Over the last few decades, the Swedish society has become more and more multicultural, which has resulted in the fact that the differences between different ethnic groups have become more and more noticed and debated. Studies have shown that persons belonging to minority groups are often wronged by majority decisions, which leaves the minorities in a disadvantageous position in relation to the majority. The scientific problem is how a state should compensate different minority groups for their disadvantaged position in order to be able to guarantee justice and equality for all individuals of the state. The aim of this thesis is to examine the Swedish government’s attitude towards minority rights, and to analyse whether this coincides with Will Kymlicka’s normative minority rights theory. The research questions are: • How should the majority society treat minorities according to Kymlicka? • Which is Swedish minority policy’s stance on minority rights? The methods used in this thesis include a qualitative text analysis and a field investigation among Finnish-speaking people living in Borlänge. The conclusion of this essay is that the Swedish government in all likelihood has a positive attitude towards minority rights, since it has assigned group differentiated rights to the national minorities in Sweden. Furthermore, the Swedish government’s view on minority rights coincides to a great extent with Will Kymlicka’s normative theory.

The Serbs are a national group which has been disliked by the Croats for hundreds of years. Even before Croatia became a part of Yugoslavia, the country wanted its independence. However, before and after the break up of Yugoslavia, there was a strong nationalism in the country which led to hatred towards the Serbs and the Serb minorities in Croatia. Studies have shown that minorities often are disfavoured by the majority decisions. This leads to a disadvantageous position for the minorities in the relation to the majority. The problem is how a state should compensate these groups for their disadvantageous position to be able to ensure justice and equality for all citizens within the country. The aim of this thesis is to compare Croatia’s formal national minority rights with the actual national minority rights of the Serbs and to see whether they coincide with each other. The research questions are: • What formal minority rights do Croatian Serbs have in Croatia? • What minority rights do Croatian Serbs have in reality? The method used in this study is the qualitative text analysis. The conclusion of this thesis is that Croatia has a positive attitude towards minority rights and the Serb minority, as Croatia has allocated group-differentiated rights to its national minorities. The Croatian view upon national minority rights coincides to a large extent with Will Kymlicka´s theory. Furthermore, the formal rights and the virtual rights regarding education, language, culture and proportional representation coincides to a great extent if not precisely.

"Every country has religious minorities. Any study of religious minorities and the protections afforded to them must also examine the significance of minorities per se. Minorities have no internationally accepted definition. Definitions are either broad and with little specificity or narrow and exclusive. Generally, two trends with regard to minority rights can be observed. On the one hand, in many countries, a comprehensive system of the legal protection of minorities has been introduced. Here the biggest problems stem from the difference between formal and informal rights. On the other hand, a number of countries have not legally committed themselves to the protection of minorities; ranging from inadequate safeguards to non-recognition of the minority. National minorities have received broad, although not well-differentiated, reporting in the international media and attention in international organisations and its impact on the discourse on religious rights have been minimal. However, minority religious rights have featured less significantly on the public agenda. The implications of the status of national minorities and religious groups are that many minorities believe that the majority group generally receive privileged status in state structures, while the minorities are viewed with suspicion. The issue of religious representation and safeguards arose within the Constitution of the Republic of Kenya ("Kenyan Constitution") where there is a recently concluded Constitutional Review Commission that had the Christian majority object to the "excessive protection" being granted to the Muslim minority. There was a huge debate as to the extent of inclusion of Sharia in the resultant draft constitution as well as the protection of fundamental principles of human rights and Islam. The question thus arises, should one apply Sharia or enshrine it in the constitution of a country, or will this involve overprotection that may lead to long-term exploitation of the law by the minority. The Arab Republic of Egypt ("Egypt") and the Republic of Kenya ("Kenya") have been chosen as case studies as they are interesting reflections of the development of states in Africa: Kenya with a Muslim minority maintaining a hold on the application of Islamic law where there is a Christian majority, while in Egypt the Copt and Shia Muslim populations are trying to assimilate into the state. Sharia is of imporance both to Kenya and Egypt. In Egypt the entire legal system is premised on the constitutional provision that Sharia is the principle source of law, thus some religious minorities in Egypt look for ways to maintain their identity and circumvent the application of Sharia provisions. Kenya, with a Muslim religious minority, is grappling with the concept of Sharia and how far it should apply to Muslims in a country. Thus these two countries have an inverse mirror image problem of each other as between the two major world religouns, Christianity and Islam. ... Chapter one sets out the content of the research, identifies the problem and applies the methodology. Chapter two discusses the international and regional law on religious minorities with a regional emphasis on African and the Arab region. Chapter three discusses the Islamic law on religious minorities, both Muslim minorities in non-Muslim states and non-Muslim minorities in Muslim states. Chapter four will focus on case studies comparing the protection accorded to the Muslims in Kenya with the Copts in Egypt, and analysing the extent to which Kenya and Egpyt have complied with international and regional law. Chapter five will set out recommendations and conclusions." -- Introduction. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Naz Modirzadeh at the Department of Political Sciences, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The American University in Cairo, Egypt / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

"The protection of the rights of sexual minorities in many countries in Africa is a controversial issue. It is not unusual to find newspaper reports on gross violations suffered by this minority group. Gays and lesbians are victims of violence, sometimes resulting in death. Sexual minorities in Africa are often confronted with government actions such as those of the Nigerian government that recently submitted to the parliament a bill to make provisions for the prohibition of relationships between persons of the same sex, celebration of marriage, registration of gay clubs and societies, and publicity of same sex sexual relationships. On the other hand, on the same continent, the South African Constitutional Court recently held that the denial of legal recognition for same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. The question that begs here is: why this state of affairs? In view of the situtation described above, this study intends to highlight the factors that have brought the continent to this point and give an analysis of the challenges and prospects faced in the protection of the rights of sexual minorities. The issue that will be addressed, therefore, is whether the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is interpreted to include at least some protection against discrimination of sexual minorities." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2006. / Prepared under the supervision of Prof. Pierre de Vos at the Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

This study examines the effect of judicial protection of minority rights on the Constitutional Court’s legitimacy. The framing of the Marriage Act shows that Parliament intended marriage to be between a man and a woman. By nullifying section 30(1) of the Act and making the order above, the Court fulfilled its constitutional mandate of upholding fundamental human rights. At the same time, it negated the intention of Parliament which represents majoritarian interests. The Constitutional Court is, in contra-distinction with Parliament, unelected. By voiding section 30(1) of the Marriage Act and arousing public opposition to legal recognition of same-sex unions, it raised a ‘countermajoritarian difficulty.’ This ‘countermajoritarian difficulty’ has elicited intense scholarly debate.17 The study examines how the Court’s negation of majoritarian interests in order to protect minority rights affects its legitimacy. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2007. / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Associate Prof. Tamale Sylvia of the Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The diploma thesis deals with the position of the Hungarian minority in Serbian Vojvodina and Romanian Transylvania using the comparative method. Hungarians in Serbia and Romania represent a very large national minority and they became an integral part of the local culture and society. The level of Hungarian minority rights in the host countries is compared in four areas: legislation, political representation and institutionalization of the minority, mother tongue education opportunities and the Hungarian minority media. Apart from a brief outline of the historical context, the work focuses exclusively on the period after the fall of communism in both states to the present. During these years, there has been the biggest shift in the area of minority rights. The concept of ethnic parallelism is applied to all researched areas. Related to this, the so-called ethnolinguistic vitality approach is used, which deals with the conditions for the preservation of minority languages in the majority society. Special attention is paid to the influence of the Hungarian government under Primer Minister Viktor Orbán on the life of Hungarians abroad, which is significantly growing.

In 1994 Ethiopia introduced a federal system of government as a national level approach to intra-state conflict management. Homogenisation of cultures and languages by the earlier regimes led to the emergence of ethno-national movements and civil wars that culminated in the collapse of the unitary state in 1991. For this reason, the federal system that recognises ethnic groups¿ rights is the first step in transforming the structural causes of civil wars in Ethiopia. Against this background this research examines whether the federal arrangement has created an enabling environment in managing conflicts in the country. To understand this problematic, the thesis conceptualises and analyses federalism and conflict management using a qualitative research design based on in-depth interviewing and content-based thematic analysis ¿ taking the case study of the Benishangul-Gumuz regional state. The findings of the study demonstrate that different factors hinder the federal process. First, the constitutional focus on ethnic groups¿ rights has led, in practice, to lessened attention to citizenship and minority rights protection in the regional states. Second, the federal process encourages ethnic-based elite groups to compete in controlling regional and local state powers and resources. This has greatly contributed to the emergence of ethnic-based violent conflicts, hostile intergovernmental relationships and lack of law and order along the common borders of the regional states. Third, the centralised policy and decision making process of the ruling party has hindered genuine democratic participation of citizens and self-determination of the ethnic groups. This undermines the capacity of the regional states and makes the federal structure vulnerable to the dynamics of political change. The conflicts in Benishangul-Gumuz emanate from these causes, but lack of territorial land use rights of the indigenous people and lack of proportional political representation of the non-indigenous people are the principal manifestations. The research concludes by identifying the issues that determine the sustainability of the federal structure. Some of them include: making constitutional amendments which consider citizenship rights and minority rights protection; enhancing the democratic participation of citizens by developing the capacities of the regional states and correcting the organisational weakness of the multi-national political parties; encouraging co-operative intergovernmental relationships, and maintaining the territorial land use rights of the Benishangul-Gumuz indigenous people. / Addis Ababa University

The degree to which the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) as public broadcaster gives shape to its language policy and language mandate, against the background of an investigation of language rights, establishes the central problem statement of this research.It is widely acknowledged that it is difficult to define the concept of language rights. Although the language-sociological literature associates this concept with minority and cultural rights, it can also be seen as individual rights. According to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, it is clear that language rights should be seen as individual rights that can be exercised within a particular community. Although this dissertation provides an extensive juridical and language sociological explanation of the concept of language rights, the description by Judge Albie Sachs will be used as a working definition for this research. His division between the following four fundamental language rights, viz.: (i) the right to use your language; (ii) the right to develop your language; (iii) the right to be understood and to understand other languages as well as (iv) the right not to be discriminated against because of your language, provides a useful investigation instrument with which the degree to which the SABC-TV acknowledges and protects language rights can be measured.It is found that despite the policy documents on national and corporate level that has equal consideration and treatment of the diverse South African languages in mind, it still happens that the SABC-TV fails to give form to the language rights of individuals that belong to indigenous minority language groups in South Africa. Due to this, the research suggests that the extensive implementation of subtitles, as a form of screen translation that differs from lip synchronised dubbing, can make a significant contribution to the acknowledgement and protection of language rights by the SABC-TV.In addition to a discussion on what subtitles entail, the technical nature and specific parameters thereof, a feasibility study is included within which the affordability of this project for the SABC-TV is indicated. It is found that this form of screen translation is ideal for the South African situation because it is cheaper than both lip synchronised dubbing and the creation of new television programmes, but also because it can effectively be employed in regional broadcasts. Furthermore, the use of bilingual subtitles and pivot subtitles are also alternatives that may be considered. It is essential though that subtitles can indeed contribute to the way in which the SABC, as a public broadcaster, acknowledges and protects the fundamental language rights of the multitude of South Africans that belong to different language communities in South Africa. (Written in Afrikaans)

In 1994 Ethiopia introduced a federal system of government as a national level approach to intra-state conflict management. Homogenisation of cultures and languages by the earlier regimes led to the emergence of ethno-national movements and civil wars that culminated in the collapse of the unitary state in 1991. For this reason, the federal system that recognises ethnic groups' rights is the first step in transforming the structural causes of civil wars in Ethiopia. Against this background this research examines whether the federal arrangement has created an enabling environment in managing conflicts in the country. To understand this problematic, the thesis conceptualises and analyses federalism and conflict management using a qualitative research design based on in-depth interviewing and content-based thematic analysis - taking the case study of the Benishangul-Gumuz regional state. The findings of the study demonstrate that different factors hinder the federal process. First, the constitutional focus on ethnic groups' rights has led, in practice, to lessened attention to citizenship and minority rights protection in the regional states. Second, the federal process encourages ethnic-based elite groups to compete in controlling regional and local state powers and resources. This has greatly contributed to the emergence of ethnic-based violent conflicts, hostile intergovernmental relationships and lack of law and order along the common borders of the regional states. Third, the centralised policy and decision making process of the ruling party has hindered genuine democratic participation of citizens and self-determination of the ethnic groups. This undermines the capacity of the regional states and makes the federal structure vulnerable to the dynamics of political change. The conflicts in Benishangul-Gumuz emanate from these causes, but lack of territorial land use rights of the indigenous people and lack of proportional political representation of the non-indigenous people are the principal manifestations. The research concludes by identifying the issues that determine the sustainability of the federal structure. Some of them include: making constitutional amendments which consider citizenship rights and minority rights protection; enhancing the democratic participation of citizens by developing the capacities of the regional states and correcting the organisational weakness of the multi-national political parties; encouraging co-operative intergovernmental relationships, and maintaining the territorial land use rights of the Benishangul-Gumuz indigenous people.

IN ENGLISH This diploma thesis deals with the issue of the rights of national minorities and their application in the inter-war Czechoslovakia. The aim of the diploma thesis is to analyze this question in one particular region. For this purpose I chose a linguistic island surrounded by majority of other languae. Yet I tried to provide a view of as much as possible points of view. This linguistic island should therefore contain a people of surrounding majority who create linguistic minority in observed region. The candidate for the appropriate object exploration is some german linguistic enclave in the middle of czech settlements. Or a region of significant czech minority amid german speaking milieu. As the best option I finally chose so called Wischauer Sprachinsel with a German settlement surrounded by Czech-speaking majority. Since the 19th century, the region began to increase the share of Czech-speaking population, which resulted in matryoshka doll consisting of a minority in a minority, the phenomenon typical for Lands of the Bohemian Crown at this time. However, in order to better explain the issue, I chose to compare the situation in the Wischauer Sprachinsel with another sore point for the Czech ethnographic map. The ideal candidate was Litvínov region in the Sudetenland, which was a mirror...