Self-determination: from a political claim to a legal demand

Separation of Crimea from Ukraine has renewed old questions about political or legal nature of self-determination. This article, focusing on different issues on self-determination, discusses changes in domestic aspect of it and its ambiguities. Author, from an international law approach, tries to answer this question: is self-determination based on political practices or follows legal rules? In response, he argues that because of the lack of unity and dispersion in states behaviors, there is a not still customary international law rule to explain and describe all situations of self-determination. So, in most conditions, political claims are not separable from legal demands, and recognition as the most component of bestowing this right of self-determination is still confined to political will of states and doesn’t follow clear legal standards