10. A Reading Of The Comprehensive Proposal For The Kosovo Status Settlement In Light Of The OSCE HCNM Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations On National Minorities In Inter-State Relations

Abstract

[ From the outset, international society has struggled with the problem of diversity and its potential to foment controversy, rivalry, and conflict. Questions concerning national minorities are historically among the most contested issues in international relations precisely because they challenge and threaten to undo that uneasy equilibrium intend to preserve peace and stability between states. The Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations follow on from a prior and indeed longstanding European experience of national minorities and inter-state relations. This chapter reviews the evolving content of international norms applied to inter-state relations directed at national minorities with a view to locating the Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations on National Minorities in inter-State relations in its appropriate historical context. Insofar as the international relations directed at minority questions are concerned, the role of kin-states has long proved pivotal in supporting or subverting the principle of neighbourliness. Keywords:Bolzano Recommendations; Bozen Recommendations; good neighbourliness; inter-State relations; international society; kin-states; national minorities , The timing of the Bolzano/Bozen Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations, on the eve of the five-day war between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway province of South Ossetia, seemed portentous. This chapter provides a brief summary of the Bolzano Recommendations, highlighting those aspects which represent continuity and those which depart from the minority rights standards already adopted and promoted by the OSCE and Council of Europe. It turns to the case of Estonia, exploring some of the major influences on Estonia's minority policy since 1991, when Estonia declared its independence. It draws lessons from the case of Estonia to assess the likely impact of the Bolzano Recommendations in countries like Estonia, which must continue to live under the watchful eye of a neighbouring kin-State. Keywords:Bolzano Recommendations; Bozen Recommendations; Estonia's minoritypolicy; inter-State relations; national minorities ]