The Sudan is the largest country in Africa. It is bordered by Egypt and Libya on the north; Chad and Central African Republic on the west, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Uganda and Kenya on the south, and Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Red Sea on the east. Its boundaries, as drawn under the Agreement between Egypt and Great Britain Relative to the Future Administration of the Sudan 1899, embrace persons of different religions, ethnic communities and languages. In the past, when there was no centralized administration for the whole Sudan, religion and ethnicity were the sole bonds of political and social identification.¹ The establishment of a central government since 1899 seemingly weakened these traditional bonds, by rendering them applicable to some population groups and replacing them with countrywide bonds of identification, such as nationality. Nevertheless to the extent that the values of these distinct population groups differ markedly, the search and respect for a countrywide identity becomes especially complex and the alternative of projecting the characteristics of one of the population groups onto the national level inevitably creates tensions and conflicts.

This conflict may have different dimensions : economic disparity; denial of religious, linguistic and cultural diversity; and the role of the police and other law and order agencies. In short, the conflict may raise the question of the nature and future of the state itself. The starting point in the enquiry as to the appropriate mechanisms for avoiding or managing national conflicts is an awareness that conflicts of this kind are not particularly new. On this basis, part of such an enquiry will be to find out how other countries manage or resolve their national conflicts.

1. Special Representation for the South

The triology of the Sudan Constitutions of 1953, 1956 and 1964, which covered the period of self-government and the first years in the life of the Sudan as an independent state, granted to Southern Sudan a right of special representation in the Council of Ministers or cabinet. In each, a council consisted of not less than 10 nor more than 15 ministers of whom not less than two ministers were to be from South Sudan.² This special representation for the South was an insignificant device for the resolution or management of conflict in the Sudan. First, it could be dispensed with by the Head of State in case of abuse. It is not clear how special representation can be abused by two ministers without the power of veto. Secondly, the ministers did not have special responsibilities for the South. Finally, two ministers could easily be overruled even if there was an area in which they were expected to be exponents of South Sudan opinion in the cabinet. In fact the two Southern ministers in the first self-government cabinet were dismissed for criticizing the Sudanization of the civil service which gave the South six out of 800 senior posts.³ Clearly, as a mechanism for avoiding or resolving national conflicts, special representation alters little or nothing where national groups differ greatly in size and level of socio-economic development.

There is a great deal of literature especially by political scientists on power-sharing or, as some prefer to call it, consociation.⁴ In some contexts, they assume a prominent role in the management or resolution of national conflicts. For example, Noel credits this device rather than federalism in the maintenance of Canadian unity^.5 The Canadian approach to power-sharing between the English-speaking and the French-speaking Canadians goes beyond proportional representation in the federal institutions. The French who are a majority in Quebec only but a minority in the other nine Canadian provinces, are represented in the federal government and in the civil service according to the proportion of Quebec to the nine provinces, that is, 30 per cent. Moreover, and these are instances of parity regardless of population, the offices of the Governor-General, the Speaker of the lower House of Parliament and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court rotate between the French and English. A further unique aspect of power-sharing in Canada can be seen in the political parties which are deliberately designed to appeal to both English and French. The Liberal Party, for example, has a rotating chairman and therefore Prime Minister. It is a fact, though, that in both 1980 and 1992 Quebec showed its dissatisfaction with this power-sharing managements by conducting plebiscites on sovereignty. The political imperative is the great imbalance in the sizes of population groups.

2. The Regional Structure

In 1972 came the Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act. This constitutional statute extended the special representation of the South in the cabinet to regional government in the South with executive and legislative powers. Initially intended by the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 as a solution to the armed conflict which erupted in August 1955 between the North and the South, regional government was extended to the rest of the country under the Regional Government Act 1980, except the National Capital which was administered under the Khartoum Province Administration Act 1980. The Addis Ababa Agreement was concluded between the dissedent armed group in the South and the military government which seized power three years earlier. The All Africa Conference of Churches acted as facilitator.

As a matter of history, regional government was the main recommendation of the Sudan Political Parties Round Table Conference of 16-25 March 1965 and its subsidiary organ, the Twelve-Man Committee.⁶ Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda attended as observers but they probably expressed opinions to the parties privately.

The proposed regional government suffered a set back in the National Draft Constitution Committee of 1967, which went out of its way to draft an Islamic constitution. The Southern members of the Committee, considering the Draft Constitution incompatible with the regional structure as a mechanism for the protection of the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, withdrew from the Committee.⁷ This Draft Constitution was not put to a vote in the Constituent Assembly. Any speculation about how the Assembly might have voted was finally ended when on 25 May 1969 the army once again seized power, and dissolved the Constituent Assembly and political parties.⁸ It is this government which adopted regional systems in 1972 and 1980.

The adoption of regional structures in 1972 and 1980 brought the government nearer to the ordinary citizen geographically or psychologically or both. Moreover, it had the potential of enlarging the participation of the citizen in the process of government. But the reality of power under a regional structure depends in large measure on the legal status and powers of regional organs. On both, there were weaknesses. The central government controlled regional governments _ executive and legislative _ in three ways. The first was planning. Regional organs did not have the power of planning for economic and social development. Also central government planning had to be followed in carrying out matters within the competence of the regions, including town and village planning, land use, administration of police and prisons, and development of forestry and pastures. And deprived of the power of planning, regional governments could not arguably control the destiny of the people they purportedly ruled. They were mere machineries for carrying out the policies of the central government. In this connection, it is important to recall why the regional government was adopted in the first place. If it was adopted as a suitable system of government in a geographically vast country, there may be room for central government planning since the rationale of decentralization is geographical remoteness. Such was apparently the case with the Regional Government Act 1980. But if, as in the case of the Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act 1972, the regional structure was adopted as a solution to ethnic armed conflict (i.e. the central government is geographically and psychologically remote to certain territorial groups), central planning has the potential of continuing legitimate grievances apparently settled on paper by the devolution of power to the regions.

Another weakness in the relationship between the central and regional organs concerned revenue. The latter derived their revenue mostly from funds voted each year by the National Assembly in acrimonious debates. Need I say that whoever controls money controls also administration and development?

Finally, regional organs were not autonomous but were subject to dissolution and dismissal by the President of the Sudan, although the 1972 original Act did not embody the former. Nevertheless the President claimed and exercised it in 1980 and 1981 and this was subsequently regularized by the High Executive and People's Regional Assembly Act 1981. The powers to dissolve the regional Assembly and to dismiss the executive are hierarchical powers. It ranks the organs in terms of superiority and inferiority. The most striking example of the use of these hierarchical powers occurred in 1983 when the President decreed the division of the Southern Region into three regions and transferred its personnel to their areas of origin.

The 1972 Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act embodied some power-sharing arrangements between the North and South. Articles 13 and 14 empowered the Regional Assembly to request the President to postpone the coming into force of any law and to withdraw a bill from Parliament where it considered that the law or bill adversely affected the interests of the citizens in the South. In each, the role of the President was especially important, since he had a discretion on whether to accede to the request. On the key question of security, Article 26 made three provisions. The recruitment of Southerners into the armed forces was to be proportionate to their share of population. Also, the use of armed forces in the South was to be on the advice of the head of South Sudan High Executive Council, except in matters of "national defence". Finally, the composition of the armed forces in the South was to be as agreed. This was a reference to the Addis Ababa Agreement which provided, inter alia, that the 12,000 armed forces stationed in the South should consist of an equal number of Northerners and Southerners. Apart from the relative weight to be given to men as against their weapons and other logistics, Article 26 failed in its important aspect of achieving proportionality in the armed forces by its omission of any machinery of verification. Not surprisingly, discontent among Southern soldiers appeared as earlier as 1975 and 1976 when units in Akobo and Aweil respectively mutinied.

Equally, the central government showed some uneasiness with the 1972 Act. Two examples may be referred to. In 1977 the government set up a Committee to Revise the Laws of the Sudan so as to Conform to Sharia Law and Principles. This Committee included the Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act of 1972 among the laws it considered contrary to Sharia law. The other example is the Presidential decree of 1983, already mentioned, which divided the South into three, less autonomous regions. Hence the 1972 Act became desuetude. It was finally repealed (together with the Regional Government Act 1980) by the Constitutional Decree No. 4 of 1991, which officially proclaimed the Sudan as a federal country.

3. The Federal Structure

Proposal for a federal system of government was first made in parliament during the debates on a motion for independence but Parliament deferred the issue and promised in the Resolution of 19 December 1955 that the Constituent Assembly would give it "full consideration".⁽⁹⁾ The proposal was indeed "considered" by the Constituent Assembly, which became deadlocked on it. It remained on the political agenda until 17 November 1958 when the army seized power, suspended the Constitution of 1956, dissolved parliament and banned political parties. Since that time the unity of the Sudan has been like a rocky marriage. Restructuring the Sudan on a federal basis was again debated at the 1965 Round-Table Conference, already referred to. It was not, however, included in the recommendations.¹⁰ In 1991 a federal structure was established in the place of regional structures and the regions were renamed federal states (wilayat). The number of states increased to 26, as a result of redivision of each state into three, except Bahr el Ghazal which was divided into four and Khartoum State which was left in tact.¹¹ These and other constitutional decrees were replaced by the Constitution of 1998, Article 137. The officially stated aim in decentralizing the country is, in the words of Article 2, the desire to "provide justice in division of powers and wealth". This is a clear admission that the way a country is structured affects the relations between individuals and has an important bearing on avoidance or resolution of conflicts.

In reviewing the Sudan Constitution (1998), which was drafted by members appointed by the Government, one is looking as much at the title as to the contents. There is nothing in the name. As to the contents, the Constitution of 1998 is disappointing in three main respects. First, the federal structure is not based on the principle of divided sovereignty, i.e. a federal state is competent over certain matters without interference from the federal government and vice versa. But under the Constitution of 1998 state governments do not have real powers. The army, police, prison warders, security forces and the legal profession (i.e. judges and advocates) are "national", not regional. Lack of real power can also be seen in the power of the President of the Sudan to dismiss regional organs of government and in the constitutional requirement that federal states must carry out their economic and social activities in accordance with the federal government planning. Clearly the 26 states are mere extensions of the centre. Secondly, a proper electoral system is one of the visible ways in which citizens participate in the running of their country. Yet, a person may be a member of a federal or state assembly or state governor (wali) by Presidential appointment. Thirdly, the various types of taxes as well as foreign aid and loans belong to the federal government but excise duties belong to the state. Obviously, the federal government gets the lion's share. Given these shortcomings, federalism does not stand a good chance of solving the conflict in the Sudan.

Since a federal constitution has offered alluring alternative to the centralized system which was inherited from the Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule, I must indicate its basic characteristics.¹² First, the legislature, executive and judicial organs are divided between the government for the whole country (the federal government) and the governments for parts of a country (states governments). A state government is independent within its own spheres. It exercises legislative, executive and judicial powers without control or interference from the federal or another state government. Likewise, the federal government has its own area for exercising legislative, executive and judicial powers without control or interference from any state government. This is known as divided sovereignty. Secondly, the federal legislature must be organized in such a way as to guarantee equality of the component states. For example, the legislature may be bi-cameral : one representing each state with equal representation regardless of population, and a second one in which the representatives of the states will participate in proportion to their population. Any federal law and any change in the federal constitution can be made only with the agreement of both houses of the legislature. When these features are present, the constitution is federal even though, as in Switzerland, it is officially described as a confederation. Conversely, in the absence of these characteristics, the constitution is not federal even though, as in the Sudan, it is officially described as a federation. There is nothing in the name. The important thing is the division of powers and the coordinate relationship between federal and state organs.

The case for a federal system in the resolution or management of conflicts may be shortly stated.¹³ First, since power is divided between the federal and states governments, federalism avoids concentration of power in the central government and, consequently, the liberty of the individual is enhanced. Secondly, it provides many opportunities for citizens' participation in the process of government. Thirdly, the state governments are geographically nearer to the citizens especially in a vast country. Fourthly, federalism preserves identity since it makes hegemony difficult or impossible. Hence federalism is capable of helping to accommodate the diverse interests of persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic groups who live in separate parts of a country.

For a federal system to help in the management and resolution of national conflicts, certain conditions must exist. The federal states must learn to cooperate with each other. And true cooperation can only be between equals and for common goals. The equal representation of states in one of the two houses of parliament is an example of equality. But an imbalance may exist in other federal institutions and in a plural society where the component states differ greatly in population and wealth, tensions may occur. Equally, a great divergence in the policies of different states will strain cooperation at the federal and state levels. Again, the relationship of the federal government with the states, by reason of its identification with one of the prevailing cultures or its attempts to reduce or eliminate the cultural identity of a particular federal state, will undermine the basis for which the union was formed. Cooperation can only be for common goals, which are the fundamental or human rights of all persons and, in the case of a plural country, the development of different cultures simultaneously. The suppression or neglect of a non-dominant culture is forced assimilation, which is a negation of equality.

Another necessary condition is obedience to law. A federal system will hardly be workable in the absence of democratic institutions, an independent judiciary and the rule of law.

4. Constitutional Rights

The role of human rights in avoidance and resolution of conflicts is now universally recognized. Earlier examples include the British Magna Carta of the 13^th century, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of the 18th century and the American Declaration of Independence of the 18th century. On a global level, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims in its preamble that "it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law".

From a Sudanese standpoint, constitutional rights first appeared in the Self-Government Statute of 1953 which later became the Transitional Constitution of 1956 _ the Independence Constitution. It soon became apparent that the formulation of rights in a document is one thing; their actual application quite another. Many of the deficiencies arising from the equality of rights were debated by the Sudanese political parties during the 1965 Round-Table Conference, already referred to. The conference agreed on equality of employment opportunities; equality of wages without discrimination by reason only of religious beliefs, language or race; freedom of religion, including missionary activity, within the laws of the land; freedom of movement; the right of private persons and bodies to open schools in conformity with the law of the land; establishing a university in the South; opening girls' secondary school and agricultural school in Malakal; appointment of qualified Southerners as heads of Southern schools irrespective of whether or not they speak Arabic; finding jobs for the unemployed; the establishment of a national economic council with a subsidiary agency for economic development in the South; and giving priority and facilities to the local inhabitants of the South to exploit the land. These proposals were not implemented.

Human rights were again dealt with under the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 and its implementing law _ the Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act 1972. The Regional Government Act 1980 which, unlike the 1972 Act, was not intended to resolve a national conflict, did not embody human rights. For persons belonging to different religions, languages and ethnic community, the most relevant articles are 5 and 32 of the 1972 Act. The former recognized Arabic as the official language of the Sudan and English as "the principal language for the Southern Region without prejudice to the use of any other language or languages which may serve a practical necessity for the efficient and expeditious discharge of executive and administrative functions of the Region". Thus, within the South English did not exclude other languages and beyond the South its use was not guaranteed. Article 32 guaranteed to all citizens resident in the South the right to equal opportunity in education, employment, commerce and the practice of any lawful profession, without distinction as to race, tribal origin, place of birth or sex. Essentially, this Article merely adopts the non-discrimination principle. Both Articles 5 and 32 are a carry over from the Addis Ababa Agreement. However, the Addis Ababa Agreement but not the 1972 Act embodied the right of parents to control the education for their children, one of the most important rights of persons belonging to different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups.

Constitutional recognition of the rights of all persons as well as the rights of persons belonging to different religions, languages and ethnic community is one way of avoiding or managing conflicts in pluralistic countries. Its special feature is that it can be used regardless of whether such persons are concentrated in separate territorial sub-divisions of the state or they are intermingled with each other. It does not have to be in support of regional or federal structure. Unfortunately the 1972 Act failed to specify these rights in detail, apart from the inadequate provisions on language. It was in the nature of things that since 1983, a process of Islamization of the laws and constitution has been going on.¹⁴ The implications for this development are obvious. In an Islamic state that contains non-Muslims, there can be no equality of rights and stripped of their sense of belonging, many non-Muslims will find themselves outsiders. The result will be the same if the Sudan were a Christian or Jewish state that also contains non-Christians or non-Jews respectively. This is a development which, given the territorializing of ethnic communities, threatens the continued existence of the Sudan as a single entity. As the International Commission of Jurists stated in their report of 1985: "If the unity of the Sudan is to be preserved … no one group can hope or expect to regulate the country in accordance with its own exclusive concepts of society and suppress the legitimate aspirations and expectations of others to express their beliefs, customs and ways of life".¹⁵

5. Protection Against Future Constitutional Change.

Constitutional arrangements are arrived at through delicate negotiations and compromises among political forces. It is therefore essential that they should not be changed easily in the future. This is done by entrenchment, that is, the whole or part of the constitution may only be amended, if at all, by a procedure different from that of passing ordinary laws. Entrenchment is therefore a machinery for avoiding future conflicts.

As an illustration, reference may be made to the Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act 1972, which was incorporated into the Constitution of 1973, Article 8. The 1980 Regional Government Act was not made a part of the 1973 Constitution. Article 34 of the 1972 Act required an amendment to the autonomy statute to be made by three-quarters majority of the national Parliament and approved by two-thirds majority of the "citizens of the Southern Region" in a referendum. By embodying a procedure in which all citizens resident in South Sudan (and not merely their representatives in national Parliament) participated, Article 34 attempted to make future constitutional changes difficult. The point about entrenchment is that an amendment to the constitution can change the content of human or fundamental rights and even the basic structure of state. By adopting a difficult procedure of amendment, as Article 24 did, the rights of individuals and minorities are put beyond the reach of legislative majorities. They do not depend on the outcome of elections. Entrenchment has inherent limitations, however. The content of rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights, may change not only through an amendment to the constitution but through government's neglect or discriminatory decisions concealed in discretionary powers in the fields of employment, education and the allocation of resources.

The amending procedure in Article 34 had never been used. It was not invoked on the controversial issue of the division of the South into three regions, probably because the issue would have been rejected. Instead, the President of the Sudan, acting under Articles 81 and 82 of the 1973 Constitution which empowered him to protect the constitution and national unity, decreed in 1983 the division of the South into three, less autonomous regions. One of the consequences for this unconstitutional action was the outbreak in 1983 of this ongoing civil war. The constitution the President purportedly defended was abrogated in April 1985 after a successful mass uprising against him. It shows, however, that future constitutional changes cannot be guaranteed when they take place unconstitutionally, and as a military coup d'etat.

6. Self-Determination

The last mechanism for the resolution of national conflicts to be referred to is self-determination. This is the right of peoples to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural rights. Its distinguishing characteristic is that it is territorial, i.e. it can only be claimed by persons who overwhelming inhabit a separate territory. Self-determination raises a number of key issues. The first concerns the situations in which self-determination may be claimed. The situations are conveniently summarized in the Saskatoon Recommendation on Self-Determination, which was submitted to the World Conference on Human Rights 1993:

- cases of colonialism;
- cases of occupation or domination of the population of a state as a whole by foreign forces;
- cases where the people of a state concerned agree on self-determination;
- cases in which the government of a state is unrepresentative of its peoples by virtue of the fact that it excludes a distinct group from equal participation in political life.¹⁶

Two points should be made about these situations. First, self-determination goes beyond the colonial and alien occupation or domination contexts. Secondly, central to claims of self-determination is violation of human rights, which is presumed in cases of colonialism and alien occupation or domination (now virtually obsolete) but has to be proved in case of an independent state unless the parties have agreed on self-determination. Since self-determination is a continuing right, it can be used to avoid or remedy abuse of human rights.

Agreement on self-determination may be made in advance in a country's constitution or other basic document. A recent example is the 1994 Ethiopian Constitution, Article 39, quoted above. Also the Sudan Constitution of 1998, Article 139 accepts it in principle. The detailed rules are contained in a different constitutional document _ the Constitutional Decree No. 14 (Implementation of the Peace Agreement), the Khartoum Peace Agreement 1997 and the Sudan Peace Charter 1996. These agreements were concluded between the Sudan Government and dissident armed groups which broke away from Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/SPLM) - the mainly Southern-based dissident group. The Constitutional Decree No. 14, following the Charter and the Agreement, lays down elastic pre-conditions for the exercise of self-determination, for example, the restoration of peace and stability in South Sudan and the attainment of a reasonable level of economic and social development there. Again, the referendum will be conducted after an interim period of four years starting from the establishment of the Co-ordination Council for the South (i.e. 1998) but this period may be reduced or, as is more likely, extended.

Regrettably, negotiations between SPLA/M and the Sudan Government have not made any appreciable advance, despite relentless mediation by the Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD) and the acceptance by both parties of IGAD's negotiation options known as the Declaration of Principles (DOP), including the right of people of Southern Sudan to self-determination and the relationship between religion (Islam) and the state. The appearance of new mediators _ Egypt and Libya _ with different negotiation options (i.e. unity) and the apparent willingness of the disputing parties to involve them is a little confusing to the ordinary person.

Granted that the parties agree on the right to self-determination, there is the question of the forms it may take. Self-determination may mean the group's control over its cultural and spiritual dimensions of existence; regionalism; federalism; confederation (rare nowadays); and independence. A group which does not overwhelmingly inhabit a defined territory within the state may claim only the first-mentioned form of self-determination. But a group inhabiting a separate territory may combine this option with any of the other forms of self-determination. In the Sudan the Southerners like other population groups in Sudan inhabit a definite territory and the two options on self-determination under Article 139 of the 1998 Constitution and DOP are unity of the Sudan or independence of Southern Sudan.

The issue of the forms of self-determination has received attention from the Ethiopian National Charter 1992, Article 2, and the Ethiopian Constitution 1994, Article 39. The former reads:

The right of nations, nationalities and peoples to self-determination is affirmed. To this end each nation, nationality and people is guaranteed the right to :

(a) Preserve its identity and have it respected, promote its culture and history, and use and develop its languages;

(b) Administer its own affairs within its own defined territory, and effectively participate in the central government on the basis of freedom and fair and proper representation;

(c) Exercise its right to self-determination or independence when the concerned nation/nationality is convinced that the above rights are denied or abrogated.¹⁷

And the latter reads:

1. Every nation, nationality and people in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including secession.

2. Every nation, nationality and people in Ethiopia has the right to speak, to write and to develop its own language; to express, to develop and to promote its culture; and to preserve its history.

3. Every nation, nationality and people in Ethiopia has the right to a full measure of self-government in the territory that it inhabits and the equitable representation in state and Federal Governments.¹⁸

The essential improvement of the Ethiopian Constitution and its predecessor _ the National Charter _ is the detailed specification of the bundle of rights comprised in the right of people to self-determination : the right to language and culture; self-government within a defined territorial sub-division of Ethiopia; equitable representation in state and federal governments; and independence. The Charter but not the Constitution makes independence a last resort, to be claimed after denial or abrogation of the rights of a distinct group.

The inclusion of all forms of self-determination in the Ethiopian Charter and Constitution is explained by the fact that ethnic groups there overwhelmingly inhabit separate territories. Thus Article 39(5) of the Constitution defines the expression "nation, nationality or people" as meaning "a group of people who have or share a large measure of common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in a common or related identities, a common psychological make-up, and who inhabit an identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory". Separate territory is also evident in Article 47(1) in Chapter IV on "State Structure". This Article divides Ethiopia into nine territorial sub-divisions or states. The boundaries between them are in Article 46(2) to be "delimited on the basis of the settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the people concerned".

A third problem raised by self-determination is the procedure for exercising it. Again the Ethiopian Constitution 1994, Article 39(4) is a good example. It reads :

The right to self-determination, including secession, of every nation, nationality, and people shall come into effect:

(a) When a demand for secession has been approved by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Legislative Council of Nation, Nationality or People concerned;

(b) When the Federal Government has organized a referendum which must take place within three years from the time it received the concerned council's decision for secession;

(c) When the Federal Government will have transferred its power to the Council of the Nation, Nationality or people who has voted to secede;

(d) When a division of assets is effected in a manner prescribed by law.

In summary, the procedure for carrying out self-determination includes how it can be initiated, the period within which it must take place, the requisite majorities and the division of assets. Voting is in two stages : in the group's legislative council and in a referendum in which the entire population of the group participates. Viewed against this background, the provision on self-determination grudgingly included in the Sudan Constitution of 1998 is deficient. A proper procedure is really a part of a genuine agreement on self-determination.

In the absence of an agreement on self-determination, the question of its implementation is complex. Some guidelines for future action may be found in the Saskatoon Recommendation on Self-Determination, already referred to. It proposes :

(a) A new United Nations Commission on Self-determination;

(b) Extending the mandate of the existing bodies such as the Trusteeship Council, Committee of 24, Fourth Committee of the General Assembly, or the Security Council;

(c) The International Court of Justice should, at the request of the Security Council pursuant to Article 36 of the United Nations Charter or the parties concerned, assist in the resolution of claims of self-determination;

(d) The Secretary-General should exercise the powers of early warning, peacekeeping, peace-making, and peace enforcement in claims relating to self-determination;

(e) The adoption of a convention or conventions to protect culture and languages from destruction.

Since, apart from (a) and (e), these proposals extend the existing functions of the United Nations organs, a better way to evaluate them is to look at what the political organs of the United Nations have achieved in the field of human rights. Briefly, they have saturated international law with detail specification of human rights but machineries for their enforcement leave a great deal to be desired.

7. Conclusion

National conflicts raise difficult issues of law and policy. In consequence, the range of options for avoiding and resolving them are equally nail-biting. The above analysis suggests the following:

(a) Distributing the powers normally exercised in the government under a system of autonomy or federalism so that despite their diversity all the citizens can participate in the process of government.

(b) Embodying the fundamental or human rights of all persons and, where distinct population groups exist, the rights of the groups to use their languages, to enjoy their culture, and to profess and practice their religions.

(c) Enshrining in the constitution the right of each national group to self-determination.

(d) Adopting a flexible system of power-sharing.

(e) Entrenching constitutional provisions designed for the avoidance or resolution of conflicts so as to make their future amendment difficult or impossible.

It must be stressed that there are no easy answers-either in law or policy _ to the problem of accommodation of linguistic, religious or ethnic diversity. The above options should not therefore obscure the realities one finds in practice. Canada is constituted on the basis of federalism, two official languages (English and French), human rights, entrenchment and a generous system of power-sharing between the minority French-speaking province of Quebec and the majority nine English-speaking provinces. It is a democratic and developed country. Many French-speaking Canadians have been Prime Ministers. Yet, on two occasions _ in 1982 and 1990 _ Quebec conducted referendums on the two options of unity or secession. On both occasions the people of Quebec voted for the former. But they were narrow majorities. In any event, the Quebec referendums show that the various mechanisms for the management or resolution of national conflicts _ actual or potential _ do not work well in a country in which population groups differ markedly in sizes or values or both.

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