European Norms, Local Interpretations: Minority Rights Issues And Related Discourses In Lithuania After EU Expansion

Abstract

During the 1990s, national (also known as “traditional”) minorities and their rights in pre—European Union (EU), postcommunist Europe were the focus of academic research, international activism, and domestic debates. The European organizations, such as the European Union, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and the Council of Europe (CoE), attempted to internationalize relations between the “host” states and national minorities. They tried different approaches, including publicizing best practices, identifying the most efficient ways to manage diversity, promoting minimum standards of minority rights, and pursuing “case-specific interventions,” engineered to prevent ethnic conflict.1 However, by and large, these initiatives received a cold shoulder from the intended norm takers (the postcommunist governments and societies) because, as Kymlicka argues,2 two main conditions—human rights guarantees and “desecuritization” of minority rights, understood as the ability to detach national security from minority issues—were missing in the postcommunist contexts.