CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ

INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ASPECTS OF CZECHOSLOVAK MINORITIES

II.

The Minorities and the United Nations (New post-war multilateral conception of minorities)

It should be pointed out at the outset, since the end of the Second World War that the United Nations has been hesitant to introduce measures specifically referring to and protecting minority rights, in either the Charter or in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 31 Three reasons seem to be decisive for taking such an approach. First, it was generally believed that minority rights protection had been a pretext for the German territorial expansion during the inter-war period of 1919–1939. Second, many states believed it to be more appropriate to protect the rights of the individual because individual rights could sometimes suffer at the expense of giving rights to minority groups. Finally, the states did not want to encourage the secession of distinct ethic groups from existing states, which was sometimes the aim of such groups once they gained specific measures to protect them. Taking into account these factors, the United Nations encouraged a universal concept and application of individual human rights without discrimination, believing that this would lead to the protection of the rights of all individuals including those belonging to minorities. To be more concrete one may add that: After 1945 minority rights lost their hitherto independent standing in international relations and were subsumed under the newly created universal human rights regime. The failure of the League of Nations discredited minorities rights, and the minorities themselves tended to be viewed with suspicion owing to wartime complicity of certain minorities leaders with Nazi aims in East-Central Europe. Consequently, unlike in previous eras, minority rights were considered contrary to international peace and security. Thus the interwar system of minority guarantees was not resurrected and no new minorities rights provisions were included in the various agreements of the 1940s which laid the foundation of the Cold War human rights regime. 32 In this context it should be concluded that: Since the adoption of the UN Charter the protection of minorities should no longer be considered a political problem concerning certain areas of the world but a question concerning all states whose solution must be sought in the wider context of the problem of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without excluding the possible conclusion of bilateral or multilateral conventions. 33 Generally speaking, a general consensus emerged in favour of the view that human rights themselves rather than more specific minority provisions would be the preferred reaction 31 Resolution of the UN GA 217 (III) on 12 December 1948, “Fate of Minorities” (Attached to the Resolution proclaiming the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) stipulates inter alia that: “The General Assembly Considering that the United Nations cannot remain indifferent to the fate of minorities, Considering that it is difficult to adopt to uniform solution of this complex question, which has special aspects in each state in which arises, Considering the universal character of the Declaration of Human Rights, Decides not to deal in a specific provision with the question of minorities in the text of Declaration”. 32 PREECE, J. J.: Minority Rights in Europe: From Westphalia to Helsinki. Review of International Studies , 1997, Vol. 23, No. 1, p. 84. 33 CAPOTORTI, F.: Study on the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/384, Rev. 1 (1979), p. 27 (141).

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