Right to self-determination is one of the rights that transcends the on-going East-West debate of ‘Are Human Rights Western’? The first part of the article unravels the world politics behind the evolution of self-determination from a political principle to a right. In the second part it questions the confinement of self-determination to the colonial context, especially in the context of India’s reservation to Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The third and the fourth parts deal with the scope of self determination, with the focus on carving space for a right to secede in some contexts.