Authors

Katerina Szylo¹;  ¹ University of Oxford, UK

Discussion

In 1973, Smoloskyp, Organization for Defense of Human Rights in Ukraine, presented a paper in Oslo, Norway at the International Conference of Experts for the Support of Victims of Colonialism and Apartheid in Southern Africa. The paper, titled “The USSR: A Colonial Empire (Case of Ukraine),” affirmed Ukraine’s support for the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, but stressed the irony of the Soviet Union’s involvement in the conference. This conversation between non-state activists in non-Western settings disrupts traditional views of the global world order and emphasizes transnational debates on how to protect human rights. This research asks the question: How did connections of global dissent and debates of reforming versus rebuilding international organizations influence human rights framing? These conversations broaden our understanding of debates to join or break the international world order, i.e, the difference between radical civil obedience, as termed by Dr. Benjamin Nathans, used by Soviet dissidents or civil disobedience used by South African activists. While studies have been conducted on transnational solidarity and communication between the “Global South” and Eastern Europe, they primarily focus on the global ideological fight between communism and capitalism. My study attempts to go beyond the ideological battle of the Cold War by demonstrating the complex processes through which the goal of self-determination came to be central to the thinking of Ukrainian dissidents, and how interactions with global resistance movements and debates of colonialism influenced Ukrainian argumentation. Moreover, this research contextualizes where Ukraine fits historically in the global order, and furthers our understanding of Ukraine’s current position by investigating the progress of ideas of self-determination in a transnational context. This research provides a relevant study with present day implications for broadening our conceptualization of the current global order and transnational justice, and impacts public understanding of Russia’s current war against Ukraine.