Abstract

This chapter sets out the main elements of the self-determination theory of territory. It argues that a ‘people’ has rights to jurisdictional authority over the geographical area that it legitimately occupies if and only if: a large majority of people are in a relationship with one another which is characterized by a shared political commitment to establish rules and practices of self-determination; they have the political capacity to establish and sustain institutions of political self-determination; and they possess an objective history of political cooperation together, for example through state or substate institutions or in a resistance movement. To put ‘people’ in the right relation to land it discusses three place-related rights: moral rights of residency, which attach to individuals; moral rights of occupancy, which attach to groups; and rights to territory, which attach to people through their political institutions.