Namibia and the United Nations: A Turning Point in the Understanding of National Sovereignty

Abstract

This paper tries to answer the question that “To what extent did the UN policy in South West Africa represent a successful and legitimate change in attitude and action by the United Nations towards the sovereignty of individual states when compared to indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination?” This paper analyzes to what extent UN involvement in the colony of South West Africa, now known as Namibia, constituted a tangible change in UN, and therefore globally held, views on national sovereignty. Namibia itself has a long and complicated history. The United Nations’ response to the colonization of South West Africa represented a fundamental change in the traditional view of sovereignty, from old view, which held that the sovereign ruler had the right to govern his own territory; to the modern view, which generally holds that people have the sovereign right to self-determination.