CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASPECTS OF CZECHOSLOVAK MINORITIES in order to avoid any further cause of war and to nullify one of the most concrete menaces to inter-state relations, and to avoid the creation of new conflicts among European states. In order to reach this goal, several states were obliged to provide protection for their own minorities under the auspice of the League of Nations. The minority regime of the League of Nations consisted of five special minority treaties binding Poland, the Serbo-Croat-Slovene state, Romania, Greece, and Czechoslovakia, 3 as well as some states in the Middle East (Iraq and Turkey), special minority clauses were inserted into the treaties of peace with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey, five general declarations made on admission to the League by Albania, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Iraq, and finally special declaration of the Finland regarding the Aaland Islands as well as the treaties relating to Danzig, Upper Silesia, and Memel. Three elements were closely connected with the minority issue, namely fixing the state borders of new states (within the peace treaties), conditions for granting citizenship for the people of the new states (Treaties with Principal Allied and Associated Powers), and finally the set of rights belonging to minorities in the new states. A separate procedural point represents the procedure dealing with the competences and procedures of the organs of the League of Nations in cases of an infraction, or danger of infraction, of obligations, of a new state vis a vis its minority (Council, Permanent Court of Justice). The aim of the League of Nations systems was to ensure a certain standard of conduct by the new states towards their minorities within their jurisdiction and to define the relations between national and the nation-state minorities. Minutes of the Council of the League of Nations meeting provide that the objects of the Minority Treaties: “was to secure for the minorities that measure of protection and justice which would gradually prepare them to be merged in the national community to which they belonged”. 4 The conditions in the minority treaties contained three basic elements: right to nationality, equality before the law, and a short list of cultural, educational, and language rights. The primary section of each Minority Treaty was to spell out the basic citizenship rights of all bona fide inhabitants of each new state in order to guarantee new inhabitants that the state could not adopt new laws which would force them to leave (expel) the new community. The most striking feature of the minority treaties and declarations concerned cultural matters. Minorities were permitted education in their own languages and the state was expected to offer financial assistance. The second feature of the minority system was that it ordered and guaranteed the rights of national minorities by internationalizing protection, which was seen as more effective and less destabilizing than a unilateral action. The system also allowed a degree of monitoring and control over the constitutional and institutional development of these states. The duty of the League was to act as the guarantor and observer of the execution and compliance with treaty obligations. In its entirety there is no doubt that the whole minority protection regime was an integral part of the system established 3 Minorities treaties concluded between the principal Allied and Association Powers and certain states created or enlarged as a result of the First World War: * Treaty between Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Poland (28 June 1919) * Treaty between Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Czechoslovakia (10 September 2019) * Treaty between Principal Allied and Associated Powers and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (10 September 1919)

* Treaty between Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Greece (10 August 1920) * Treaty between Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Romania (9 December 1919). 4 League of Nations Official Journal, 1926, p. 144.

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