Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage.
Moluccans protesters against the treatment of Suharto's government to East Timor, in The Hague, Netherlands, 1986.
Lumads in Davao City marching for the right to self-determination as part of the human rights in Philippines in 2008.
Southern Sudanese expressed joy and jubilation on their day of independence, July 9, 2011, from Sudan.
Celebration of the Declaration of Independence of Kosovo in 2008
A people is any plurality of persons considered as a whole. Used in politics and law, the term "a people" refers to the collective or community of an ethnic group or nation. The term "the people" refers to the public or common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty.
Liberty Leading the People, 1830 by Eugène Delacroix