This dissertation examines the viability of the right to development - ius ad progressum - in the context of state sovereignty in crisis, particularly in African states such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although international law formally enshrines this right in the 1986 Declaration and in a number of UN instruments, its realization remains largely compromised when sovereignty - the condition for all normative self-determination - is reduced to a legal fiction (potestas inania).By analyzing the case of the DRC, a country rich in resources but structurally maintained in post-colonial dependence, the dissertation sheds light on the deleterious role of illegitimate debts, adjustment programs imposed ex cathedra, and power relations concealed behind the apparent neutrality of international institutions.