Minorities and International Law

The allied and associated powers conducted the world war under the flag of the “selfdetermination of peoples”. This principle was said to guarantee the political independence and liberty of the nations big and small. This principle of selfdetermination, as we all know, was put into practice by the Paris treaties only to a limited extent. With the several nationalities of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish monarchies, a number of new states were formed and already existing states enlarged. In this way Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greater Roumania, Letvonia, Lithuania, and Esthonia originated. All this was done on the hypothesis of the selfdetermination of peoples. However, it became apparent that all those new states by no means possessed populations of uniform nationality, but that they contained very considerable elements of foreign nationality. It was discovered, too, that a perfect identity of national and political boundaries could not have been brought about, even if the setting of frontiers by the treaties had given more consideration to the nature of nationality and especially to the national feeling of solidarity among the populations.