 ISSN 2588-0497 |
THE CONCEPT, GENESIS AND INTERNATIONAL LEGAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES
English
Year:
2026
Issue number:
2
Resume:
The article examines the theoretical and legal foundations of the protection of the rights of national minorities in international and domestic law. Key doctrinal approaches to the definition of «national minority» are analyzed, from F. Capotorti’s 1979 report to the contemporary practice of the UN Human Rights Committee. The historical evolution of international legal protection is traced from the religious guarantees of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the League of Nations system to the universal mechanisms of the UN and the regional instruments of the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Special attention is paid to the structure of international standards, including Art. 27 of the ICCPR, the 1992 UN Declaration, the 1995 Framework Convention, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and OSCE HCNM recommendations. The article concludes that post-Soviet states exhibit significant gaps between formal normative guarantees and actual law-enforcement practice, which is due to both the terminological ambiguity of international law and the specificity of national models of nation-building.
Key words:
national minorities, human rights, international law, post-Soviet states, Framework Convention, OSCE, nation-building
References:
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