The project underlying this dissertation aims at analyzing three pro-animal-rights theories, evaluating the theories, and outlining an alternative theoretical account of animal rights. The analytical categories are justification and function of animal rights, the definition of the right holder, and the resolution approach to rights conflict. The categories are applied to a naturalist, a theocentric, and a contractarian approach to defend animal rights. The evaluation is substantiated by the assumption that rights are meant to protect less powerful beings against more powerful aggressors. The constructive segment is an investigation into what extent identified disadvantages of the theories can be avoided by outlining a new model for animal rights. The analyses and evaluation suggest that all three theories are at risk of contradicting the proper function of rights-based theories. Tom Regan’s naturalist account of animal rights includes a logical possibility to sacrifice less capable beings for the sake of more capable beings. Andrew Linzey’s theocentric case for animal rights may sometimes mean that vulnerable human persons should be sacrificed for more powerful non-human beings. Mark Rowlands’ outlined contractarian model, further reconstructed in this work, fails to provide a way to resolve rights conflicts, making the function of rights inapplicable to conflicts. In conclusion, it is suggested that defining the right holder as a self-preservative being can be supported by, at least, the contractarian rationale. That would also conform to the proper function of rights-based theories. It is also suggested that this means that rights conflicts should be resolved by a voluntary sacrifice of the most powerful being. Practical circumstances should be created where such voluntarity is both genuine and rationally possible.

The goal of the thesis is the development of an exemplary application profile for one institution guiding the use of Rights Expression Languages (REL) to include the rights information of digital documents in the metadata. Cultural heritage institutions face many challenges with regard to the growing number of digital documents. One challenge is the effective and efficient management, administration and presentation or publication of the documents according to their inherent rights. A basic issue is the inclusion of the rights information in the metadata file of the digital documents to enable automated administration of the documents. The application profile is supposed to show the REL’s potential for solving the challenge. Whether RELs can be applied practically in the cultural heritage sector is not in the scope of the thesis and must be examined in a large scale study. As applied research, the thesis does not follow a strict quantitative or qualitative research method but gathers, examines and evaluates data to develop an application profile. Due to the focus on technical issues, it aims at developers and not at end users. To reach the thesis’ goal, RELs are located in the area of digital rights. Four RELs are examined basi-cally by literature analysis. In addition, various representative licenses from one library are chosen which are “translated” into the most appro-priate REL. The findings flow into a prototype application profile which is evaluated in one iteration step by experts according to heuristic evaluation to identify technical and conceptual flaws. Based on the identified flaws, the prototype is revised. Finally, the exemplary application profile for the METS metadata schema is presented and recommendations for further elaborated appli-cation profiles are given.

This thesis analyses linguistic policies in Bulgaria, during the Ottoman, monarchical, communist and post-communist periods and its effects on the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. The linguistic policies in Bulgaria did not follow consistent policies / on the contrary, it followed different policies in different periods. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how the Turkish minority experiences and perceives linguistic rights in the post-communist period, such as study of and in Turkish language, Turkish minority media, use of minority personal names, naming of topographical places and the status of Turkish language in official and administrative institutions. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were carried out in ISiklar (Samuil) municipality in Bulgaria, where Turks constitute the absolute majority of the population. As a result of the analyses of the experiences of the Turkish minority, it was observed that (Turkish) linguistic rights and language were experienced by the Turkish minority in terms of ethnolinguistic identity. It is concluded that symbolic power and diglossia relationships between Turkish and Bulgarian languages affected the ways of perception of (Turkish) linguistic rights by the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.

1 Abstract Thesis title: The legal status of minorities in Russia This work is an overview of the legal status of minorities in Russia and their mutual interaction with the dominant nation in individual historical stages. Its subject is to explore changes in the status of minorities in political, cultural, linguistic, religious and fundamental human rights. This is put in the historical context and the influence of the state's minority policy on state integrity is examined, including the assessment of the adequacy of the state-legal arrangement for the needs of national minorities. The space is also devoted to the administrative division of the country, which plays an important role in Russian terms. The pros and cons of period legislation are evaluated. Its impact on the practical life of minorities is illustrated by examples of specific minorities. The work is structured chronologically, presenting the history of Russia primarily in terms of milestones relevant to national minorities. The first part devoted to the Russian Empire monitors its gradual expansion and differences in the legal status of the conquered nations. Approximately from the middle of the 19th century, the Russian legislation has been directed towards unification, resp. Rusification of the whole empire, while the causes and effects of...