{"title":"Can Minorities Treaties Work?","authors":"Richard B. Bilder","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_005","url":null,"abstract":"Few problems are more important or complex than the challenge of devising legal arrangements through which the legitimate rights and interests of ethnic, racial, religious or linguistic minorities and majorities can be fairly reconciled. This article explores the possible relevance of international agreements to the effective management of such minorities’ problems.Its principal aim is to provide a framework and raise some broader questions which may be useful in thinking about how international agreements and other arrangements might help deal with contemporary minorities’ problems.The article begins by examining “What is a Minority Treaty?” and “International Experience Concerning Minorities Treaties” – in particular, the experience of the League of Nations minorities treaties system. It then turns to its principal topic, “Rethinking Minorities Treaties: Some Questions and Issues”. Among the questions discussed are: (1) Why are minorities’ treaties needed when there are human rights treaties? (2) Should minorities’ treaties be broadly applicable, or apply only to a specific minorities problem? (3) Would regional minorities conventions make sense? (4) Why should any state agree to a treaty requiring protection of its minorities? (5) Why should minorities be interested in a minorities treaty? (6) Why should another state, or the international community, be interested in a minorities treaty? (7) Why should anyone trust an international guarantee? (8) What problems should a minorities treaty cover? and (9) How to judge whether a minorities treaty works.The article concludes that, despite the difficulty encountered by the League of Nations minorities system, such treaties can work if the states and minorities involved want them to work- and if they use common sense, legal skill, judgment and good faith in helping them to work. While minorities’ treaties alone cannot solve minorities problems, they can help create a context and climate in which the societies and groups concerned can more effectively shape solutions and work out a common destiny. For this reason, they deserve the closer attention of lawyers and diplomats.","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1991-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122805390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Being Overly Discrete and Insular: Involuntary Groups and the Anglo-American Judicial Tradition","authors":"A. Soifer","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_012","url":null,"abstract":"Tragic history cannot be trump in every legal contest. But the quest for a single level on which everyone is similarly situated sacrifices the diverse history of groups for abstractions about deracinated individuals who float equally above reality. Yet we have not reached once upon a time. Even when judges declare it, they cannot so easily purge the past.","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1991-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127919908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 1989 ILO Convention on Indigenous Populations: New Standards?","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115309151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Legal Status of Population Groups in a Multinational State under Public International Law","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124756561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Toward a Minority Convention: Its Need and Content","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124050201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel Relating to Minorities","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"556 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123267771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"International Protection of Minorities: The Soviet Perspective","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"182 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124579935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Definition of Minorities in International Law","authors":"M. Shaw","doi":"10.1163/9789004219120_004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004219120_004","url":null,"abstract":"If minorities are to be treated as distinct entities in international law, then the problem of identification immediately arises. In order to examine the nature of the group that would constitute a minority, one must first extract the notion of \"peoples\" in the full international law sense of self-determination from the equation. The fact that it has proved so difficult to agree upon a definition of minorities, when the core elements are apparent, is a reflection of the fears of States, particularly in the Third World, as to the consequences that may flow. The foreboding that recognition of minorities may lead to secessionist demands, or at the least to difficulties in encouraging integration and a national consensus, must be overcome. In the last resort, reassurance and encouragement, coupled with a healthy measure of international supervision, is likely to prove more effective than an agreed formula of words. Keywords:Definition of minorities; international law; national consensus; self-determination","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132729602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Rights of Peoples Edited by James Crawford (Clarendon Press, 1988, x + 236 pp.)","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/9789004423046_018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423046_018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":344076,"journal":{"name":"Israel Yearbook on Human Rights, Volume 20 (1990)","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122864831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}