This session is one of several to be devoted to the legacy of the centennial year of 1919. The present panel aims to examine the emergence of the doctrine of self-determination in political and legal discourse after the First World War. As empires collapsed and ethnic groups now asserted their right to formal recognition, the idea of self-determination gained new currency. The three interlocking papers trace the arc of this important idea in a number of distinct, from the post-Ottoman Middle East to the Black Atlantic.