News archive

Residents of Ethiopia's Sidama zone voted in favor of a new federal region, with about 98.5% choosing autonomous rule, the country's electoral board said on Saturday. Voter turnout was 99.8%. By creating their own federal region, the Sidama — Ethiopia's fifth most numerous ethnicity — hope to regain control of land resources, political representation as well as to reaffirm their cultural identity. Read more...​

ENTAN is a COST Action aimed at examining the concept of non-territorial autonomy (NTA). The network particularly focuses on NTA arrangements for reducing inter-ethnic tensions within a state and on the accommodation of the needs of different communities while preventing calls to separate statehood. The main objective is to investigate the existing NTA mechanisms and policies and to develop new modalities for the accommodation of differences in the context of growing challenges stemming from globalisation, regionalisation and European supranational integration. The network fosters interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary group work, and provides for training and empowerment of young researchers, academic conferences and publications, as well as for the dissemination of results to policy makers, civil society organisations and communities. Read more…​

Indian government abolished Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which is the legal basis for the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir. It is an unprecedented move likely to spark unrest. Article 370 guaranteed the special status of Jammu and Kashmir (including the right to have its own Constitution) and restricted the legislative power of the Indian parliament to defence, external affairs and communications. However, the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir has been gradually and deliberately eroded through Presidential Orders with explicit approval of the India's Supreme Court. Read more…​

In response to massive popular resistance, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced she would suspend a vote on a proposed new law that would allow China to extradite suspects accused of certain crimes and prosecute them in Chinese courts. For over a week, some 1.3 million people had gathered daily outside Hong Kong's legislature to protest the legislation, which protesters say China will abuse to extradite political dissidents. In mid-June consideration of the law was indefinitely postponed. That temporarily protects Hong Kong's judicial system, one of the island territory's few remaining areas of government autonomy from China. Read more…​

Recently, the Malaysian government decided to amend Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution regarding the constitutional position of Sabah and Sarawak. Situated on the island of Borneo, across the South China Sea from peninsular or 'West' Malaysia, the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak have had a complex – if at times uneasy – relationship with the rest of the federation since September 1963, when Malaysia was formed. Essentially, the government seeks to restore the special status of Sabah and Sarawak corresponding to their original numerous autonomous powers within the Malaysian federation. Read more…​

The debate in Australia about self-government and co-government by Aboriginal people is becoming more relevant than ever. Most recently, recommendations have been made by a parliamentary committee in Australia for a "Voice" to be created whereby Aboriginal people can elect representatives to speak on their behalf and to give advice to the national government. Professor De Villiers spoke about the past experiences of Australia with advisory bodies, highlighted some of the challenges that are faced by the current proposals, and reflected on options for self-government that are pursued by Aboriginal communities at a local level. Bertus de Villiers is an Adjunct Professor of the Law School of Curtin University (Australia) and Distinguished Visiting Professor of the Law School of the University of Johannesburg (South Africa).