CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

JÁN KLUČKA CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ were bound to conduct business with any of its members in their own language, and to issue all official notices in the language of the minority as well as in Czechoslovak. The Language Law and other legislative measures regulating language using namely Government statute No. 27 issued in 1924 and the Enacting Clause of the Language Law in 1926 19 ensured relatively wide rights to minority language speakers, both in oral form and in writing. It is to be added that the state not only allowed but prescribed the use of the minority language in districts where the percentage of the minority of citizens exceeded the legally regulated 20% threshold. The minority rights in the domestic legal order of Czechoslovakia were individual rights , designed to carry out the obligations of Czechoslovakia specified in the peace treaties. Only the Ruthenians were granted collective rights through § 2, giving Sub- Carpathian Ruthenia ‘the widest measure of self-government compatible with the unity of the Czechoslovak republic.’ The practical application of the Minority Treaty however, did not prevent Czechoslovakia from concluding bilateral treaties with neighbouring countries concerning specific questions of nationality and minorities. 20 Such treaties were independent of the guarantees of the League of Nations. It is worth noting that the Czechoslovak Minority Treaty was only one of the many elements of the post-war treaty system relating to minorities and part of the treaties under the guarantees of the League of Nations, 21 treaties independent of the guarantees of the League of Nations, 22 and finally, unilateral declarations regarding the protection of minorities. Besides the declarations made by East Central European countries, another set of states adopted such declarations. 23 The legal writing characterizes this situation as follows: Besides the system of international treaties under the protection of the League of Nations a few multilateral and several bilateral documents were adopted which besides the regulation of specific subjects incorporated clauses concerning minority protection as well. This is one of the reasons why we consider the twenty years between the world wars as a classic period of direct minority protection. 24 The later practice of the League of Nations unfortunately confirmed that it was not able to guarantee the proper functioning of its minority protection systems. The policy of appeasement by some of the western countries during the 1930s also accelerated the process of the downfall of the League of Nations system. As a result: 19 Published under Act No. 17/1926 Collection of Laws. 20 *Czechoslovak-Austrian Treaty (Brno Treaty) on the citizenship and education concluded on 7 June 1920 and supplemented by additional protocol signed in Carlsbad on 23 August 1920. *Czechoslovak-PolandTreaty concluded inWarsaw on 25 April 1925 containing primarily provisions concerning the minorities’ educational affairs. 21 These treaties were concluded between 1922–1924 between 17 states as their state parties. 22 Apart from the Treaty of Czechoslovakia, one can mention the Treaty between Yugoslavia and Romania concerning the Romanian Minority in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav minority in Romania (1933), the Treaty between Bulgaria and Greece on reciprocal emigration and immigration (1919), the Treaty between the Allied Powers and Lithuania on the legal status of Memel region annexed to Lithuania (1924). 23 Albanian declaration (1921), Lithuanian declaration (1922), Latvian declaration (1923), Estonian Declaration (1923), Iraq declaration (1932). 24 SZALAYNÉ GÁBOR, E.: International Law in the Service of the Protection of Minorities between the Two World Wars. Available, at: http://epa.oszk.hu/00400/00463/00006/7.htm, p. 4.

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