Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter II. The Baltic Minorities' Rights. Their relation to Municipal and International Law. Lecture delivered at the Grotius Society in London, November 1921
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Self-determination, one of the fourteen points of Mr. Wilson, the
late President of the United Mates, was adopted by the Peace
Conference at Versailles. It had already been acknowledged by Napoleon III
who threw this alluring formula into the seething cauldron of varying
nationalities and, in the course of the nineteenth century led to the
creation of a series of new States on a racial basis, such as Germany,
Italy, Greece. But at the Peace Conference of Versailles, this principle
received a new sanctification by the fact that the old theory of power
being the sole and necessary condition for the creation of a State, was
supersecded by the conception of the „Contract Social“, namely, the
will and the consent of the population living on the State’s territory.
Self determinat:on is thus firmly anchored the common racial ideal
as well as in the new foundation of municipal law. But, to be sure,
it must find its limits in the conditions of existence and the vital
interests of neighbouring States, just as personal freedom is limited by
the right to freedom of others who are enjoying equal privileges.
It is therefore self-evident that a community cannot be entitled to
self-determination at the expense of another state. If it be so,
self-determination, internationally, must necessarily lead to conflicting
interests, which in the last instance, can only be solved by arbitration
or war. The self-determination of the Baltic Borderlands for
independence will have to be in consonance with the interests of a Russia
capable of defending her vital interests, but, in the meantime, the
political independence of these countries, may have a long run, as the yoke
of the Soviets, which is now incapacitating Russia, may still last for
some years to come.
Internally, self-determination means an arrangment between the
majority which wields the power and the minority which has to submit,
without, however, losing their right to exist individually. Here the
problem becomes rather complex, as the habitat of the different races
forming the State, is often not confined within strictly determined
areas, but comprises territories where an intermingling of races has
taken place throughout the course of time. Thus the Jews in the
Diaspora, and even in Palestine form a heterogeneous minority;
Armenia, Grusia and Aserbeidjan are interwoven with different tribes,
such as the Tartars, Turks and Kurds, Georgians and many Caucasian
tribes; Home Rule in Ireland is complicated on account of the
Protestants in Ulster; Finland has to deal with her Aryan-Swedish stock
as well as with the Finnish-Mongolic population; Alsace-Lorraine has
to cope with her German speaking elements in juxtaposition to the
French; Yugo-Slavia contains Italians within her fold besides her Slavs;
Czecho-Slovakia and Poland have several millions of Germans; in
addition to the Ugro-Altaic stock living in Hungary, there are people of
Teutonic, Slavonic, and Roumanian extraction; Lithuania is interspersed
with Poles and Russians; Eesti and Latvia are the homeland of not
only Ests and Letts, but also of the Balto-Saxons, who, came some
seven hundred years ago to the Baltic shores[1] colonised, Christiansed
and civilised the country uplifting it to a high level of culture and
prosperity.
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