Minority Rights in the Slipstream of Geopolitics
Minority Rights in the Slipstream of Geopolitics

Summary/Abstract: The essay summarizes how geopolitical considerations affected the development of international protection of ethnic minority rights since the foundation of the UN until today. The obligation of states to protect ethnic minorities derives from the values of the Charter of the United Nations. Minority rights played important role in the rivalry and also in the cooperation of opposing parties in the cold war, but the end of communist dictatorships gave also moral impetus to the development of minority law. A significant recent outcome of the European level minority protection is that the European Court of Justice, in connection to a citizens’ initiative, has acknowladged: it is an EU competence to legislate and implement laws concerning minority rights within its own jurisdiction.

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