Language Policy and Conflict Prevention analyses the components of a balanced language policy with a view to reducing conflict potential. It draws upon contributions from experts working for the OSCE ...HCNM, Council of Europe, UN as well as leading academics.
The basic law governing minority rights in the Republic of Croatia was adopted by The Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities (CARNM) in 2002. Among other things, it provides for the ...election of representatives of members of national minorities in accordance with a special election act. The unified election act – Act on the Election of Councils and Representatives of National Minorities (AECRNM), which regulates the election of members of national minority councils and representatives of national minorities in local and regional self-government units, entered into force on 14 March 2019, 17 years after the adoption of the CARNM. The first elections held under the provisions of that act were the elections of representatives and members of Councils of National Minorities, held in 2019, on 5 May (first round) and 19 May (second round). The 2019 elections went unnoticed by the Croatian press, with the exception of the involvement of some local media in areas with a larger population of members of national minorities. Apart from invisibility, another problem of the 2019 elections was the low voter turnout, from 10 to 24 percent, depending on the level of the self-government unit at which the elections were held. The empirical analysis of election results and Government Reports on the implementation of the CARNM seeks to answer the questions of the extent to which national minorities were politically active in the previous election cycle (2015–2019) and whether more generous funding of political activities affects voter turnout. The evaluation of the results is also an answer to the question of whether the adoption of the new act is a step forward in promoting the political rights of national minorities in Croatia and a guide for election participants to prepare activities for the new election cycle.
On 22 February 2024, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities published a critical opinion on Latvia within the framework of the fourth monitoring ...cycle. This text is centred on government comments as an important element of the standardised FCNM monitoring mechanisms provided by the Latvian Government during the four monitoring circles. This study identifies and assesses the key arguments and techniques employed by Latvia in this sectoral dialogue framework. It shows that the Latvian authorities view diversity as a threat to social cohesion, and their endeavours, inter alia, in the minority education domain, combine references to Latvia’s traumatic historical experience, constitutional identity, and the margin of state discretion that camouflage the absence of political will to advance minority rights. Among other negative factors, this signals a dangerous path that could likely be followed by other states that are parties to this Convention.
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The position taken in this paper is that the development of a society depends on the status, role and importance of the educational system, and that education has a significant impact on personality ...formation. The aim of this paper is to establish the condition of primary school education for members of national minorities and, based on this, to enable getting a better insight into steps to be taken in order to remove regulatory and practical shortcomings. Three models of primary school education in the languages of national minorities have been analysed: entire education in one of eight languages of national minorities, with Serbian as a non-mother tongue as a compulsory subject; entire education in the Serbian language with an option to take an elective subject/programme with elements of national culture (in the mother tongue); and bilingual education in Serbian and in the language of a national minority. Furthermore, empirical argumentation is presented for the period covering the academic years 2013/14 through to 2020/21. In the conclusion of this paper, it is noted that capacities of the educational system should be strengthened by introducing professional training for teachers of the languages of national minorities, which would ensure the availability of competent teaching staff. Additionally, appropriate curricula, textbooks and other teaching aids required for the learning of minority languages should be improved, in accordance with the latest teaching methods.
The paper analyzes the position of national minorities in the Western Balkans region, with an emphasis on the countries created through former SFR Yugoslavia’s dissolution, which are characterized as ...new national states. It has been pointed to the specificities of this form of national state, primarily nationalism as the basis in all the domains of functionality, which is the main reason for the negative relation toward minorities. The accession to the European Union is the main motivation factor toward solving the issues of the minorities in this region. The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is especially complicated considering that the specific solution of national minorities’ status is one of the causes of stagnation of this country in European integration process.
Metropolitan Dionysius on the Nationality Question in the Orthodox Church in Interwar Poland Metropolitan Dionysius took over management of the Orthodox Church in Poland in 1923, and he continued in ...this role throughout the difficult period of the Second Polish Republic. At that time the Orthodox Church was identified with the Russian invader, and seen as a symbol of the partitions as well as of the religious and ethnic oppression of Poles. At the same time it was the largest religious association in Poland, apart from the Roman Catholic Church. During this period, the Orthodox Church embraced several different nationalities among the faithful (including Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians and others). This posed a significant problem in both the Church’s internal relations and in its relations with the Polish state. Some political minority groups tried to make the Orthodox religion an element of national separatism. On the other hand, for the state authorities, the Orthodox Church was an institution which carried out its policy and objectives for the benefit of a particular ethnic minority. Throughout the period Metropolitan Dionysius had to guide the Church in such a way as to meet the needs of ethnically diverse believers, in spite of the basically unfriendly or even hostile attitude of the Polish state towards the Orthodox Church. He had to reconcile the sympathies of the faithful of Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian and Polish origins, and to deal with the various political forces existing within the Orthodox Church, which sought to shape its institutional form and to give it a specific political function.
The Right to Political Representation for Members of National Minorities in the Republic of Croatia, 1990–2004 The goal of this article is to analyse the changes in the normative regulations ...concerning the political representation of members of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia in 1990–2004. These regulations are contrasted with their practical use. Furthermore, attention is turned to the political dimension of these issues, visible through the incessant amendments to regulations. The period from 1990 to 2004 was selected due to the fact that the first legal regulations governing this question were introduced in the Republic of Croatia in 1990, while 2004 saw the final constitution of the last bodies representing this group of citizens provided by law. Moreover, the author aims to prove that normative regulations on their own – even if favourable for minorities – are never sufficient to speak about protection of minority rights, if the good will to respect them in practice is missing. Prawo do reprezentacji politycznej dla członków mniejszości narodowych w Republice Chorwacji w latach 1990–2004 Artykuł analizuje zmiany w regulacjach normatywnych dotyczących politycznej reprezentacji członków mniejszości narodowych w Republice Chorwacji w latach 1990–2004. Okres ten został wybrany z uwagi na fakt, iż w roku 1990 wprowadzono pierwsze regulacje normujące tę kwestię, natomiast w 2004 roku ostatecznie ukonstytuowały się ostatnie ustawowo przewidziane organy reprezentujące tę grupę obywateli. Celem autorki jest skontrastowanie regulacji na poziomie normatywnym z praktyką ich przestrzegania oraz pokazanie, iż same gwarancje normatywne nigdy nie są wystarczające, aby można było mówić o rzeczywistym zapewnieniu praw obywatelom. Ponadto uwaga została zwrócona na polityzację tej problematyki, czego przejawem były niewątpliwe ciągłe zmiany przepisów.
The book offers an updated expert assessment of the implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities through an article-by-article analysis and assessment of the ...scope of application during the first four cycles of monitoring.
The issue of the protection of national minorities is regulated by acts of international law, frequently arising from international agreements that have been concluded to end armed conflicts or to ...regulate directly their consequences. Peace treaties concluded between states are governed by the rules set out in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. More and more peace agreements are, however, concluded by non-state actors. As indicated in Article 3 of the Convention, it cannot be excluded that these too would be international agreements, having effects in the sphere of international law. Such acts are concluded, inter alia, by insurgents or belligerents. In some cases, agreements ending non-international armed conflicts are concluded by domestic entities that are not subjects of international law. Such acts may reflect solutions that have been adopted as standards in international practice and in the provisions of international law. These do not necessarily have to be legally binding standards. They can also be framework solutions, including measures relating to the protection of national minorities, which are formulated and offered as proposals for specific regulations.
Legal and policy categorizations of group belonging play an important role in analysing lived experiences of discrimination, since the scope of minority protection requires individuals to prove their ...belonging to a minority group. This article maps the existing classifiers of minority identification as they are used in the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Europe's most comprehensive treaty designed to protect the rights of national minorities. I engage with the concept of ethnicity as a "knot of distinction", looking at which minorities qualify as "national" in different countries. When is ethnicity used as a proxy for religion, when for race, and when for language? What categories are omitted? By inductively analysing the rationales presented by different EU countries of which minorities are "national", and based on which grounds, this article reveals a messy, historically and politically driven picture, but one that can help us understand some regional patterns.
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