Chasapis-Tassinis & Nouwen: 'The Consciousness of Duty Done'? British Attitudes Towards Self-Determination and the Case of Sudan

Orfeas Chasapis-Tassinis (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) & Sarah Nouwen (Univ. of Cambridge - Law) have posted 'The Consciousness of Duty Done'? British Attitudes Towards Self-Determination and the Case of Sudan (British Yearbook of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

According to the dominant narrative, the right of self-determination became relevant as a matter of law only after the 1960s or even only in the early 1970s. Reviving a seemingly forgotten episode in the legal history of self-determination, this article, however, shows that during the UN Security Council’s second year of operation, in 1947, the United Kingdom invoked the right of self-determination of another people, the Sudanese, as their legal entitlement, in its effort to counter Egyptian claims on the Sudan. Giving a strong voice to primary sources, this article narrates how British officials in the Sudan managed to promote the idea of Sudanese self-determination so successfully in London that the British Government, despite the UK’s strategic and colonial interests, ultimately invoked self-determination as part of its legal argumentation in the Security Council.