Dr. Iqtidar Cheema spoke at the 34th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (27 February to 24 March 2017) in Geneva, Switzerland.
His testimony had the title ‘UN Charter and Right of Self-Determination’. In his presentation, Dr. Cheema focussed on the right of self-determination in its broad sense, as a process that provides a wide range of possible outcomes dependent on situations, needs, interests and conditions of concerned parties. He argued that internal self-determination should be promoted. Dr. Cheema defined internal self-determination as participatory democracy: the whole population of a state has the right to decide the form of government and the identity of rulers, and a population group within a state has the right to participate in decision making at the state level.