Constitution of Ethiopia

 

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.
(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.
(4) The right to self-determination, including secession, of every Nation, Nationality and People shall come into effect:
(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 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 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.

Article 46 States of the Federation

(1) The Federal Democratic Republic shall comprise of States.
(2) States shall be delimited on the basis of the settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the peoples concerned.