MINORITY RIGHTS OR HUMAN RIGHTS?

Abstract

Since religion became a private affair in Europe and a matter of tolerance, minority questions have been dominated by ethnicity. Thus, minority rights became mainly an antidote against a political illness which developed in nineteenth century Europe and has its worst fits in the twentieth century: Ethnic nationalism. This does not deny the existence of other minority problems, but as ethnic questions prevail, this paper shall concentrate on them. Ethnicity as a political myth creates the idea of human relationship beyond family, kinship, village, town, factory and other modern organisations. It conceives a relationship relying on common language which has to be purified and reconstructed by linguists, a common history which was distilled out of European history by the famous national historians, on the construction of a common biological descent which may go as far as racism, and mostly it believes as well in a common destiny. The myth of ethnicity is connected with the political claim for a national state, and where the national state is realised, ethnicity becomes the main factor of integration for the market society with its individualism and its clashes of interest between classes and groups.

References

1. • Bülck, Hartwig (1961), ‘Bevölkerungsaustausch’, in Strupp and Schlochauer (eds.), Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts, second edition.
2. • Capotorti, Francesco, ‘Minorities’, in Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Band 8, 389 ff. • Erler, Georg (1961), ‘Minderheiten’, in Strupp and Schlochauer (eds.), Wörterbuch des
3. Völkerrechts, second edition. • Erler, Georg (1961), ‘Minderheitenrecht’, in Strupp and Schlochauer (eds.), Wörterbuch des
4. Völkerrechts, second edition. • Heckmann, Friedrich (1992), Ethnische Minderheiten, Volk und Natio.
5. • Klebes, Heinrich (1995), ‘Rahmenübereinkommen des Europarates zum Schutz nationaler
6. Minderheiten’, Europaische Grundrechte Zeitschrift, 262 ff. • Id. (1995), ‘The Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National
7. Minorities’, Human Rights Law Journal, Vol. 16, 92. • Kühnhardt, Ludger (1994), ‘Menschenrechte, Minderheitenschutz und der Nationalstaat im KSZE
8. Prozeb’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B 47/94 vom, 12 November. • Nowak, Manfred (1989), ‘UNO-Pakt über bürgerliche und politische Rechte und Fakultativ- protokoll’, CCPR-Kommentar, Strasbourg.

9. • Pernthaler, Peter (1964), Der Schutz der ethnischen Gemeinschaft durch individuelle Rechte, Wien.
10. • van der Stoel, Max (1994), ‘Die KSZE und die Minderheitenfrage’, Europa-Archiv 1994, 629 ff.