Examining Minority Rights Protection under the Ethiopian Federal System

Abstract

This research investigates minority rights protection under the Ethiopian federal state structure, its legal instruments and institutional setups. Ethiopia is a land of a diverse society having more than eighty distinct ethnic groups, but the federal system conferred only seven ethnic groups, their own regions subsuming the rest within them. The territorial autonomy of ethno-national groups in Ethiopian federal context – in which the constituent units themselves are diverse – imposes a rigid conception of territory. The constituent unit that empowers autonomy for a particular group – the titular ethno-national group – claims exclusive control over territory and dominance within the constituent unit. Thus, the interests of minorities who are lumped with relatively dominant ethnic groups are not addressed and these minorities have neither been given self-determination nor are recognised as distinct nationalities of the country.