Lausanne Treaty and Minority Rights in Turkey

What is it about?

The Treaty of Lausanne was signed on 24th July 1923 as a peace treaty that ended the first world war for Turkey and the allied powers. In a section entitled “protection of minorities”, it provides rights for minorities. However, the beneficiaries of minority rights in Lausanne are more narrow than those provided in other treaties and declarations of the time. With a legal basis in domestic law, Turkey traditionally applied the rights provided in the Lausanne Treaty only for three so-called non-Muslim groups, i.e. Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Neither the Turkish delegation nor the members of the allied forces’ delegations could foresee that some members of the Muslim groups of 1923 might quit Islam in the future and recourse to Lausanne rights as new beneficiaries. This article, by referring to preparatory works of the Treaty, examining its legal validity internationally and nationally, and applying interpretative principles of international treaties, argues for the extension of Lausanne rights to other groups via re-interpretation and re-implementation.

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Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper seeks an answer to whether the linguistic minority rights of Lausanne can be extended to other groups, namely Kurds, Circassians,Arabs, and other groups, via re-interpretation and re-implementation of this 100-year-old Treaty.

Perspectives