What is it about?
Minority rights and accommodation systems address a multiplicity of societal problems. These justificatory lines of argument can work in a reinforcing tandem, but they may also be in a state of collision. The legislative process as well as the interpretative usages of such rights at the domestic and at the international level can reveal where the centre of gravity is in each contingent situation.
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Why is it important?
International law and human rights provisions are not envisioned as a legal straightjacket for the domestic legal and political systems. By looking at the layers of justificatory and legitimating arguments we can better understand and reveal the functioning of international legal rules at the domestic level, possible contradictions, as well as the longitudinal variations of the justifications domestically as well as internationally. The dialectic between what is understood as 'national' and what is understood as 'international' is more readily available if we adopt less monodimensional view of systems of rights and rules.
Perspectives
This article was an opportunity for me, ten years after the publication of my book 'Justifications of Minority Protection in International Law' (Brill 1997, on the basis of doctoral dissertation) to pursue the argument about the importance of the theoretical and methodological approach to minority rights and protection. The article also reflects the increased emphasis in the 1990s and 2000s on democratic participation. It thus links to the arguments about the balancing between 'inclusion and separation', or 'distance and proximity' which are themes I have addressed increasingly after the publication of this article.
Associate Professor, Jur. dr., Head of Research Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark
The Åland Islands Peace Institute (Finland)
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Shifts in the Multiple Justifications of Minority Protection, January 2014, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004276499_008.
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