 There is another fundamental concept that must be factored in to explain the role of sovereignty in modern international law: self-determination. Self-determination is prominently mentioned in Article 1(2) of the UN Charter as one of the purposes of the UN. Under international law, self-determination is a right of all peoples, defined in identical terms in the Charter and the UN International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966), as the right to “freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”