The Political Usages of International Law in Trust Territories: The Right of Self-Determination and Political Engagement in British Southern Cameroons (BSC)

Abstract

Although international law is necessary to regulate the process by which Trust Territories achieve statehood, its political dimension has often been overlooked. The aim of this research paper is to fill this gap by examining the political usage of the international law on the right of self-determination in Trust territories. The approach is based on the political instrumentalism of international law which regards the law on the right of self-determination as a political instrument or a tool for achieving territorial sovereignty. It finds that the absence of clarity on the right of self-determination was exploited by entrepreneurs of statehood in Trust territories to interpret territorial sovereignty in multiple and contending frames. The work is inviting the UN Trusteeship System to reconsider its role even after it must have fulfilled its mission of overseeing and endorsing the independence in Trust Territories. It emphasizes the importance of the political usage of the right of self-determination and provides an explanation to the origin of contested territorial sovereignty in some former Trust Territories.