Who Are Minorities

By Legesse Tigabu Who are minorities?

Unfortunately we haven’t universally accepted definition on the group of people who belong to minorities in spite of so many attempts by scholars to put a clear and precise definition from long years on. Even though there was a narrow protection of minorities under the League of Nations system after WW I crisis which vanished once again as a result of WW II,1 there was no attempt at that time to define the term minorities.

Even after world war second, the UN Charter doesn’t mention minority rights or minorities any where. The UDHR adopted by the UN General Assembly too gives emphasis for individual human rights based on general non discrimination principle without giving special account for minority rights and the General Assembly was of opinion that it is difficult to adopt uniform solution to this perplexing problem as the question regarding minorities is different in different countries (Democracy, minorities and international law, Steven Wheatley, Cambridge University press, 2005).

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides protection for minorities without defining who minorities are. It clearly states that “In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of the group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language.”2

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Democracy, minorities and international law, Steven Wheatley, Cambridge University press, 2005 Art 27 of ICCPR.

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Of course ICCPR paves the way to define minorities to some nearly but not totally acceptable definition as it makes some factors which are helpful in determining minorities i.e. ethnicity, language, religion and culture. But it still fails to provide a definition and leads to a question which ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious groups within the states are minorities.

Even though the Human Rights Committee tried to make clarification on rights of minorities it doesn’t attempt to approach directly the questions who are minorities. But its determination on minority rights was significant at least to know to a greater extent if not completely the scope of the term minorities. It for instance makes it clear that by minorities the ICCPR is not talking only about national minorities but also migrant minorities as the ICCPR doesn’t make distinction between nationals and foreigners (Human Rights Committee General Comment 23, on Art 27 of ICCPR).

The general comment of the Human Rights Committee is not much helpful because firstly it is not binding on the international community and secondly the Frame Work Convention of Europe by employing the term ‘national minorities”3 clearly stand against the general comment. This Frame Work Convention also doesn’t provide any definition as to minorities (Re-thinking Ethnic and Cultural Rights in Europe, Perry Keller, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Oxford University press, Vol. 18 No. 1 1998)

Definitions made by Francesco Capotorti and Jules are the most known but still are not good enough in defining minorities as they didn’t answer all questions about minorities. The definitions are the following respectively.

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Frame Work Convention for the protection of national minorities, Strasbourg, 1.II.1995

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”A group numerically smaller to the rest of the population of the state, in a non dominant position, whose members – being nationals of the state – posses ethnic, religious or linguistic characterstics differing from those of the rest of the population and show, if only iplictly, a sense of solidarity, directed towrds preserving their culture, tradition, religion or language.”4

”A group of citizens of a state, constituting a numerical minority and in a non dominant position – whose members, being nationals of the state, posses ethnic, religious or lunguistic characterstics which differ from those of the majority population, having a sense of solidarity with one another, motivated if only implicitly, but a collective will to survive and whose aim to achieve equally with the majority in fact and in law.”5

Even though the above two definitions are very important in determing minorities by making reference to ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, still they cannot be free from criticsm firstly,

because it is not only numerically smaller groups who are

minorities in strict sense. Group of people who are numurically higher than another may be politically, culturally and interms of language dominated by that other group and thus simple reference to number may not be always helpful especially in case the numerical difference is insignificant.

Secondly, the definitions are narrow in scope by employing the term citizens and nationals of state. In our global world there is high movement of people from country to country and international law is developing accordingly to protect the human rights of individuals irrespective of nationality. According to the above definitions it is difficult 4

Francesco Capotorti, “Study on the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities”, 1977, para. 568. 5 Jules Deschens “Proposal concerning a definition of the term minority”, 1985, para. 181.

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for migrants to claim linguistic, cultural and religious rights unless they get nationality. To grant nationality is in the discretion of states and thus migrants will be systematically left behind if we are following the above definitios.

The case is more complex if we take a look at the constitution of the Fedral Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). Even though the country constituttes more than 80 ethnic groups most of which are minorities, the constitution doesn’t talk about these minorities.

Under FDRE constitution, rather than minorities proper, the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia only may be determined as minorities. Such nations, nationalities amd peoples of Ethiopia are those group of people who satisfy two requirements under the constituion; those having common culture, langaue or religion and constituiting identifiable territory, Art 39 of FDRE constitution. It means that those minorities who have no identifiable territory because they are dispersed over the territory have no any place under the constitution.

From the above discussion, it follows that there is a need for some definition which is universally accepted to prevent abuse against minorities by the states. The difficulty then is the nature of the problem to be addressed i.e. the issue of diversity is complex because it differes from country to country. It was because of this problem that the ICCPR while recognizing rights of minorities fails at the same time to define who are minorities. On my part, giving recognition for the rights of minorities under international human rights conventions without defining the term is not of any help for

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the minorities because it means that the determination of minorities to be protected is left for states and states are systematically excluding minorities.

Then the best solution will be setting some general definition by providing minimum requirements whcih cannot be overlooked by states. Such general definition could be like this: Any ethnic, linguistic or religious group in a state which constitutes identity and is dominated by others constitutes a minority if the domination of what ever type has the effect of subjecting this group to cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or religious values of others.

If we formulate definitions like this, then we protect both national and migrant minorities and there will no be a possibility in whcih minorites will be left behind.

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