IDN edited No. 37 of the Athena Collection, entitled "A Organização das Nações Unidas e a Questão Colonial Portuguesa:1969-1974" ("The United Nations and the Portuguese Colonial Question: 1960-1974") by Aurora Almada e Santos.
This book addresses the dispute between the United Nations and the Portuguese government regarding the struggle for self-determination and independence of the Portuguese colonies between 1961 and 1974. The United Nations has been responsible for developing ideas, such as self-determination, which sometimes acquire the status of mechanisms for regulating international relations. The idea of self-determination was initially conceived in a generic way and was not linked to the provisions on dependent territories. In a long process of institutionalization, which was quite controversial, it gradually came to mean the right of peoples to freely determine their destiny. With the admission of Portugal as a Member State, the Organization made efforts to get the Portuguese to implement self-determination in its colonies.
By refusing to implement the resolutions adopted, the Portuguese led to the development of new procedures, which resulted in an empirical evolution of the existing provisions. As we try to demonstrate, the analysis of the Portuguese colonial issue eventually influenced the broader debate on self-determination, forcing the United Nations to make changes to the idea, which has not yet lost its controversial character.