There is no international law that assures an ethnic group its own territory or nation, contiguous or not. And I would guess that the vast majority of ethnic groups do not have their own nation. Some of them may want their own territory, but a right to such has to be established. Prior legitimate possession is one such argument. The problem, of course, is that groups tend to assert claims to territories that at some point in their history they once controlled, and so, by referring to different time periods, the various claims of groups overlap significantly with the claims of others. Quite apart from the issue of sovereignty for ethnic groups, this matter of overlaps reduces the viability of the historical claim. The doctrine of self-determination is primarily useful against a colonial power; it does not clarify the problem of overlapping, time-sensitive claims.
The Kurds have no intrinsic right to a state of their own. Were they to advance such a claim, they would have to reckon with the sovereignty of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. I would say that the idea of a Kurdish state is in fact dead, though they will be able to achieve a measure of autonomy within Iraq. If the Kurds were to pronounce themselves independent, and Iraq not able to enforce its sovereignty there due to the present control of the country by the US, it is sure to be challenged successfully in the future. My guess is that the Kurds are smart enough to realize this and will withstand the blandishments of outsiders, and settle for cooperative relations with the Iraq government, and a significant measure of autonomy, as negotiated jointly by the government and Kurdish representatives. Cheers, Lawry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of pete Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Map of Middle East On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Christoph Reuss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Interesting. So the Kingdom of Israel existed only in a very short >period some 3000 years ago. Hmm, what does this say about the >legitimacy of the "law of return"...? You will notice that in all that time, the Kurds never had self-rule, let alone an empire. Does that mean we should decide they don't exist, and have no right to a contiguous homeland? _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
