JUBA, SUDAN — Just as important legal precedents often result from cases involving inconspicuous individuals, sometimes big human events happen in obscure places. This week, much of the world is learning a lesson about the drive for self-determination from watching events in a town called Juba, a dusty boomtown full of paradoxes, home to the…

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — The run-up before Sunday’s referendum on whether Southern Sudan should secede from the North has prompted widespread speculation over whether the outcome will cause renewed bloodshed and dissolution or herald the founding of Africa’s 55th nation. Not since the United Nations vote on the partition of Palestine in 1947 has so much…