Do Vulnerable Groups Within Ethnic, Religious Or Linguistic Minorities Need Special Standards?

Abstract

Minority rights, which are amongst the oldest recognised rights internationally, have traditionally been concerned with ensuring that members of specific groups are not only protected from persecution but are able to practice their distinct languages, religions and cultures in private and public. These two broad areas - whether minorities have and how to address multiple discrimination - may mean that special standards are needed for the vulnerable within minorities. To assess this it is necessary to examine what the problems actually are affecting vulnerable groups within minorities, and whether the problem is that the existing framework and international legal standards are inadequate, and therefore new ones are needed. Minority rights, i.e. the rights of those belong to ethnic, religious or culturebased groups that happen to be a minority within a particular territory, date back to before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Keywords: framework; international legal standards; minority rights; multiple discrimination; universal declaration of human rights; Vulnerable Groups