North Macedonia (Brussels Morning Newspaper), The President of North Macedonia accused Bulgaria of mistreating its Macedonian minority. Putin leveled the same accusation at Ukraine with regards to its Russian-speaking population. Both Bulgaria and Ukraine reject the allegations vehemently. To this very day, many in Israel deny that Palestinians exist.
But what is a minority and whence its rights?
A minority is a group of people who self-identify and self-determine as a minority on grounds of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious, or national identity and are possibly discriminated against owing to being a minority.
The rights of minorities are enshrined in numerous bilateral and multilateral treaties and international law, including in UN declarations. In some cases, minorities are explicitly recognized and identified in state constitutions and thus are protected from persecution or endowed with autonomy and special privileges.
These protections include the right to not be exterminated or forcibly displaced; the right to not be coercively assimilated and to exercise the language and culture common to the members of the minority; and non-discrimination and equality before the law, the institutions, and in the workplace.
Members of the minorities should be allowed and encouraged to participate in the public affairs, politics, culture, education, society, and economy of the host polity. They should be represented in all the institutions, be consulted, and contribute to actual decision-making.
The courts of the host country should protect the minorities from any attempt to infringe on their rights and freedoms and enforce these when and where applicable.
This is the noble theory. Reality is much shabbier. By far the main thorn is the inability to agree on an objective, neutral definition of a minority.
Throughout history and to this very day, majorities or powerful populations have refused to recognize others as disenfranchised minorities with a common culture and history.
This discord often devolved into armed conflict or outright suppression and even genocide.
The solution is to establish an international court for minorities with the power to confer a minority status on applicants, having reviewed the history of the group and having consulted experts from neutral territories.
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