Demonstrators stage a protest to thank countries that recognize the State of Palestine and to demand an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza in Ramallah, West Bank, on September 23, 2025.
(Issam Rimawi / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Danny and Derek speak with historian Brad Simpson about the history and evolving meaning of self-determination in international politics and law. They talk about the Wilson-Lenin debate, the Atlantic Charter, the Nazi appropriation of ethnonationalist self-determination, the decolonization movements of the mid-20th century, the failure of the new international economic order, and the idea’s continuing relevance to places like Palestine and Greenland.
Get Brad’s book The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941–2000.
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