Groping for group rights: the Yugoslav imbroglio has added urgency to the search for ways of protecting national minorities. (Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe tries to define national minorities)

From: The Economist (US) | Date: July 13, 1991 | Copyright information

HOW states treat their minorities is a measure of their democracy. Yet for 40 years the United Nations has tried and failed to find a clear definition of what a national minority" is. Now, at the instigation of Switzerland and the Soviet Union, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) is addressing the issue, at a meeting in Geneva from July 1st to July 19th.

Definitions are tricky because, if too narrow, they can run perilously close to racism; if too broad, they risk letting everyone from Bretons to Visigoths claim minority status. Fear of a plague of ...

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