Between Sovereignty and Self-Determination: A Legal Evaluation of the Indigenous People of Biafra's (IPOB) Claim to Self-Determination under International Law, 2012-2024
Résumé
Self-determination is one of the more debated principles of modern international law, which is stated in the United Nations Charter as a foundational right, while at the same time being limited by other fundamental principle of international law, territorial integrity. This article examines the agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for secession of the South-East of Nigeria from 2012 to 2024 with a doctrinal legal analysis of the arguments advanced by IPOB within the normative framework of the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and remedial secession doctrine in customary law. Based on qualitative doctrinal and documentary analysis, the article utilizes the "remedial-secession" test outlined in the Reference re Secession of Quebec, and compares its situation with those of South Sudan, Somaliland, Kosovo, East Timor and Tibet to determine whether IPOB's claim meets the three cumulative conditions that have been established in state practice for external self-determination. The article concludes that IPOB's agitation is founded on legitimate and documented historical grievances stemming from the Nigerian Civil War and political marginalisation and while it does not yet qualify under the cumulative legal standard for secession, as the available constitutional and political remedies have not been fully exhausted and there is no precedent in the international community in which a humanitarian threshold has been recognised. The article concludes that the IPOB claim is better described as an internal self-determination claim, and urges for constitutional and diplomatic and legal changes to reconcile Nigeria's sovereign and international human rights obligations.
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