MINELRES: ECMI Newsletter No.20, November 2002

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: William McKinney <mckinney@ecmi.de>



ECMI Newsletter No. 20, November 2002

Dear Subscriber,

Welcome to the twentieth issue of the ECMI Newsletter, and thank you for
your interest.

TOPICS

-------------------------------------------
1. Activities
2. Upcoming ECMI Conferences and Activities
3. New ECMI publications
4. Minority Governance in Europe. First volume of joint ECMI/LGI Series
on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues
5. Current journal abstracts from the ECMI Library
6. New Book on Linguistic Diversity and Democracy in Germany
-------------------------------------------

-------------------
1.	Activities
-------------------

Revolving Seminar at the Danish Institute of Border Regions Studies,
Aabenraa, November 11.

Taking Ownership of Dayton: ECMI Civil Society Project in Bosnia and
Herzegovina  Workshop: "National Minorities and the Educational Reform
Process in Bosnia and Herzegovina." Sarajevo, November 22.

Presentation of ECMI and of European standards of minority protection to
Youth Associations of the German minority in Poland, Kompanietor,
November 25.

http://www.ecmi.doc/events.html

-----------------------------------------
2. Upcoming ECMI Conferences and Activities
-----------------------------------------

ECMI international conference "The Role of Interethnic Factors in the
Development of the Kaliningrad Oblast", in cooperation with the
Schleswig Institute of Peace (SHIP) and the Council of Europe,
Kaliningrad, November 29-30.

ECMI Montenegro Negotiation and Capacity Building Project: Training
event on EU Accession and minority rights in Serbia, Montenegro and
Sandzak. Kotor, Montenegro, December 5-6.

ECMI seminar "National Integration in Estonia and Latvia: 2000 - 2002",
concluding workshop as part of the project "Accession to the EU and
National Integration in Estonia and Latvia", Flensburg, December 6-8.

ECMI Kosovo/a Civil Society Project, workshop of the Standing Technical
Working Group on "Economics and Development", Pristina, Kosovo/a,
December 7.

ECMI Montenegro Negotiation and Capacity Building Project: Training
event on Sandzak as part of a Euroregion. Kotor, Montenegro, December
7-8.

ECMI NGO Network for the Improvement of Interethnic Relations in the
Republic of Macedonia: Annual General Assembly Meeting, Skopje, December
8-9.

ECMI - Konrad Adenauer Foundation Round Table "Minorities in
Democracies", South East European University, Tetovo, December 10. 

Taking Ownership of Dayton: ECMI Civil Society Project in Bosnia and
Herzegovina  "Annex 8 Implementation Efforts: A Progress Report on the
Cultural Heritage Association and Civil Society Efforts". The meeting
will be followed by a children's art exhibition, media event, and
reception. Sarajevo,  December 14.

http://www.ecmi.doc/events.html


-----------------------------------
3. New ECMI publications
-----------------------------------

Please remember that all ECMI publications can be
downloaded at:
http://www.ecmi.de/doc/public_list.html
 

ECMI Report #35
Vogel, Tobias K.
"Negotiation and Capacity Building in Montenegro", Workshop 5:
"Administration of Justice", Podgorica, 28 June 2002. November 2002, 10
pp., appendix.

ECMI Report #36
Perry, Valery
"ECMI Civil Society Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Ensuring
Effective Implementation of Annex 8 through the Establishment of a
Cultural Heritage Association", Implementation Workshop 1, Sarajevo, 4
October 2002. November 2002, 17 pp., appendix.


------------------------------------------
4. Minority Governance in Europe.
First volume of joint ECMI/LGI Series on
Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues
------------------------------------------

Kinga G�l (ed.) 2002. Minority Governance in Europe. Ethnopolitics and
Minority Issues 1. Budapest: Local Government and Public Service Reform
Initiative.

To order, please send an email to LGIpublications@osi.hu

Minority Governance in Europe is the first volume in the new ECMI/LGI
Series on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues. The Series is a joint
venture of the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and the Local
Government and Public Service Reform Initiative (LGI). The ECMI/LGI
Series aims to provide a highly visible and accessible platform for
ECMI's cutting-edge studies. These multi-author works are the result of
the Centre's cooperative research projects, often lasting a number of
years. While these projects were at times supported by conferences and
seminars, the resulting books attempt to present a coherent and
comprehensive picture of the area under investigation.

The majority of countries in the former Eastern bloc, in particular in
Central and Eastern Europe, feature multiethnic societies.
Decentralization and the transition to a free market environment have
made this characteristic of nation-states more visible and have raised
the claim for a proactive approach toward multiethnic community
management. The first step for countries that plan to solve ethnic
conflicts in a peaceful way is to draft legislation on individual and
collective minority rights. The second step is to implement these rules
and manage the public sector in accordance with the accepted principles.

The ECMI/LGI Series makes a significant contribution to the relevant
literature and research in this field by providing information and 'food
for thought' for public officials as well as practitioners concerned
with emerging policy issues related to minorities.

http://www.ecmi.de/doc/public_studies01.html


------------------------------------------
5. Current journal abstracts from the ECMI Library
------------------------------------------

Weller, Marc (2002). "Undoing the global constitution: UN Security
Council action on the International Criminal Court". International
Affairs 78 (4), pp. 693-712.

The adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
marked the culmination of the international constitutional law making of
the twentieth century. The Statute reflects a vision of an advanced
universal legal order, administered through a process of multilayered
international governance. The author examines the key elements of this
design, including the doctrine of universality of international criminal
jurisdiction, the process of universal law making and international
institution building. The author places these concepts, and the ICC
itself, into the the context of the emerging international
constitutional order. He also considers the attempts of the United
States government to undermine some of the key assumptions that underpin
the concept of the ICC. In addition to analyzing the objections put by
the US government, the author addresses its campaign in the UN Security
Council to exempt US service personnel and others from the reach of the
court. He argues that this episode represents a very important factor in
the possible development of two parallel international legal systems:
one of universal application, and a special set of rules of exemptions
that, it is argued, should only apply to the one remaining superpower: a
"lex USA".
 

Pettai, Vello and Klara Hallik (2002)."Understanding processes of ethnic
control: segmentation, dependency and co-optation in postcommunist
Estonia". Nations and Nationalism 8 (4), 505-529.

Amidst an exhaustive range of studies regarding ethnopolitics in
post-communist Estonia, this article sets out a new framework derived
from Ian Lustick's model of ethnic control. The authors argue that one
of the key reasons for ethnic peace and stability in Estonia over the
past ten years has been a considerable degree of control instituted by
the Estonian political community over its sizeable Russian speaking
minority. This control is analyzed using Lustick's three main indicators
of segmentation, dependence, and co-optation. In addition, the authors
differentiate within each of these categories between structural,
institutional and programmatic levels of control measures. The aim is to
place Estonia into a  better comparative perspective by bringing to
light its particular configuration of control mechanisms. The article
concludes with an assessment of what this configuration might mean for
future ethno-political developments.

McGarry, John (2002). "Democracy in Northern Ireland: experiments in
self-rule from the Protestant Ascendancy to the Good Friday Agreement".
Nations and Nationalism 8 (4), 451-474.

Pierre van den Berghe has argued that democracy in divided  societies
can take five different forms: Herrenvolk democracy, ethnic democracy,
liberal democracy, multicultural democracy and consociational democracy.
The author argues that each of van den Berghe's five versions of
democracy, or relatives of them, has been experimented with in pre
partition Ireland and Northern Ireland. While all have clear limits, the
one that is most suited to Northern Ireland's conditions is
consociational democracy. The article discusses some limits of the
consociational approach in Northern Ireland but also defends it against
common criticisms.
 
-----------------------------------------
6. New Book on Linguistic Diversity and Democracy in Germany
-----------------------------------------

Sprachenvielfalt und Demokratie in Deutschland. Zusammengestellt von
Alastair G.H. Walker.  Dokumentation des Kongresses vom 16. - 17.
November 2001 in den Landesvertretungen Niedersachsen und
Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin. Brussels: European Bureau for Lesser Used
Languages, Komitee f�r die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 131 pp.,  ISBN
2-9600341-0-4

To order this book, please contact Karl-Peter Schramm at the following
email address. Elisabeth.Schramm@t-online.de

This book is in German. The following summary was provided by Mr
Alistair G.H. Walker.

How should a democratic state treat its linguistic minorities? To what
extent can Germany be considered to have a democratic approach to its
indigenous language groups? These were two of the questions underlying a
congress held in Berlin to mark the "European Year of Languages" in 2001
entitled "Sprachenvielvalt und Demokratie in Deutschland".

The German Member State Committee of the European Bureau for Lesser Used
Languages which organized the congress in cooperation with the B�ndnis
f�r Demokratie und Toleranz and with the support of the Federal Ministry
of the Interior and the Hermann-Niermann-Stiftung has now published the
proceedings of the congress which it is hoped will encourage the
development of language planning and language politics further both in
Germany as well as in Europe generally.

The proceedings are divided into four parts: following the introductory
statements three keynote speeches approach the central theme from a
global-scientific, a European and a German point of view. Within a
political forum members of three linguistic communities discuss subjects
of current interest with leading politicians, and a fourth part is
devoted to demonstrating projects focusing on the question of language
acquisition in a minority or regional language. 

In her opening address the Parliamentary Secretary in the Federal
Ministry of the Interior, Cornelie SonntagWolgast, sets the scene by
stating that Germany willingly recognizes the importance of the
linguistic diversity in the country, referring to the need to respect
different cultural and political identities and to understand the
significance of multilingualism in modern society, themes which proved
to be central to the congress. She suggests that a certain priority
might be given in modern education to the development of pedagogical and
didactic concepts for multilingualism encompassing indigenous, immigrant
and international languages.

In the first keynote speech Els Oskaar (University of Hamburg) discusses
the role of language for the development of an individual's personal,
ethnic and social identity, pointing out that multilingualism including
mother tongues can often prove beneficial to a child's development and
to intercultural communication. Philip Blair (Council of Europe) then
describes the democratic principles underlying the European Charter and
explains how the Council of Europe had used these ideas as a basis for
establishing norms for the protection and promotion of minorities and
their languages within a culturally highly heterogeneous Europe. Stefan
Oeter (University of Hamburg) finally focuses on the problem of
democracy being based on the rule of the majority and discusses this
theory's limitations, arguing that special codes of protection are
needed for minorities which, once accepted as a basic consensus, in turn
incul obligations for the state. Democracy is considered a system
permanently seeking a balance between the interests of the majority and
those of the minorities.

Education was a central theme in the political forum where
representatives of the North Frisians, Sorbs and Sinti and Roma
discussed with leading politicians such questions as to why there is no
programme of bilingual Frisian-German education in North Frisia, or why
a Sorbian school is in imminent danger of being closed. The Sinti
contribution centred on the need for greater recognition of Romani in
the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, arguing that
Romani as a mother tongue was endangered due to the stigmatization still
present in modern Germany and also as a direct result of the mass murder
exercised on the Sinti and Roma under the National Socialist regime. 

To complement the more theoretical deliberations six projects were
presented giving practical demonstrations of language acquisition in
Sorbian and Sater Frisian pre-school groups, the promotion of Romani in
school, the use of Danish in adult education, and the acquisition of Low
German within the framework of radio broadcasting and theatre
productions.


We hope you have enjoyed this twentieth issue of the ECMI Newsletter,
and we hope you will remember to tell
interested colleagues about it.

If you have any comments or suggestions for improvement of this
newsletter, please contact William McKinney at: 
mckinney@ecmi.de