THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION VIS-À-VIS IRREDENTISM: COMPREHENSIVENESS OF ARTICLE 39 OF THE FDRE CONSTITUTION IN ADDRESSING IRREDENTISM

Abstract

Since Ethiopia got constitutionally structured as a federal state in 1991/94, the issue of selfdetermination has whelmed the socio-economic and political lives of the people.
Consequently, different explicit and implicit quests of self-determination had been and are
being made by nations, nationalities, and people of Ethiopia. The FDRE Constitution is a
centrepiece both in activating and addressing these self-determination quests. Article 39 of
the Constitution specifically provides the right to self-determination of nations, nationalities,
and people of Ethiopia (hereinafter NNPs) shall be respected. However, it is not clear
whether or not this provision addresses an ostensible self-determination case commonly
known as irredentism. Irredentism is the simultaneous desire of the trans-border ethnic kin
people and the adjacent parent state to their socio-political unification. Even if it is a real
phenomenon, irredentist cases are rarely addressed both in national and international legal
instruments. The right to self-determination, allegedly an unsettled right in terms of its
normative contents, may or may not embrace irredentist cases. This study is doctrinal legal
research, which, by analysing relevant national and international legal instruments and
scholarly literature, appraises the comprehensiveness or otherwise of Article 39 of the
FDRE Constitution in addressing irredentist cases. To substantiate the theoretical analysis,
the Welkaite case, a prolonged and on-going quest of Welkaite people to secede from the
regional state of Tigray so as to be incorporated within the regional state of Amhara has
been highlighted. Doing so, the study has revealed that the self-determination clauses
stipulated both under international and domestic legal instruments are incomprehensive to
address irredentist cases.