The Right to Self-Determination in International Law: A Study of the Kurds in Iraq and Their Relation to Self-Determination

Abstract

This thesis examines how the Kurds in Iraq relate to the right to self-determination. The right to self-determination is a codified right that entitles a people to determine their political, economic, and cultural status. The right consists of an internal form, which concerns the exercise of the right within a state’s territorial boundaries, and an external form, which encompasses aspects that extend beyond those boundaries. It is peoples who are the exercisers of the right, but what a people entails remains unclear, which creates a need to examine the concept more closely. The Kurds constitute the largest minority group in Iraq. However, their status as a people is not self-evident, which creates a need to clarify their position within international law. For that reason, the thesis investigates how the Kurds in Iraq can be considered a people under international law. The thesis also examines how the Kurds relate to the two forms of self-determination. Since the Kurds exercise a degree of self-governance within their autonomous region in Iraq, the thesis explores how such governance can be understood as an exercise of internal self-determination. In connection with this, the thesis also investigates potential factors that may hinder the exercise of internal self-determination. The thesis further analyses the Kurds’ relationship to external self-determination. As the external form primarily concerns the creation of independent states, and the Kurds in Iraq have not established a state, the analysis focuses on potential factors that hinder the exercise of the right in its external form. In order to present a critical perspective on the analyses conducted in the thesis, Critical Legal Studies (CLS) is employed as a theoretical framework. This approach aims to critique perceptions of the international legal norms of self-determination by questioning their portrayal as objective, coherent, and determinate, and by examining how these norms have been applied in the case of the Kurds in Iraq.