Machine-translated by Google Translate. H/T: Alfred de Zayas’ Human Rights Corner.
“There is nothing more democratic than referendums” (original in German)
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Interview with Prof. Dr. iur. et phil. Alfred de Zayas, international law expert and former UN mandate holder
Current affairs in focus: Were the elections in the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaparozhye and Kherson oblasts in accordance with international law?
Prof. Dr. Alfred de Zaya: Referenda are fundamentally a human rights-compliant method of “taking the temperature” and determining the will of a population. Art. 1 of the UN pact on civil and political rights stipulates the right of self-determination for all peoples – including the people of Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaparozhye and Kherson – and of course the people of Crimea.
Article 19 of the Covenant stipulates the right of all people to freedom of expression. There is nothing more democratic than referendums. However, the UN has failed here. The UN has held self-determination referendums in Sudan, Timor-Leste and Ethiopia/Eritrea. But only after tens of thousands of people had been killed. The UN should have intervened earlier and held preventive referenda.¹
Are referendums irrelevant if they are not conducted by the UN?
Of course, popular referendums are important, even if international bodies ignore them. Of course, there are referendums all over the world, which unfortunately are not organized and carried out by the UN, but solely by the affected population themselves, for example the 1962 referendum in Algeria, which led to independence.²
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