sometimes made with respect to some of the rules deemed by some, to be too cautious or timid and by others too brave and disturbing. For instance, with regard to national minorities, some saw in the relative section the denial of all rights to secession and even to autonomy: others saw a wide opening towards secession with the dangers involved especially for young States formed by decolonization.

Liberation on bail?
But beyond this criticism one must note a certain degree of mistrust with regard to the very notion of the rights of peoples. Because of recent disappointments, some are now wondering what good it is to speak or act for the liberation of peoples, if it means substituting one power by another, one oppression for another. Fighting for human rights is the only worthy cause, it is said, as though there were an opposition between human rights and peoples’ rights, as if the human being were an abstract entity removed from time and space and history and as though support given to a people for its liberation should be subordinated to the guarantee that once liberated, it will protect human rights.
Is it not obvious that protection of human rights is achieved by protecting peoples’ rights? The latter are the necessary, but unfortunately insufficient, requirements of the former.
Is it necessary to recall that many texts ranging from the United States’ Independence Declaration to the United Nations’ Charter, deal at the same time with human rights and peoples’ rights.
Is it necessary to recall that the two International Covenants relating to human rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 16th, 1966, ratified since then by a great majority of States and effective today, among them each include a first article written in the same terms, proclaiming the right of peoples to self-determination (4).
But the link between human rights and peoples’ rights has never been more peremptorily asserted than by the Algiers Declaration of 1976, of which article 7 states: “Every people has the right to have a democratic government representing all the citizens without distinction as to race, sex, belief or colour, and capable of ensuring effective respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.”
This article appearing in the section of the right to political self-determination means clearly that the right of peoples to self-determination can only be put into practice when a people declares its consensus to free itself from, foreign domination (external self-determination), but must be exercized permanently by a democratic regime representing all citizens and ensuring protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms (internal self-determination) (5).
This text seems capable of dissipating certain former confusion. That is how Charles Rousseau considers the inclusion of the right of free determination of peoples in a juridical instrument dedicated to the statement of individual rights, i.e. international covenants on human rights, appeals for reserves at a methodological level (6). Other authors wonder whether the right to self-determination can be considered as a “human right” in the strict meaning (7).
The best answer is given by Karel Vasak: “If self-determination cannot be an individual human right, it certainly the necessary condition of the very existence of human rights, in the sense that where it does not exist, man cannot be fee because he is prevented from being liberated” (8).

Inseparable Notions
If we admit that the right to self-determination is an essential condition of human rights, it was no error of methodology to recall it preliminarily in the first article which in itself constitutes the first part of each of the two covenants.
Besides, by making the right to a democratic regime ensuring effective protection of human rights into a fundamental right of peoples, the Universal Declaration of 1976 makes this protection an essential condition of the right to self-determination.
It is important to emphasize strongly this interdependence of human rights and the rights of peoples, just as it is important to assert the universalness of the two notions.
In these times of international tension governments tend only too often to proceed to selective condemnation by virtue of their political position. That is why it befalls particularly to NGOs to become aware, without rivalry between them, of the fact that the cause of human rights and that of the rights of peoples are inseparable.

(1) The date of the 20th anniversary of the United States Independence Declaration was chosen quite intentionally. This was the first document to proclaim at the same time the right for a people to “dissolve political links binding it to another” and the “inalienable” human rights.
(2) The Universal Declaration for the Rights of Peoples was published (in 3 languages): French, English, Spanish, by Editions Maspero (Paris), 1977. It appears among others in “Peuples et Etats du tiers-monde face à l’ordre international“, PUF, Paris, 1978: Pour un droit des peuples, Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1978; Les droits humains, Université de Paix, Bruxelles, 1979; D. Colonel, Droit des relations internationales: documents fondamentaux, Masson, Paris, 1983.
(3) The first comment is the one by Armando Uribe, published in Le Monde diplomatique of September 1976; it appears among several other studies in a collective work. Pour un droit des peuples, essais sur la Déclaration d’Alger, published under the direction of Antonio Cassese and Edmond Jouve, Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1978.
(4) ”All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
(5) Cf. on this subject the remarkable study by Antonio Cassese, le Mois en Afrique, Oct.-Nov. 1981, p. 99 and ss. The author recalls the words of G. Scelle: “Tyranny, absolutisms, dictatorship are both a violation of individual rights and a misconception of the right of peoples.”
(6) Charles Rousseau, Droit international public, vol. 2, p. 35, Sirey, Paris, 1974.
(7) Cf. Les Dimensions internationales des droits de l’homme, collective work, p. 71, UNESCO, Paris, 1978.
(8) Ibid, p. 3.

em>in: Popoli / Peuples / Peoples / Pueblos, n.ro 3 (février 1984)