Natural law perspective underlying The Republic of Türkiye

Abstract

Republic of Türkiye was founded during the years, starting with the Allied Powers’ occupation by the end of World War War in 1918-1919 and until declaration of the republic in November 29, 1923. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of the Turkish republic and leader of the liberation war preceding it, mentioned in one of his speeches that the struggle for an independent Turkish Republic was initiated with the motto “There is ‘right’ in the world, and the right is superior to might, for sure”. This motto implies that the struggle against the occupying powers and the monarchy under their control, wouldn’t be only a military campaign for obtaining actual dominance through physical fight, but also a legal struggle based on universally accepted principles of the law. Analyzing those years retrospectively, one can see recognition of the Republic of Türkiye is based on the struggle’s legal victories gained in Lausanne, in support of the world-wide accepted legal principles, in addition to its actual dominance over the lands. These legal victories include recognition of the new republic as a result of execution of Turks’ self-determination rights under Wilson’s principles and new republic’s economically and politically equal status as a reflection of the natural rights of every people under republican/nationalist viewpoint that stems from the French Revolution (Öktem, 2011, 271), as well as more commonly accepted principles such as Pacta Sund Servanda and reciprocity. This study, leaving aside the military achievements, handles the legal and political achievements obtained by the Turkish republic in 1923 under natural law doctrine between 1919 and 1923, all of which form a part of the fundamentals of Republic of Türkiye. These include Turkish nations’ right to be represented under General Will theory, people’s right to form a new government in case of chaos for protection of their natural rights such as freedom, right to life and right to property, maintenance of the rights inherited from the monarchy under Pacta Sund Servanda principle and recognition of all these rights under international law as a universally fundamental of law under the doctrine of Hugo Grotius.