While nations and nationalism have become the dominant mode of ascribing political culture in world politics, understanding the meaning and political importance of these terms has been a notoriously challenging task. One survey of concepts in International Relations said of the term ‘national interest’ that it was ‘the most vague and therefore easily used and abused’; of nationalism, that ‘there is a lack of consensus about what it is and why it has maintained such a firm hold over so much of the world’s population’; and that ‘Nations and states seem identical but they are not’ (Griffiths and O’Callaghan 2002: 202–13). Notwithstanding this confusion, nationalism is typically characterised as both an important form of cultural identity and a pervasive political ideology affirming that territorial communities called nations are necessary for human flourishing and that each nation should therefore be accorded a degree of autonomy in determining its own affairs (Woods et al. 2020: 813).

This chapter focuses on three primary models for understanding motivation during transitions and addresses: (1) Expectancy × Value theory, (2) cognitive models for motivation and in particular attribution theory, locus of control, and taxonomy of perceived causes; and (3) intrinsic/extrinsic motivation theory and the self-determination model. We focus specifically on the ways in which intrinsic and extrinsic motivation influence human behavior. Individuals who are repeatedly successful in making a transition will more often demonstrate motivation intrinsically in decisions to make a transition. We examine the role of achievement motivation, need for autonomy, need for competency, search for satisfaction, and need for affiliation and relatedness as motivators for career change. They are discussed in light of the retrospective interviews with twenty-four elite performers in three domains (business, sports, and music) who successfully and repeatedly transitioned to higher positions within their field.

Chapter 1 argues that parenthood aspirations, including those reliant on novel reproductive techniques, have started to evolve into justiciable rights. It challenges the view that human rights law cannot adequately address bioethical issues and examines commonalities and mutual influences between human rights and bioethical discourse. The chapter first analyses international case law establishing (predominantly negative) obligations in relation to natural procreative capacity. As regards medically assisted procreation, it observes that, perhaps counter-intuitively, most of the claims raised in Strasbourg litigation have been assessed by the European Court of Human Rights as involving active interferences as opposed to lacunae. The chapter provides a catalogue of (alleged) negative and positive obligations as they emerge from the case law; it examines the rationale for the Court’s treatment of a claim through the lens of negative or positive obligations while suggesting that that classification does not have a significant practical impact on the outcome of the case.

Most often, solitude starts out neutral, like a lump of sculptor’s clay that we can shape into whatever we want. Our experiences, and those of our research participants, have shown us that there are a lot of positive outcomes possible when choosing to carve out some time alone. Why is solitude so potentially powerful for all kinds of people? That’s a question that has driven a large part of our research, and we continue to build on what we have learned. What we’ve seen so far points to the fact that solitude creates an environment where two important things can happen: each of us can captain our own ship, and while in that role, we can connect to our true selves. Think of it as the ultimate place to do what you want (autonomy) and be who you are (authenticity).

In solitude, as with any human experience, choice is an important driver. We know that humans, in general, like having some decision-making capability, or at least the perception of it. Positive time spent in solitude stems from the desire to be with ourselves, and we talk about how to exercise choice to be more comfortable and stronger in solitude. Simply wanting to avoid other people does not unlock its benefits and opportunities. The fact that you choose to devote your morning walk, drive to work, or shower time to solitude is what matters in building an enduring practice of everyday solitude. In this chapter, we also consider involuntary solitude, like prisoners in solitary confinement and pandemic lockdowns. This chapter also looks at what it means to have a "preference for solitude," the importance of understanding motivation in why we’re choosing time alone, and what it means to have the right framing and expectations for solitude.

Building upon my previous account of the antecedents of statehood, this chapter establishes five procedural principles that further condition the emergence of new states. These principles can be split into two sets: those that establish means for state creation through which valuable politics can either be instantiated or enhanced, and those that either prohibit or restrict state creation through means that violate or disrupt political action. The first set comprises the 'recognition principle' and the 'referendum principle', which determine the legal salience of foreign recognition and independence referendums. The second set comprises the 'negative self-determination principle', the 'international peace principle', and the 'territorial integrity principle'. These three relate, respectively, to the international legal prohibitions against mass disenfranchisement and political subordination, the unlawful threat or use of force, and the violation of an established community's territorial integrity. These five principles provide a procedural framework for state creation, which, along with the antecedents of statehood, collectively comprise 'statehood as political community'.

This chapter will analyse the right of self-determination in respect of its external and internal dimension, the rights of minorities and the rights of indigenous peoples. Self-determination is the point of reference for any discussion of indigenous and minority rights, although it is far broader than both of these. Minority rights in turn are not considered collective entitlements in relevant international human rights instruments. None the less, as the reader will come to appreciate, they are not devoid of a collective character altogether. Indigenous rights are largely based on soft law and some of their fundamental premises (for example, land rights) are hotly disputed by interested states. Yet, it is indisputable that the international community recognises that the vulnerable status of indigenous peoples necessitates a distinctive approach based on the adoption of measures that allow the preservation of their culture and traditions, while on the other hand helping them to develop, whether technologically, financially, educationally or otherwise. Group rights are controversial primarily because they give rise to questions of ‘us’ and ‘others’ in addition to challenging traditional notions of state sovereignty.

Chapter 1, ‘Participation in International Governance and the Logic of Self-Determination’, makes a case for how a collective right of Indigenous peoples to participation in international governance relates to the law of self-determination. The chapter begins by examining the development of the law of self-determination in order to develop an account of its underlying logic. The chapter shows that self-determination is dynamic, multifaceted, relational, and remedial: that is, it is capable of multiple expressions that develop over time so as to remedy relationships of domination, subjugation, or exploitation. In other words, I argue that self-determination as a principle, over time, has provided an umbrella for the development of various legal rules concerning the relations between peoples and states; those rules have tended to emerge in a remedial manner. The chapter then argues that a right to participate in international governance could be justified as one such remedy, explaining how internal self-determination and individual rights to civil society participation do not suffice.

This chapter introduces the book. It outlines how Indigenous peoples sought, and were denied, membership of the international community in the early twentieth century, contrasting it to the situation that prevails today of Indigenous peoples’ inclusion in international governance. It is therefore timely to take stock of these developments. The introduction situates the book in the field, relating it to scholarship on the law of self-determination and Indigenous peoples’ rights. The key limitations of the book are noted, including those relating to epistemic positionality and representation, and the empirical method employed in the book. Key terms are defined, including ’international governance’ and ’Indigenous peoples’, before the structure of the book is outlined.

This chapter analyzes the negotiations for the 1970 Friendly Relations Declaration, the high-water mark of efforts by socialist and non-aligned states to win support for an expansive interpretation of national self-determination. Lawyers and diplomats from industrialized states typically argued that the right to self-determination could be exercised in a number of different ways, including loose association or confederation. They also maintained that self-determination, understood as a human right, could be secured through adequate recognition within states and did not necessarily require secession. By contrast, those speaking on behalf of the states and peoples of Asia, Africa, and other zones of decolonization framed self-determination in more capacious terms, as a right to ‘economic’ no less than ‘political’ sovereignty. Arguing that formal independence meant little if decolonized states remained hampered by earlier arrangements, they called for an international redistribution of rights and resources. They also stressed that the right to self-determination permitted armed struggle against colonial and occupying powers. Crafted through close engagement with such arguments, the 1970 resolution formalized an unsteady compromise between these two approaches, encouraging self-determination but never so far as to destabilize a fragile interstate system undergoing extensive reconfiguration.

The issue of consent to international law obligations and liabilities remains both highly complex in theory and extremely relevant in practice. Although the topic has been addressed quite regularly in the form of articles and chapters, there have been, surprisingly for such a central topic, few monographs on consent to international law in general and no edited volume in English language. Re-examining the issue of consent to international law in depth and in the contemporary circumstances of international law is a timely project therefore. The best way to do so in a rich and nuanced way is to give a voice to many authors at the same time, and this is the purpose of this collection of essays. This introduction sets the volume’s stage: first, it clarifies the relevance of the issue and the reasons that led to putting the book together; second, it introduces the main conceptual and normative challenges addressed in the volume and explains what it hopes to achieve; third, it provides some information about how the book is structured; and, finally, it sketches out the content of its successive chapters and their articulation.