The Right to Internal Self-Determination in Peacebuilding Processes: A Reinterpretation of the Concept of Local Ownership from a Legal Perspective

Abstract

The right to internal self-determination offers a legal ‘checklist’ for the UN to provide both legitimacy and sustainability to peacebuilding processes. The right both clarifies the actors of post-conflict reconstruction and also concretises to what extent these actors should be incorporated into peacebuilding processes. Although the concept of local ownership has become an often-cited concept in peacebuilding literature, the legal ground of the concept (i.e. the right to internal self-determination) has been disregarded. This paper aims to reveal the legal aspect of the concept of local ownership and thus, attaches the right to internal self-determination with local ownership.