04/08/2020
Article 39: Rights of Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples
1. Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to
self- determination, including the right to secession.
• Secession of territory
• Right to self determination
2. Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has the right to speak, to write
and to develop its own language; to express, to develop and to promote its
culture; and to preserve its history.
3. Every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has the right to a full measure
of self- government which includes the right to establish institutions of
government in the territory that it inhabits and to equitable representation in
state and Federal governments.
The right to self-determination, including secession, of every Nation, Nationality
and People shall come into effect:
• Referenda
• Secession of territory
a. When a demand for secession has been approved by a two-thirds majority
of the members of the Legislative Council of the Nation, Nationality or
People concerned;
b. When the Federal Government has organized a referendum which must
take place within three years from the time it received the concerned
council's decision for secession;
c. When the demand for secession is supported by a majority vote in the
referendum;
d. When the Federal Government will have transferred its powers to the
Council of the Nation, Nationality or People who has voted to secede; and
e. When the division of assets is effected in a manner prescribed by law.
5. A "Nation, Nationality or People" for the purpose of this Constitution, is a group
of people who have or share a large measure of a common culture or similar
customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in a common or related
identities, a common psychological make-up, and who inhabit an identifiable,
predominantly contiguous territory.