Article 20
1. All peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.
2. Colonized or oppressed peoples shall have the right to free themselves from the bonds of domination by resorting to any means recognized by the international community.
3. All peoples shall have the right to the assistance of the States parties to the present Charter in their liberation struggle against foreign domination, be it political, economic or cultural.
The right to existence and to self-determination of the people is a very important human right. By virtue of this right, people shall freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Self-determination is essentially the right of a people to freely determine their own destiny or political status without any eternal influence or compulsion.
The Charter of the United Nations has placed the right of self-determination into the framework of international law. The purpose of the UN Charter is “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…” (See article 1(2), The UN Charter). This is later reaffirmed under article 1 of both the ICCPR and the ICESCR that “all peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Between the end of World War II and 1960s, peoples of many nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East freed themselves from the chains of colonial rule as justified by the recognition of self-determination under international law. Territorial issue, however continue to pose conflicts, and varies independence movements, particularly in Africa, continue to challenge the assumption that territorial integrity is as important as self-determination. Most sovereign states in this regard continue to deny the right to self-determination through secession within their territorial borders.
Article 20 of the African Charter provides that:
All peoples shall have right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.
Colonized or oppressed peoples shall have the right to free themselves from the bonds of domination by resorting to any means recognized by the international community.
All peoples shall have the right to the assistance of the States parties to the present Charter in their liberation struggle against foreign domination, be it political, economic or cultural.
The separation of the terms ‘all peoples’ from ‘colonized or oppressed people’ under paragraphs (1) and (2) respectively indicates that the right of self-determination is not limited to people under colonialism. The right extends to groups within sovereign States to benefit from self-determination within that State. The position of the African Commission on this point, however, seem to emphasis that the right of groups within sovereign States to self-determination must be fully cognizant of other recognized principles such as sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In Communication 75/92, in the case of Katangese Peoples’ Congress v Zaire, the Commission pointed out that self-determination may be exercised either by independence, self-government, local government, federalism, con-federalism, unitary government or any other form or relation that accord with the wishes of the people, but fully cognizant of other recognized principles such as sovereignty and territorial integrity, and held that Katanga is obliged to exercise a variant of self-determination that is compatible with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Zaire.
The category of “Peoples” under article 20 (2) refers to those under colonial rule or foreign domination. It refers to the people of a given administrative territory who are under colonial rule or foreign domination irrespective of their ethnic composition. An example of this category of people, entitled to the right to self-determination, is the people of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) under Moroccan domination. The right to self-determination in this context refers to the right to political independent; the right to form a government; to establish and exercise control over their own institutions; to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development without any external influence or compulsion.
In this line, paragraph (3) of article 20 places an obligation on State parties to the Charter to provide political, economic and cultural support to assist those peoples in their struggle for independence from foreign domination. This obligation constituted the basis for the admission of SADR into the OAU contrary to the wishes of Republic of Morocco, and subsequently led to Morocco’s withdrawal of her membership from OAU.
