The Emergence and Selective Enforcement of International Minority-Rights Protections in Europe after the Cold War _*

Daniel T. Froats

Center for International Security and Arms Control
MacArthur Consortium Working Papers in Peace and Cooperation
Dan Froats, Series Editor
December 1996

The MacArthur Foundation Consortium on International Peace and Cooperation, a joint program of the University of Minnesota, Stanford University, and the University of Wisconsin, is committed to rethinking the study of international peace, security, and cooperation. The Consortium’s research agenda currently centers on four themes: (1) ethnicity, the state, and security; (2) effective democracy and popular empowerment; (3) sustainable development; and (4) global processes, transnational networks, and international governance. The Consortium supports graduate training for doctoral students working in these theme areas; a series of inter-university workshops and an annual Summer Institute involving graduate students, junior faculty, and senior scholars; and publication of scholarly works emerging from this research. The Consortium supports interdisciplinary scholarship, and encourages participants to place their work in a broad policy context.

 

Executive Summary

This essay surveys and seeks to explain the (re-)emergence and enforcement of international minority-rights standards in Europe after the Cold War. The period since 1989 has seen a marked divergence between strengthening minority-rights standards at the international level and worsening conflict and repression in many states in the region. Enforcement efforts by the CSCEIOSCE, Council of Europe, and European Union have been modest and are focused on states integrating economically and militarily into Western Europe.

Of the three theories of international politics—normativism, liberal institutionalism, and realism—which could account for these developments, I argue that a realist accounting goes furthest. Normativist accounts center on the spread of international norms among elites and the operation of transnational issue networks; both phenomena have occurred in the issue-area of minority rights but appear weak compared with anti-minority forces in the region. Liberal institutionalists see new democratic leaderships in Central and Eastern Europe as the source of expanding international commitments; a handful of new regimes were pro-accommodation during the initial post-communist period, but most have been distinctly illiberal in the area of minority rights, seeking instead to (re-)nationalize cultural politics.

Minority-rights protections at the European level reflect in many respects Western efforts to stabilize the post-Cold War order by limiting the impact of state-minority conflicts in post-communist states. Regional organizations have facilitated domestic compromises, notably through the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Greater influence has been exerted over target governments through conditions on membership in Western regional organizations, in particular the Council of Europe, NATO, and the European Union. However, Western states have been unwilling as a group to deny economic and military ties based on non-enforcement of minority-rights standards, by the evidence of the moribund Pact on Stability in Europe and the difficulties of implementing minority-rights provisions with respect to former Yugoslav republics (the latter is not examined in detail here). Rather, a more complex and variegated web of bilateral agreements on the status of minorities appears the dominant pattern.

 

Inter-ethnic and state-minority conflicts, “the New Europe’s old issue,” have reemerged as major threats to political stability in East Central Europe and the former Soviet republics with the collapse of communist regimes and the fading of East-West rivalry (Cuthbertson and Leibowitz 1993). These conflicts are fueled by the mutual insecurity of minority groups and governments in a region experiencing great political uncertainty. Many consider that international guarantees for the rights of minorities could make a key contribution to resolving state-minority conflicts and thereby uphold human rights, democracy, and ultimately peace in the region.

Beginning in 1990, European governments agreed on a remarkable set of common principles for the treatment of ethno-cultural minorities within their borders. These standards have been repeatedly affirmed in important treaty settlements and multilateral declarations. Yet implementation and enforcement of these standards by Europe’s major regional organizations, the OSCE, Council of Europe, and European Union, has been uneven and inadequate by their own principles. Enforcement efforts have been focused on post-communist states bordering Western Europe. Recalcitrant governments have been compelled to legislate minority rights domestically only where Western states linked minority protection to military and economic security.

Why did European states rapidly endorse minority-rights standards after 1989, and why was international enforcement limited to those states currently integrating economically and militarily with Western Europe? The study of international politics offers three explanatory frameworks: normativism, liberal institutionalism, and realism. For normativists, international human-rights protections result from two processes: the spread of liberal norms of human rights, shrinking the scope of sovereignty norms, and the operation of “transnational issue networks” of activists and officials seeking policy change. Liberal-institutionalists examine how domestic political competition and international cooperation shape foreign policy behavior; they argue that new democratic leaderships have sought to bind themselves to ethnic pluralism through international commitments, assisted by like-minded democracies in the West. While both theories identify important phenomena, neither accounts for the embedding of minority-rights issues within broader security concerns and for the strong opposition of nationalizing governments to minority protection.

I argue that a realist analysis of changes in state power and security interests stemming from the collapse of the Soviet bloc goes furthest in explaining the emergence and selective enforcement of minority-rights standards in Europe after 1989. The breakdown of Soviet regional hegemony precipitated Western efforts to stabilize the new favorable status quo in Eastern Europe, in part by inducing disaffected minority groups not to push for the redrawing of borders. Newly independent states in the region sought to integrate with the West for economic and military security reasons but opposed constraints on their capacity to pursue nationalizing policies. As a result, Western states have promoted minority rights in Eastern Europe, but have only prevailed where they linked compliance to military and economic security.

The essay proceeds as follows. Part I details the emergence of minority-rights standards in Europe after 1989. Part II examines the enforcement of these standards through the CSCE/OSCE, Council of Europe, and the European Union. Part III evaluates normativist, liberal-institutionalist, and realist accounts of these developments. Part IV concludes.

 

I. The (Re-)Emergence of European Minority-Rights Standards after 1989

International efforts to protect minorities and establish principles for peaceful state-minority relations are nothing new—they date back at least to provisions for religious dissenters in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, and were extensive under the League of Nations—but were subdued after World War II. ₁ Neither the United States nor the USSR favored an international system of minority-rights guarantees after 1945, and, with isolated exceptions, the status and rights of ethno-cultural minorities became invisible issues during the Cold War (Claude 1955). Governments were left to determine policies toward minorities so long as conflicts did not undermine bloc stability. A few state-minority conflicts, such as the Cyprus conflict and the situation of German-speakers in Italian South Tyrol/Alto Adige, resulted in bilateral or “minilateral” settlements, but their provisions did not result in general international obligations.

Minority-rights guarantees reemerged with remarkable speed after the end of the Cold War. European leaders concluded a series of joint commitments with regard to ethno-cultural minorities, most notably the June 1990 concluding document of the Copenhagen CSCE meeting (the first such Europe-wide conference after the collapse of communist authority in Eastern Europe). The “Copenhagen Document” sets forth extensive rights for national minorities as basic to liberal democracy: “[p]ersons belonging to national minorities have the right freely to express, preserve and develop their ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious identity and to maintain and develop their culture in all its aspects, free of any attempts at assimilation against their will” (Article 32). Members of minorities are entitled freely to use their language, to establish schools and institutions, to practice their religion, to maintain “unimpeded contacts” across frontiers with affiliated persons, and to participate in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (32.1–32.6). Participating states commit to consult, protect, and promote minority communities, and affirm the need to provide adequate minority-language schooling and administrative access (33–35). Democratic institutions are seen as key to accommodating the legitimate interests of minorities. Despite its relative obscurity outside diplomatic and activist circles, the Copenhagen document has remained a defining statement of standards for state-minority relations.

The rights first enumerated at Copenhagen have been reaffirmed in the concluding documents of CSCE/OSCE and Council of Europe summits since 1989 and are reflected in two regional conventions, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (see below). These standards have been referenced in major bilateral and multilateral accords, including those applied to states emerging from the former Yugoslavia.

The international minority-rights standards that emerged in Europe after 1989 are remarkable in several respects. Normatively, these standards greatly expand what are considered human rights at the international level. They challenge core elements of state and national sovereignty over the organization of the state and the political status of domestic ethno-cultural groups. They hold some rights to be above state prerogative and above the will of majorities. Politically, they are remarkable in that they emerged despite the traditional opposition of many states in the region to recognizing domestic minority groups. ₂

 

II. International Enforcement of Minority-Rights Standards in Europe

The divergence between stronger international minority-rights standards and worsening domestic political pressures on minorities implies that international minority-rights norms are meaningful to the extent that actors can monitor, facilitate, and where necessary enforce implementation.

The OSCE, Council of Europe, and European Union have each been involved in state-minority issues. Pressure from these regional organizations, notably through the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, has provided a salient basis for action against a state on minority-rights violations. The more powerful tools of influence, namely linkage to broader economic and security issues, have been targeted at a handful of states in East Central Europe.

A. CSCE/OSCE and State-Minority Relations

The mandate and institutions of the Organization for (formerly Conference on) Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE/CSCE) ₃ have been transformed since the collapse of communist regimes and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Once a codification of the Cold War order, the OSCE has been redirected to managing civil conflicts and promoting democratic institutions, through the activities of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, on-site missions, and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). These institutions have facilitated resolution of state-minority conflicts according to principles of democracy and tolerance (Peck 1996: chap. 8).

The OSCE minority-rights agenda rests on the continuous diplomatic support of leading states, and OSCE activities (with the partial exception of the HCNM and ODIHR) remain diplomatic and intergovernmental in nature. As many have noted, the consensus and consensus-minus-one rules limit its ability to censure and coerce individual states. Only in cases of strong support by major powers for security reasons, as in ex-Yugoslavia, has the OSCE wielded the mandate and resources to enforce these commitments.

Minorities and the Helsinki Process, 1973–1989

Launched at the height of détente in Europe, the CSCE originated as a quid pro quo among the United States and Soviet-led blocs in which the West recognized post-1945 territorial and political borders in exchange for the promise of conventional force reductions (which did not materialize until after 1989) and the recognition on the international stage of basic human rights by communist states. Minority rights were not part of this quid pro quo. Soviet bloc states were vulnerable domestically on nationality issues and blocked attempts to legislate them outside the communist bloc. Western states, while supporting the cause of subject nations in the Soviet bloc (most notably the Baltic republics), would not support a system of intrusive standards with regard to their own polities.

The 1975 Helsinki Final Act reflected the subjugation of minority issues to raison d’état during the Cold War. While governments committed not to deny basic rights to individuals based on minority status, ₄ there are no provisions for members of ethno-cultural minorities to prevent such discrimination. Its non-discrimination provisions are applicable only in states “on whose territory national minorities exist,” an escape clause for governments which deny the separate status or national character of particular groups (e.g., the Turkish government vis-à-vis Kurds). Individuals are not given the right of identity to choose and express membership in an ethnic or cultural group, nor any capacity to exercise these rights alone or in community with others within the state or in other states.

Second, the Helsinki commitments pointedly excluded efforts to change the political and territorial status quo. A document of mutual recognition among European states, the Helsinki Final Act excludes intervention in domestic state-society relations. ₅ No provision was made for enforcing Human Dimension commitments. ₆ Though the Helsinki process is rightly regarded as a normative milestone of human rights in Europe, it offered scant assurance to ethno-cultural groups not possessed of a state.

The Post–Cold War CSCE/OSCE: Managing Internal Conflict

Since the end of the Cold War, the CSCE/OSCE has been directed toward preventing and resolving civil conflicts, including state-minority relations. ₇ This mandate encompasses a range of conflict-management measures within a liberal democratic framework, from mediation and conciliation to assisting in multilateral sanctions and peacekeeping missions to long-term institution-building. A radical shift for the CSCE, the internal-conflict mandate reflects a shared fear of the potential for economic hardships and political uncertainties within ex-communist states, combined with prominent inter-ethnic disputes, to undermine the political and military status quo within Europe. In 1992, the CSCE was charged with addressing these threats comprehensively. ₈

Importantly, leaderships of both major powers in Europe favored this mandate, the United States because the CSCE/OSCE offered conflict management “on the cheap” without threatening NATO, the USSR because it could remain involved in a pan-European security dialogue, and later Russia because the mandate affirmed its interests in the fate of the large Russophone diaspora (Hurlburt 1995).

Implementing the internal-conflict mandate implied a far-reaching expansion of CSCE capabilities. The High Commissioner on National Minorities, on-site missions and delegations, and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights are as its most important vehicles in the area of state-minority relations.

High Commissioner on National Minorities

Since its inception in 1993 as a vehicle for early warning and early action in state-minority and inter-ethnic conflicts, ₉ the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities has proven an active and effective facilitator of negotiated compromise, but one distinctly limited in scope.

The HCNM mandate is an innovation in several respects (Zaagman 1994). It empowers an international agent to investigate state-society relations in the sensitive area of minority issues, including the capacity to enter states and communicate with minority and other representatives ₁₀ without the explicit consent of the state concerned. The HCNM can determine where and when to intervene, and is directed to act before a potential conflict has threatened international security (Article 3).

Yet the HCNM is not granted, and in most instances is specifically denied, capacity to act as a human-rights enforcer or minority ombudsperson. The mandate bars consideration of “violations of CSCE commitments with regard to an individual person belonging to a national minority” (Article 5c). The HCNM mandate excludes “situations involving organized acts of terrorism” (Article 5b), effectively precluding involvement in Turkey, Northern Ireland, Spain, and other politically sensitive conflicts involving prominent member states.

Since 1993, the HCNM office has interceded in a number of minority conflict situations in Central and Eastern Europe ₁₁ ; despite very modest resources by the standards of international organizations (on the order of $500,000 annually), it is arguably the most active conflict-prevention mechanism of its kind (Peck 1996: chapter 8). HCNM representatives have sought to facilitate negotiations and public dialogue on minority issues by mediating and by promoting domestic institutions which provide for permanent state-minority dialogue and dispute resolution (in particular roundtables and ombudspersons). HCNM officials have made little attempt to exert public pressure on parties; quite the contrary, they argue that such pressure tends to escalate conflicts (Zaagman 1995). By the same reasoning, the HCNM has to date never issued a formal early warning to the OSCE as envisioned in the mandate, preferring instead to mediate and monitor a conflict directly.

The selective focus of HCNM efforts is evident in Table 1, which abstracts official HCNM delegations through mid-1995. HCNM activity is centered in the states in Eastern Europe whose conflicts are most likely to impact Western European interests, and as a consequence has not given corresponding attention to the Caucasus and Central Asia. More interesting is where the HCNM has not become involved, namely in the Russian Federation and in Western Europe and North America.

The High Commissioner’s office has visibly facilitated domestic compromises in conflicts such as that of Estonia in mid-1993, when the issuing of a restrictive alien law led to efforts by ethnic Russian communities to hold referenda on autonomy; at the request of the Estonian government, High Commissioner Max van der Stoel mediated and eventually secured revision of the law (Huber 1994). In other cases, conflict dissipated or a single party prevailed irrespective of HCNM involvement (e.g., Crimea). Finally, HCNM-sponsored agreements have failed in prominent cases such as that of Hungarian-speakers in Slovakia and Romania, where ruling coalitions have been conciliatory internationally while decisively rejecting local autonomy and language rights domestically. Even in such cases the HCNM has arguably given voice and reassurance to minority groups and to embattled governments (including those of patron states).

The HCNM’s modest success can be attributed primarily to support by leading states individually and in the regular statements of leading OSCE organs backing involvement in particular state-minority conflicts (the HCNM is careful to secure such statements). This support is reflected in increasing budgetary resources (Zaagman 1995). Unexplored, but often cited by informants, is behind-the-scenes pressure by Western states to encourage Central and Eastern European governments to submit to HCNM scrutiny and to implement recommendations, or at least not to be in open defiance of the HCNM. For its part, the HCNM has chosen when and how to intervene so as not to alienate target governments.

The HCNM’s limited mandate, low-profile diplomacy, and aversion to any “escalation” reflect its role as an agent of facilitation rather than enforcement.

On-Site Missions and Delegations

OSCE on-site missions and delegations monitor and facilitate civil relations within states, and most have concerned state-minority and inter-ethnic conflicts. ₁₂ As of early 1996, ten such missions had been established, in addition to the more recent multifaceted engagement in Bosnia, with numerous other ad hoc rapporteur delegations in the Balkan, Baltic, Caucasus, and Central Asian states. ₁₃

The scope of these missions and delegations has varied widely, from brief visits to the complex administrative functions under way in Bosnia under the Dayton accords. They have included fact-finding and monitoring, advising local authorities, and in some cases mediating in a civil conflict (most notably in Moldova, where the mission sponsored the first joint statement of principles among the warring parties, and in Chechnya, where the OSCE Assistance Group became an early locus of negotiations between Russian military representatives and Chechen rebels). Rapporteur missions have examined allegations of human-rights abuses in extremely sensitive contexts, including the Yugoslav conflict.

As with the HCNM, the effectiveness of these on-site missions is difficult to assess beyond anecdotal evidence. The missions operate under severe resource constraints and must maintain the consent of the host government lest they be marginalized or evicted like the early mission to Kosovo/Sandjak/Vojvodina. Many states have refused to cooperate in practice: the Russian government, for instance, refused access to its controversial “peacekeeping” facilities in Moldova and Georgia (Hurlburt 1995).

The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

The Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, created in November 1990 as the Office for Free Elections, gathers information from official and non-governmental sources, monitors elections, sponsors conferences and training seminars, and provides recommendations to participating states on legal issues. The ODIHR is notable for its “low-politics” approach to issues of democracy and human rights (e.g., translating international human-rights texts into various languages) and its work with NGOs. In this sense it differs from other OSCE institutions which take a more diplomatic approach. The ODIHR has shown an openness to minority-rights issues, particularly the plight of the Roma.

The ODIHR cannot provide any assurance that OSCE rights are respected: it is not empowered to investigate specific violations of human-rights commitments, let alone censure states. It can only facilitate the activities of other actors. It operates in the same sensitive climate as other OSCE institutions, dangling on a thin leash of financial and political support by member states.

Effectiveness of OSCE Enforcement

OSCE institutions have promoted minority rights and facilitated their implementation. The HCNM and missions provide independent and reliable channels of communication and information in state-minority and inter-ethnic conflicts. Along with the ODIHR, they offer expert assistance in forging democratic compromises and building institutions. The OSCE may provide political cover for state-minority compromises, giving legitimacy to unpopular language and autonomy measures, and acting as a lightning rod for criticism. OSCE scrutiny illuminates minority issues in areas out of the normal purview of international attention.

OSCE capacities to enforce minority-rights guarantees are significant but weak. It has no capacity to sanction states, except in extraordinary cases by excluding them from the process of deliberation (an extreme remedy applied only to Serbia-Montenegro). Intervention has been entirely lopsided, centered almost without exception on Central and Eastern Europe and focusing on cases where powerful minorities or their patrons threaten armed conflict. No OSCE institution can consider individual petitions regarding specific violations. OSCE standards in the area of state-minority relations strike a reasonable balance between the concerns of ethno-cultural minorities and democratic majorities. But the OSCE’s powers to ensure implementation of these commitments are sharply limited.

B. Council of Europe and Minority Rights

The Council of Europe is based on the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which binds member states to maintain democratic institutions and to respect certain human rights deemed as fundamental, a reaction to Europe’s fascist experience. Individuals alleging violations of these rights can sue governments at the European Commission and Court of Human Rights, which issue binding judgments on states subjecting themselves to their authority (burdened by its own success, this system is being streamlined). Council membership has become a respected accreditation and guarantee for human rights and the democratic process, though prominent exceptions occur (e.g., the Turkish government’s repression of Kurds).

The Council was not initially intended as a vehicle for promoting minority rights or ethnic accommodation. Although the Convention prohibits denying basic rights on the basis of minority status, ₁₄ it does not specify rights or protections for members of minorities, such as the use of minority languages or the preservation of minority identity. The Council’s activities in the cultural and local government areas had positive implications for the treatment of ethno-cultural minorities. The European Charter of Local Self-Government (1985) supported the principle and practice of local autonomy, an important issue for regionally concentrated minorities.

The Post-1989 Minority-Rights Agenda

The Council of Europe was greatly strengthened by the collapse of communism. In shifting its focus from Western to Eastern Europe, the Council assumed greater resources and a higher profile. Western European states have directed its institutions to support liberal democracy and promote Western interests in Central and Eastern Europe, while post-communist governments in the region have seen the Council as a stepping-stone to full economic and political integration with the West. The Council’s mixed record of intervention in state-minority conflicts, however, has shown the selectiveness of Western efforts to shape the domestic politics of states in the region.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (COEPA) ₁₅ has been the primary international advocate of minority rights in Europe since 1989. Its largely internationalist membership is self-selected on the basis of activism on issues of democracy and human rights, and includes vocal minority advocates and relatively few anti-European nationalists. As in the European Parliament, COEPA representatives have used activism on minority issues to augment their political leverage, as when an Assembly majority opposed and delayed Russian admission to the Council over the war in Chechnya. Since the COEPA’s role is deliberative rather than legislative, its activism has relatively low costs.

Parliamentary Assembly initiatives have resulted in two regional conventions: the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (neither has come into force as of mid-1996). Not subject to enforcement via the Council’s human rights legal system, both conventions are largely symbolic.

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, concluded in November 1992, is a modest enumeration of language policies and rights, subject to the discretion of individual governments. Even should it come into force, the Charter is likely to remain relatively obscure, but may give symbolic weight to minority causes in domestic and bilateral disputes.

The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, negotiated following the October 1993 Vienna summit, restates principles of state-minority coexistence but confers no binding minority rights or state obligations. ₁₆ It precludes all discrimination by virtue of minority status (Articles 3, 4) and mentions language rights and other issues of concern to minority groups, but always subject to the discretion and interpretation of governments. ₁₇ Along with the Minority Languages Charter, the framework convention would establish the first report and review procedures on state-minority issues, but with no complaint or petition procedures.

Finally, the Parliamentary Assembly has issued a series of calls ₁₈ for a protocol on minority rights to the 1950 Convention enforceable by the European Court of Human Rights. This would be the most significant step since the interbellum period in establishing an international minority-rights guarantee. Member states endorsed the measure in principle at the Council’s 1993 Vienna summit, but negotiations were later suspended and none appear on the horizon.

Implementation by the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe’s record in promoting and enforcing minority rights is mixed. The Council of Europe legal system enforces basic “integrity rights” (freedom from threats to one’s person such as arbitrary detention and torture) and civil liberties (e.g., free speech); however, individuals have little or no capacity to counter policies which effectively marginalize or disenfranchise ethno-cultural minorities. Pressure to implement minority rights has been most effective in the process of application for membership, where governments have made extensive commitments to institute legal and political mechanisms for minority rights and political autonomy. However, governments have frequently diluted or abandoned these commitments after entry.

The Council has exercised strongest influence where post-communist states in Central and Eastern Europe have applied for membership. ₁₉ The European Commission on Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) gives extensive rulings on whether the state’s constitution and legal order are in conformity with the 1950 Convention and other Council of Europe standards. Its reports are objective and open. The Parliamentary Assembly is frequently directed to rule on accession, a means of extracting government commitments on human rights and minority issues. ₂₀ In the cases of Russia and Croatia, officials issued extensive formal commitments to ratify relevant conventions and to alter constitutional articles and legal procedures to ensure democracy and respect for human rights. ₂₁ Member states face exclusion or later suspension should they fully abrogate the democratic process or rule of law (as Greece was forced to leave the Council from 1970 to 1974).

The Council of Europe has a highly developed system for monitoring human-rights practices through petitions by aggrieved individuals and groups and (on occasion) by other member states. ₂₂ The Council’s legal organs process a considerable volume of petitions—25,000 from 1954 to 1995, 1,500 of which have been examined on their merits—covering a broad range of issues (Council of Europe 1995b). ₂₃ This decentralized monitoring system is more effective than self-reporting by governments in that aggrieved parties have an interest in bringing all available evidence of convention violations. However, it applies only to violations of the 1950 Convention and its protocols, and only after domestic remedies have been exhausted. A government can shield its conduct from formal inquiry in situations “threatening to the life of the nation” (Article 15). This constrains the Council’s effective domain of authority where minority resistance is deemed a threat to the state (e.g., Kurds in Turkey).

Commission and Court of Human Rights rulings have secured basic integrity rights in many contexts. Implementation of Court decisions and awards lies with the inter-governmental Committee of Ministers, which has shown a general willingness to uphold verdicts. Constitutional and appeals courts in many member states have cited and abided by the Court’s rulings. By the evidence of subsequent changes in asylum law and other areas, Council of Europe enforcement is effective, but very slow: contentious cases have taken on average five years to resolve (Peck 1996: chap. 7).

Beyond pressure exerted at the point of application, Council institutions cannot alter political, economic, and/or social discrimination against minorities. The Council of Europe legal system can only act to the extent that rights guaranteed in the 1950 Convention and its protocols are violated, and a minority-rights protocol to this convention is not on the table. The Council has shown only limited willingness to act against prominent states on internal security issues, as in the case of Turkish treatment of the Kurds and British policy in Northern Ireland (although specific killings and prison treatment in both cases were the focus of Court cases).

Council of Europe programs primarily serve to assist member governments in establishing independent and liberal legal systems. Since 1990, the Council has operated Cooperation and Assistance Programs with ex-communist states (both members and non-members) to promote the rule of law and constitutional respect for human rights, through inter-governmental exchanges, training seminars, translation and publication of relevant documents, and expert missions advising governments on legal and constitutional reform. These expert missions, viewed by outside governments and investors as an authority on Western acceptance of laws and constitutions, can signal commitment to liberal-democratic political reform. The Council has sponsored a number of pilot programs with the specific goal of improving inter-ethnic and state-minority relations. For instance, it has sponsored a bilingual radio station in Estonia and joint activities of Roma and majority representatives in the Czech and Slovak republics (Peck 1996: chapter 7). Since local authorities perpetrate and tolerate many abuses against minorities, it is significant that the Council’s aid programs focus on supporting liberal mid-level and lower-level functionaries, especially in the legal profession. These programs are relatively modest, however, given that the Council of Europe’s entire budget for 1996 is approximately $250 million.

The Council of Europe manifests the divergence between minority rights norms and the reality of weak and selective enforcement. At best, the Council facilitates the work of those who would ameliorate the treatment of minorities.

C. European Stability Pact: The Limits of Political Conditionality

The most ambitious region-wide attempt to protect minority rights was the European Union’s “Pact on Stability in Europe.” As initially formulated, European Stability Pact (ESP) negotiations were to link consideration for membership in the European Union to bilateral and multilateral resolution of outstanding minority disputes which could threaten internal or regional stability. Although the ESP itself has faded into obscurity, the linkages it represents remain a lasting engine for Western influence over state-minority relations in Central and Eastern Europe.

Proposed in June 1993 by then prime minister of France Edouard Balladur and adopted by EU heads of government at the December summit in Brussels (the first Joint Action under the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy), the so-called Balladur Plan would use EU economic and political clout to promote stability among frontier states and to avert costly military confrontations and refugee outflows. Future European Union membership for the states of East Central Europe would be conditioned on multilateral and bilateral resolution of ongoing disputes, particularly those involving frontiers and ethno-cultural minorities. Forty-eight states participated in the May 1994 inaugural conference in Paris, which created roundtables to consider issues in the Baltic states and East Central Europe (the agenda excluded the Caucasus and Balkan conflicts on the grounds that these were ongoing). A final conference in March 1995 ₂₄ endorsed a remarkably modest program, to which a number of existing agreements and a new bilateral accord between Hungary and Slovakia are annexed (but not guaranteed); the OSCE was charged with further implementation of the Pact. ₂₅ As the Pact has no specific agenda, it is essentially moribund.

The failure of Stability Pact negotiations to produce significant and lasting political impact is intriguing and unexpected. The Pact garnered considerable initial steam via its link to future European Union membership, but was hampered from the start by the national programs of EU member states and resistance from prospective entrants. The program was held hostage to the political agendas of current EU members: Slovenia was excluded at the insistence of the Italian government (demanding Slovenian compensation for land occupied after World War II), and no consideration was given to the minority issues involving Greece. Target governments in the region, with the prominent exception of Hungary, were quite hostile, and protested the implication that Western Europe might countenance frontier changes. The United States was at best a peripheral supporter; Russian leadership, while supportive of pressure on the Baltic states, opposed the Pact’s political framework given that Russia has little prospect of EU membership. In the end, the Pact was reduced to mainly symbolic value for the domestic French electoral audience and then cut loose, since the OSCE is unlikely to support a parallel and competing structure of commitments.

Given the interests of European Union states in the political and security developments in Eastern Europe, the influence of the EU continues in the region and will likely intensify as these states approach consideration for membership. Countries in the region depend much more on trade with EU member states than these states, whose exports are more diversified, depend on the former. The European Union’s PHARE assistance program will give a minimum of 5.5 billion ECU to the region from 1995 to 1999, most focused on prospective entrants at the EU’s frontiers. ₂₆ These states participate in regular consultations with EU foreign ministers, and an intense program of legal reform to meet EU internal market requirements is currently under way in several states of Central and Eastern Europe. However, attempts to employ this influence for political conditionality meet with the constraints of differing goals among current EU member states; and the potential for strong coalitions, even in ongoing wars such as that in ex-Yugoslavia, is demonstrably limited.

Finally, even where international coalitions can be built around pressure for minority rights, the opposition of target governments in Eastern Europe has been extremely difficult to overcome, as shown by Western Europe’s efforts to shape state-minority relations in the warring states of the former Yugoslavia. Criticized for not having demanded firmer guarantees for the security of minorities in ex-Yugoslav republics during the process of separation, in December 1991, EC foreign ministers stipulated guarantees for non-discrimination and political and cultural rights for minority communities, set forth in the Carrington Plan (which references UN, CSCE, and Council of Europe standards), as the formal prerequisite for diplomatic recognition of ex-Yugoslav republics. The Dayton peace accords included reciprocal minority-rights guarantees in which Western Europe and the United States linked economic and military ties to pledges of tolerance and restitution, the establishment of a human rights ombudsperson for Bosnia appointed by the OSCE, the return of refugees to their former homes, and the delivery of those formally charged with inter-group atrocities to an international criminal tribunal. ₂₇ Of all the provisions of the Dayton accords, those relating to the re-establishment of minority communities and the punishment of genocidal acts have arguably been the least enforced, because of strong opposition from Zagreb, Belgrade, and their local allies (ICG 1996). International minority-rights standards as yet mean little in the context of inter-ethnic war.

 

III. Analysis

Two questions motivate this study. Why did European states rapidly endorse international minority-rights standards after 1989? Why were international enforcement efforts meager, except concerning a handful of states in Central and Eastern Europe? I argue that new norms and new democratic leaderships offer only a partial and flawed accounting of these developments. Rather, shifts in capabilities and security interests stemming from the collapse of Soviet power in Eastern Europe better explain the reemergence and selective enforcement of international minority-rights guarantees after the Cold War.

Normativist Accounts

Many accounts of human rights in international politics argue that shared norms and ideas lead governments to adopt and implement international standards. What I have termed the “normativist” study of world politics is a diverse literature which shares three assertions. ₂₈ , ₂₉ Actors are seen as more than mechanisms for realizing discrete preferences: they have self-understandings which are intersubjectively defined. Individual and organizational identities are held to be endogenous to social interaction (it is constructivist). Second, capacities for instrumental rationality are limited, so that not only preferences but strategies are shaped by social forces. In the terms of Goldstein and Keohane (1993), normativism recognizes both principled ideas (which influence preferences) and causal ideas (which influence strategies to realize interests). Finally, processes of interaction are seen as more important than the structure of interaction among actors (Wendt 1992). This implies that social orderings can be transformed by purposive action based on new understandings.

Normativists characterize the rise of human rights concerns in international politics as a tug-of-war between the existing order of state sovereignty—which proscribes intervention in the domestic politics of other states—and increasing public and elite concern for the treatment of individuals around the world. Most argue that prior to World War II, human rights were firmly subordinated to principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in international law and practice, but since 1945 they have increasingly superseded sovereignty norms (Donnelly 1986). The substantive scope of human rights and civil liberties, and notions of who merits such rights, have expanded steadily in the past century (Finnemore 1996a). Prominent cases of genocide during World War II, the Cold War, and after 1989 galvanized political elites around the world to demand international mechanisms to protect human rights, including the rights of minorities (since minorities are the natural targets of genocide). The right to identity and freedom from discrimination based on minority affiliation are seen as logical extensions of individual rights, the next level of protection from the arbitrary authority of the state and oppressive majority rule in culturally plural states (Koch 1993).

Whereas norms shape preferences, ideas influence strategies. Scholars have recently highlighted the growing concern among Western foreign-policy makers for internal order (“empirical sovereignty”) as the basis for a stable international order (Barnett 1995). The post–Cold War agenda of international organizations has focused less on war among states than armed conflict within states driven by ethnic and regional differences, intractable ideological struggles, and the collapse of state authority.

Strategies may be endogenous to norms. Bruce Cronin (1996) has argued that concern for ethno-cultural minorities in Europe is a by-product of a normative framework in which national units are recognized as the proper bearers of sovereign authority. Applying Western European liberal democracy to ethnically divided states in Eastern Europe (and mutatis mutandis to the rest of the world) necessitated a new focus on minority issues. European regional organizations did not act in a vacuum: the Human-Rights Committee and other UN bodies have sought to expand the scope and salience of minority and indigenous issues at the international level (Thornberry 1991). Normativism seeks to place Western European norms in a broader perspective, at the same time emphasizing the uniquely Western and European content of these norms.

Recently, normativists have argued that transnational “principled issue-networks,” which include activists and intergovernmental and even governmental representatives bound together by shared values and concerns, can influence state behavior by mobilizing public sentiment and the pressure of international organizations (Keck and Sikkink 1995). Similarly, “epistemic communities,” networks of scientific or academic experts (in this case legal and academic specialists in human rights and international law), many of whom are also advocates, can shape public opinion and elite weighing of policy options. Even where elites remain opposed to a policy (i.e., preferences and strategy options are unaffected), popular pressure may force changes in policies.

Aspects of the post–Cold War reemergence of minority-rights standards fit well into a normativist framework. One cannot doubt the sincerity and personal commitment of representatives of NGOs and international organizations seeking ethnic accommodation. Evidence that transnational issue networks operate in the area of minority rights includes links among international human-rights NGOs, minority representatives, and various international representatives, and regional parliaments (in particular the COEPA and the European Parliament), which have cast negative attention on illiberal policies toward minorities. Few might predict ex ante the prominent role of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly on minority-rights issues.

In other respects, normativist accounts do not fit well with the empirical record. Public and elite/activist support for minority rights is particularly problematic as a causal variable, since this support remains thin among both Eastern European and Western European political elites and mass publics. Nor is there a strong epistemic consensus on minority rights, even among human-rights activists, many of whom oppose special rights for ethno-cultural groups in favor of an exclusive focus on individual rights. Instead, European public and parliamentary sentiments have shifted in a nationalist direction, opposing ethnic pluralism.

The protection of minorities does not follow from the preeminence of liberal democracy as a ruling ideology, since liberalism is inimical to group rights (for a recent exception, see Kymlicka [1995]), as are most proponents of majoritarian democracy. Minority rights represent controversial eddies and crosscurrents to liberal democracy.

Moreover, Barnett and others have not convincingly shown that new foreign policy ideas caused or decisively shaped concern for ethno-cultural conflict after the mid-1980s. The rapid shift in attention to issues of state-minority and inter-group conflict during and after the collapse of communist regimes and the outbreak of war in ex-Yugoslavia is better seen as an effort to forestall threats to international order and to the interests of bordering states. The contribution of foreign policy beliefs in this shift would seem only complementary to that of objective interests and constraints.

Finally, it remains to be seen whether transnational principled issue-networks are effective (and not just active) in asserting the rights of ethno-cultural minorities. The resources and organization of NGOs operating in minority issues are meager compared with organizations active in economic issues or even other human rights issues, and divided along ethnic and national lines. Without decisive international support, which is not forthcoming except in cases of great security concern such as that of ex-Yugoslavia, these networks can seldom withstand the domestic political force and legitimacy of anti-minority leaderships and legislatures.

Liberal-Institutionalist Accounts

Liberal-institutionalist analyses share two premises. First, foreign policy is explained in terms of domestic political interests and structures of competition (e.g., the assertion that democracies do not go to war with each other). ₃₀ Second, formal and informal institutions are seen as Pareto-improving and durable mechanisms in which states realize gains from collective action and gain new degrees of freedom domestically. Outcomes at the international level are a function of interstate and domestic bargaining, mediated by existing institutional incentives and constraints (Keohane and Nye 1989).

Liberal-institutionalists make three sets of arguments relevant to the emergence and implementation of minority-rights standards in Europe after 1989:

(1) The overthrow of communist regimes by democratic reformers is seen as the watershed event, temporally and causally prior to the end of Cold War military confrontation. It is the impermanence of these liberal political revolutions which spawned new and extensive forms of international oversight: cognizant of their fragile tenure and the likely future backlash against reform, new democrats sought to bind their polities to democracy and the principles of an open society by committing the state to international scrutiny under human-rights conventions and in regional organizations. Integration into the OSCE, Council of Europe, and European Union would help institutionalize reforms at home, by conferring international legitimacy, economic and technical support, and where necessary outside pressure to counter domestic resistance. Support for an international minority-rights regime would therefore vary with the commitment of leaders to democracy and the threat posed by anti-democratic forces.

By a liberal analysis, minority-rights guarantees in early post–Cold War agreements, the 1990 Copenhagen statement and Charter of Paris for a New Europe, reflect the eagerness of democratic reformers to pursue ethnic accommodation. Minorities had been vocal supporters of liberalization in many (though not all) cases. Prominent reform figures such as Czechoslovak president Vaclav Havel preached national reconciliation.

(2) For liberal-institutionalists, domestic support for ethnic accommodation coincided with international support for conflict prevention measures. Western democracies, assuming the mantle of Woodrow Wilson, sought international protections for minorities in order to stabilize new democracies and prevent ethnically motivated wars in Central and Eastern Europe. The sudden and total collapse of the communist order in the region created tremendous political uncertainty and physical insecurity. The desire for protection creates opportunities for ethnically based appeals, and uncertainty can lead to spiraling inter-group conflict (Lake and Rothchild 1996; Laitin and Fearon 1995). In such a situation, credible guarantees that no group can use the apparatus of the state to exercise or condone ethnic violence reduce incentives for preemptive mobilization and secession. Early and preventive action is warranted, since such guarantees might be most credible and effective prior to the total “ethnification” of politics (Gurr 1993) and the outbreak of armed conflict.

(3) Third, liberal-institutionalists argue that effective implementation of international commitments depends on links between domestic actors interested in enforcement and international institutions which can bolster their position. Constitutions, courts, and the rule of law are held to be particularly important. When the Council of Europe insists on the separation of powers and the rule of law, retrains legal professionals and local officials, and builds ties to national courts, it arguably expands the basis for domestic enforcement of Council of Europe norms where such support is not forthcoming from national governments. ₃₁

Did new regimes seek to accommodate minorities through the same international mechanisms promoting market democracy? Much evidence points against this theory. Even in those states where minority populations gave decisive support to the overthrow of communist regimes (most notably Romania), new nationalist governments turned a cold shoulder to minorities. Rather, democracy and national independence in the region have meant a hardening of state positions toward minority groups. While individual leaders and governments have made sincere efforts toward institutionalizing tolerance and coexistence, the majority of states in the region have pursued exclusive “nationalizing nationalisms” (Rogers Brubaker) and are inimical to minority autonomy and power-sharing.

The overthrow of communist regimes does not explain why states signed on to extensive protections for national minorities. The tension between democratic institutions and minority rights is political and practical, not just philosophical. Democracy has been a mixed blessing at best for ethno-cultural groups permanently subject to the will of antagonistic majorities in divided societies (Horowitz 1993). The breakdown of multinational states in Eastern Europe has created a number of minority groups and corresponding diasporas; political freedom has meant the airing of long-standing and new inter-group grievances. Minorities see a bleak future in much of the region.

Western governments have clearly sought to manage and prevent ethnically based wars in the region. However, these efforts must be viewed in the context of overall alliance concerns and security policies. Western governments have only selectively become engaged in state-minority conflicts; for instance, taking a relatively detached approach to conflicts in the Transcaucasus where Russian intervention is seen as irresistible.

There is evidence from the European Union for the third liberal argument, that regional institutions seek to build links to sub-national actors in order to support liberal policies. However, this argument applies very weakly in the case of minority rights, which unlike most of European Union and Council of Europe case law, concern the basic organization of the state and questions of territorial and “national” integrity. Minority-rights standards are not directly applicable and enforceable in the sense of commitments not to violate negative “integrity rights,” or regional international law in other areas (e.g., trade).

The international activist community, backed in part by Western governments, has clearly sought to stabilize Eastern European democracies through protections for minorities, but in doing so has faced the opposition of most states in the region. The central role of security interests and of coercion necessitate a realist accounting.

A Realist Account

As a first cut, realist theory provides a compelling analysis of the post–Cold War minority-rights regime in terms of the collapse of Soviet power and its profound effects on state interests and capabilities within the European security system.

Realists model world politics as the interaction of states whose leaders are compelled to pursue enduring security interests and are constrained primarily by the competing interests of other states. The realist approach can be reduced to three analytical simplifications. ₃₂ First, states are the central and constitutive actors in world politics, acting as coherent units, at least on issues of state security. The activities of sub-state and supra-state actors are external to the theory and assumed to have only marginal effects. Second, states are compelled by the anarchy of the international environment to be interested foremost in their security. Third, other states are the primary threat to security and barrier to state action, so that the pursuit and exercise of relative power dominate world politics. Realists assume that talk is cheap: state leaders will abrogate commitments and violate principles where such violations advance their material security interests.

The realist approach offers several generic hypotheses of international politics. (1) Where power is concentrated, powerful states shape and defend the international order in their image and interests. International institutions and agreements reflect the interests of powerful states and are unlikely to be Pareto-improving, since the interests of weak and non-status quo states figure only marginally. (2) Where power is not concentrated, there may be little international order at all. Collaboration among sovereign states is difficult to achieve. (3) The costs of overcoming resistance to intervention by target states give a minimalist bias to international institutions: only where their security interests are at stake do powerful states spend the resources necessary to enforce these institutions.

For a realist account, international politics reflect the distribution of power among states, in particular the balance of capabilities among major powers within a system and the asymmetry of capabilities between powerful and weak states. The issue of minority rights in post–Cold War Europe is best understood in the context of the collapse of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe and the weakness of newly independent states vis-à-vis Western Europe and the United States. Whatever the ultimate sources of the breakdown of communist authority after the mid-1980s, ₃₃ this collapse and the Soviet withdrawal shifted Europe’s geopolitical landscape profoundly. Soviet antagonism to Western influence in Eastern Europe after World War II had made unthinkable the cooperation and assistance programs of the post–Cold War period. It is the Soviet withdrawal that distinguished the political transformation of Eastern Europe in 1989 from the failed anti-Communist uprisings of 1956 and 1968.

The central effect of Soviet disintegration has been efforts by newly independent governments to integrate in the Western European military, political, and economic sphere of democratic market states. For reasons detailed below, Western states have made this integration conditional on the endorsement of minority-rights standards, among other provisions. The international minority-rights regime is at its core a Western creation: its design and enforcement have thus reflected the capabilities and security interests of Western Europe and the United States vis-à-vis smaller states in the region.

With the sudden collapse of the Soviet alliance and then the Soviet Union, what is loosely termed the West—the United States and Western European states—stood in a newly advantageous position with regard to both Russia and the newly independent states in the region. Though the United States and Western European states differed on many security issues, they have shared central interests in securing this favorable status quo and in preventing a collapse of order in neighboring states that might provoke costly refugee flows and necessitate military intervention. The West sought to stabilize existing regimes in Eastern Europe foremost by anchoring Eastern Europe to the Atlantic military, political, and (in a more restrictive sense) economic alliances. This integration was not, however, a joining of equals: Western governments would determine which states integrated and on what terms. In particular, the West would insist on protections for minority groups, as a relatively inexpensive (for outside states) means to stabilize existing states and to limit the impact of state collapse where a multinational state was no longer viable.

The Western minority-rights agenda was a by-product, not always consistent, of attempts to promote regional stability and integration with the West while struggling and competing over responses to individual conflicts. In principle, minority-rights guarantees were to prevent inter-group violence in all multi-ethnic post-communist states. In practice, responses to state-minority conflicts were shaped by conflicting interests within the Western alliance, by the need to maintain relationships with interlocutor governments in the region, and by the limited engagement of the United States on this issue. ₃₄

At the other end of the major-power equation, Russian leaders have had sometimes conflicting interests in international minority protections (Kolsto 1993). Russian leaders raise minority-rights issues when they leverage Moscow’s influence over surrounding states. Foreign-policy elites initially used the large Russian diaspora in the other ex-Soviet republics (estimated at 25 million persons) as leverage in bilateral relations and vis-à-vis the West. Russian representatives strongly supported minority rights in the OSCE. Western states, seeking to placate Russian leaders and Russian public opinion (while continuing to balance Russia militarily), have encouraged neighboring states to work with Russia on the situation of Russophone minorities and steered clear of the Chechen separatist war and other state-minority conflicts within the Russian federation. ₃₅ More recently, Moscow’s own struggles with Chechens and other autonomist and secessionist minorities have caused Russian government representatives to take a more cautious line internationally.

The Western minority-rights agenda is part of a larger strategy which can be termed the “democratic conditionality” approach. It relies on placing political conditions on economic and security integration. International commitments are bundled such that states in the region cannot have Europe à la carte; they must accept the preexisting acquis européen, the bundle of international agreements and commitments which are the price of admission. OSCE and Council of Europe principles of democratic institutions and cultural pluralism are not negotiable from their perspective. These standards have become more and not less extensive since Europe’s regional organizations were opened to the newly independent states. For the polities gaining formal independence since 1990, the pressure to conform is particularly strong since these states need international recognition of their borders and lack established security alliances. In many of these states, especially where armed ethnic conflict has broken out, international organizations have exerted strong pressure to adopt and comply with relevant international agreements (see above on Croatia).

To the extent that enforcement of the Western minority-rights agenda is linked to the prospect of integration, a realist analysis would expect greater enforcement and compliance in East Central Europe, including the Baltic states, than in the more distant former Soviet republics. The post–Cold War minority-rights regime has indeed focused on the states of East Central Europe, including the Baltics. EU reform efforts are concentrated on these states; future NATO membership is advocated. This informal economic and security umbrella extends much less to Ukraine, Belarus, and the republics of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, where Russian pressure is felt much more strongly (Maresca 1994).

Most governments in East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union have opposed granting political autonomy and special rights to ethno-cultural minority groups. Nationalizing states have been particularly hostile to regionally concentrated minorities (e.g., Hungarian-speakers in Slovakia and Romania, Russian-speakers in Estonia, Albanian-speakers in Kosovo and Macedonia, etc.) and secessionist/irredentist campaigns (as in Bosnia, Moldova, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, and Georgia). Although one hesitates to paint with a broad brush, international protections for the rights of minorities exist in a climate of heightened parliamentary and public hostility toward minorities (indeed, they would not otherwise be necessary).

Why do nationalizing states go along with Western pressure for accommodating ethno-cultural minorities when it is costly politically for them to comply? The fear of international exclusion drives compliance: the weak states of Central and Eastern Europe fear being left out and behind. Most of the newly independent states have core national interests in securing their independence against the prospect of a resurgent Russian bloc. ₃₆ With limited prospects for military and economic integration within Eastern Europe, the most promising means of security would be integration with the West. They cannot openly defy regional institutions, since membership (particularly in the EU and Council of Europe) is critical to securing economic and military ties to powerful Western states. These governments fear sending negative signals to other governments and to financial markets regarding their commitment to integrate with the West. These economic and security costs are held to exceed the political constraints imposed by continued participation in regional institutions.

Nationalizing states face a complex strategic calculus in the area of state-minority relations, trying to balance the West’s contribution to their security with the ethno-cultural politics of dealing with domestic minorities and neighboring states. To secure their independence and build an economic future, they must build ties to the West. The price of these ties has been, inter alia, guarantees for the rights of minorities, and willingness to negotiate with “patron states” on nationality issues.

As one might expect from a realist perspective, many governments have sought, often quite subtly, to de-link minority rights issues from the broader process of integration with the West. They accede to a proliferation of competing and overlapping international standards and mechanisms, while opposing effective external authority on minority rights issues (such as a specific protocol to the 1950 European Human Rights Convention). Nationalizing governments have shown a repeated willingness to agree to general international standards on minority rights and weak oversight mechanisms, whatever their domestic intentions and constraints. Although some governments have pursued good faith efforts to accommodate particular minorities, those which do not still give lip service to the international community.

With at least four sets of vectors (the United States, Western Europe, Russia, and target states), and given the complex particulars of individual state-minority conflicts, it would be misleading to declare a realist “retrodiction” of minority-rights developments in Europe after the Cold War. Realist analysis suggests that the international protection of minorities cannot be understand in isolation from broader security concerns, a calculus which is likely to vary among states and over time.

Yet the realist approach highlights several key features of minority protection missing from normativist and institutionalist analyses. Normativist and institutionalist analyses presume that governments which sign on to international human rights standards seek out these commitments for ideological or domestic political purposes. Instead, the international protection of minorities has been driven by the overarching security concerns of states in the region and the ability of outside powers to compel recalcitrant governments to comply.

The European minority-rights regime can be summarized as a set of relatively consistent principles of tolerance and pluralism at the international level but linked to an inconsistent set of multilateral, bilateral, and minilateral commitments subject to the discretion of individual governments. The appendix lists the bilateral agreements endorsed in the 1995 European Stability Pact, many of which touch on minority-rights and related cultural issues. Whereas many are obscure planks in Europe’s diplomatic sub-structure, a few, like the Polish-German agreements and the just-signed Hungarian-Romanian treaty, are essential elements of the security policies of the states concerned. Unlike during the Cold War, these agreements, and the regional organizations considered above, operate in a fluid environment in which states are free to respond to domestic political pressures and in which bilateral conflicts can vary considerably. ₃₇

 

IV. Conclusions

This essay examined the reemergence of international minority-rights standards in Europe at the end of the Cold War. Empirically, it found a divergence between flourishing international standards and flagging enforcement, amidst a worsening situation of minorities in much of the region. Enforcement efforts have been limited and focused on the states of East Central Europe. Governments in most of these states, while endorsing principles of ethnic accommodation in regional and international organizations, have opposed implementation of international minority-rights standards and have resisted external authorities.

Of the major theoretical approaches to world politics, realism offers the most analytical leverage in accounting for these developments. The emergence and implementation of international minority-rights standards in Europe has followed shifts in state capabilities and security interests after the collapse of Soviet regional hegemony. The European minority-rights regime, in its inclusions and exclusions, reflects distributions of power in the region.

This study has several implications. First, international minority-rights standards and support for humanitarian intervention is not ipso facto evidence of the influence of international norms and institutions on foreign policy. At a minimum, an analysis must consider the security interests at stake and the power of states to impose constraints on others. Rulers may have key security interests in state-society relations within other units.

Second, the post–Cold War prominence of human-rights norms can only be understood in the context of earlier periods and of overall security concerns. Normativist and liberal-institutionalist scholars imply that the expansion of human-rights standards and the erosion of sovereignty are “unprecedented” and “revolutionary” developments, unique to the post-1945 and post-1989 periods. Realist analysis leads us to expect that concerns for state-society relations in other states are an enduring feature of international politics, and suggests parallels between the post–Cold War and post-1919 periods. In both periods, the collapse of external hegemony led to the emergence of independent states in Eastern Europe and the Transcaucasus, most eager to secure state independence through integration with the West and weak enough initially that Western states could dictate the terms of integration. In the interwar period, limited Western influence and engagement facilitated the Soviet Union’s reabsorption of most of the Russian empire, and the transition of most East Central European states to authoritarian and isolationist regimes. Russian and American strategic and political calculations, and the overall level of Western engagement in East Central Europe and beyond, will determine whether and how domestic tendencies toward state-minority confrontation can be overcome with international support.

Finally, what role does such an analysis leave for international institutions in resolving state-minority conflicts and shielding vulnerable minorities from oppressive state authority? From the evidence and analysis of this study, international institutions can play a facilitating role despite the resistance of target governments. Powerful states have spent significant resources to address civil conflicts in Eastern Europe and to ameliorate and punish massive human-rights violations. However, this activity takes place in the context of sharply limited engagement and strong interests in preserving the political status quo. International minority-rights standards provide the hope of a better future for vulnerable groups in a region of nationalizing states, but as yet little more.

 

Appendix

Agreements Appended to the European Stability Pact (March 1995)

A. “Agreements and arrangements concluded between the interested countries and the Member States of the European Union”

BULGARIA
Belgium—Common Political Declaration (4.4.94)
Germany—Treaty Concerning Friendly Relations and Partnership in Europe (9.10.91)
Greece—Treaty on Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness, Cooperation and Security (7.10.91)
Spain—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (23.5.93)
France—Treaty on Cooperation (18.2.92)
Italy—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (9.1.92)
Netherlands—Joint Political Declaration (20.4.94)
United Kingdom—Joint Declaration (3.6.93)

ESTONIA
Denmark—Joint Protocol on Cooperation (11.3.91)
Germany—Joint Declaration (29.4.93)
France—Treaty on Mutual Understanding, Friendship and Cooperation (26.1.93)

HUNGARY
Belgium—Common Political Declaration (7.9.92)
Germany—Treaty on Friendly Cooperation and Partnership in Europe (6.2.92)
Greece—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (3.4.92)
Spain—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (6.2.92)
France—Treaty on Mutual Understanding and Friendship (11.9.91)
Italy—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (6.7.91)
Netherlands—Joint Declaration (11. 11.92)
United Kingdom—Joint Declaration (28. 5.92)

LATVIA
Denmark—Joint Protocol on Cooperation (18.3.91)
Germany—Joint Declaration (20.4.93)
France—Treaty on Mutual Understanding, Friendship and Cooperation (2.3.93)
Netherlands—Joint Statement (15.4.93)

LITHUANIA
Denmark—Joint Protocol on Cooperation (28.2.91)
Germany—Joint Declaration (21.7.93)
France—Treaty on Mutual Understanding, Friendship and Cooperation (14.5.92)

POLAND
Belgium—Common Political Declaration (2.7.91)
Germany—Treaty on Good-Neighbourly Relations and Friendly Cooperation (17.6.91); Treaty on the Confirmation of the Polish-German Border (14.11.90)
Spain—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (26.10.92)
France—Treaty on Friendship and Solidarity (9.4.91)
Italy—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (11.10.91)
Netherlands—Joint Declaration (29.9.92)
United Kingdom—Joint Declaration (24.4.91)

ROMANIA
Belgium—Common Political Declaration (7.4.94)
Germany—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Partnership in Europe (21.4.92)
Greece—Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Good-Neighbourliness (28.11.91)
Spain—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (4.2.92)
France—Treaty on Friendly Understanding and Cooperation (20.11.91)
Italy—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (23.7.91)
Netherlands—Joint Statement (7.6.93)
United Kingdom—Joint Declaration (3.6.93)

SLOVAKIA
Germany—Treaty on Good-Neighbourly Relations and Friendly Cooperation (14.9.92)
Spain—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (11.11.91)
France—Treaty on Mutual Understanding and Friendship (1.10.91)
Italy—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (7.6.93)
Netherlands—Joint Declaration (15.9.93)
United Kingdom—Joint Declaration (27.5.92)

 

B. “Agreements and arrangements concluded by the interested countries between them and with other countries invited to the regional round-tables”

BULGARIA
Hungary—Common Declaration (18.4.91)
Poland—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (25.2.93)
Romania—Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Good-Neighbourliness (27.1.92)
Slovakia—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (6.4.92)
Belarus—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (19.10.93)
Moldova—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (7.9.92)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness, Cooperation and Security (6.5.92)
Ukraine—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (5.10.92)

ESTONIA
Hungary—Treaty on the Foundations of Friendly Relations and Cooperation (8.8.92)
Latvia/Lithuania—Declaration on Unity and Cooperation (12.5.90); Trilateral Agreement on Baltic Parliamentary and Governmental Cooperation (13.6.94)
Poland—Treaty on Friendly Cooperation and Baltic Good-Neighbourhood (2.7.92)
Romania—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (11.7.92)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (7.12.93)
Ukraine—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (26.5.92)

HUNGARY
Bulgaria—Common Declaration (18.4.91)
Estonia—Treaty on the Foundations of Friendly Relations and Cooperation (8.8.92)
Latvia—Treaty on the Foundations of Friendly Relations and Cooperation (7.8.92)
Lithuania—Treaty on the Foundations of Friendly Relations and Cooperation (8.8.92)
Poland—Treaty on Friendship and Good-Neighbourly Cooperation (6.10.91)
Slovakia—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (19.3.95)
Russian Federation—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (6.12.91); Declaration on the Principles of Cooperation in the Field of the Assurance of the Rights of National or Ethnic or Religious and Linguistic Minorities (11.11.92)
Slovenia—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (1.12.92); Agreement on the Ensurance of the Special Rights of the Slovenian Minority Living in Hungary and the Hungarian Minority Living in Slovenia (6.11.92)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (7.9.94)
Ukraine—Treaty on the Foundations of Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation (6.12.91); Declaration on the Principles of Cooperation in the Guaranteeing of Rights for National Minorities (31.5.91)

LATVIA
Estonia/Lithuania—Declaration on Unity and Cooperation (12.5.90); Trilateral Agreement on Baltic Parliamentary and Governmental Cooperation (13.6.94)
Hungary—Treaty on the Foundations of Friendly Relations and Cooperation (7.8.92)
Lithuania—Treaty on the Restoration of the State Border (29.6.93)
Poland—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (1.7.92)
Belarus—Declaration on the Principles of Good-Neighbourliness and Relations (16.12.91); Treaty on the Establishment of a State Frontier (21.2.94)
Russian Federation—Agreements of 30.4.94 concerning the Skrunda Station, Withdrawal of the Armed Forces, and the Social Security of Russian Military Pensioners (+ Protocol)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (12.7.94)

LITHUANIA
Estonia/Latvia —Declaration on Unity and Cooperation (12.5.90); Trilateral Agreement on Baltic Parliamentary and Governmental Cooperation (13.6.94)
Hungary—Treaty on the Foundations of Friendly Relations and Cooperation (8.8.92)
Latvia—Treaty on the Restoration of the State Border (29.6.93)
Poland—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Good-Neighbourly Cooperation (26.4.94)
Romania—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (8.3.94)
Belarus—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (6.2.95); Treaty on the State Frontier (6.2.95)
Russian Federation—Treaty on the Foundations of Interstate Relations (29.7.91); Agreement Regarding Economic and Social-Cultural Development of the Kaliningrad Region of the RSFSR (29.7.91)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (11.7.94)
Ukraine—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (8.2.94)

POLAND
Bulgaria—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (25.2.93)
Estonia—Treaty on Friendly Cooperation and Baltic Good-Neighbourhood (2.7.92)
Hungary—Treaty on Friendship and Good-Neighbourly Cooperation (6.10.91)
Latvia—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (1.7.92)
Lithuania—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Good-Neighbourly Cooperation (26.4.94)
Romania—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (25.1.93)
Slovakia—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Solidarity and Friendly Cooperation (6.10.91)
Belarus—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (23.6.92)
Moldova—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (15.11.94)
Russian Federation—Treaty on Friendly and Good-Neighbourly Cooperation (22.5.92)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (3.11.93)
Ukraine—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Friendly Relations and Cooperation (18.5.92)

ROMANIA
Bulgaria—Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Good-Neighbourliness (27.1.92)
Estonia—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (11.7.92)
Lithuania—Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation (8.3.94)
Poland—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (25.1.93)
Slovakia—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (24.9.93)
Belarus—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (7.5.93)
Turkey—Treaty on Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation (19.9.91)

SLOVAKIA
Bulgaria—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (6.4.92)
Hungary—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (19.3.95)
Poland—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Solidarity and Friendly Cooperation (6.10.91)
Romania—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (24.9.93)
Czech Republic—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (23.11.92)
Russian Federation—Treaty on Friendly Relations and Cooperation (26.8.93)
Ukraine—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Friendly Relations and Cooperation (29.6.93)

CZECH REPUBLIC
Slovakia—Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (23.11.92) Bilateral treaties are listed under both parties. Not all of the agreements mentioned in this list have been ratified. Source: OSCE archives, Prague.

 

Bibliography

“A Month in the Life of the European Process.” Economist, 14 July 1990: 26.

Arrow, Kenneth et al. 1995. Barriers to Conflict Resolution. New York: W.W. Norton.

Ashley, Richard. 1986. “The Poverty of Neo-Realism.” In Robert O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics. New York: Columbia University Press.

Bara, Andràs B. 1993. “The Convention and the Protection of Minorities under International Law.” In Ronald J. MacDonald, Franz Matscher, and Herbert Petzold (eds.), The European System for the Protection of Human Rights. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

Barnett, Michael. 1995. “The New United Nations Politics of Peace: From Juridical Sovereignty to Empirical Sovereignty.” Global Governance 1/1 (January): 79–97.

Bartsch, Sebastian. 1995. Minderheitenschutz in der Internationalen Politik: Volkerbund und KSZE/OSZE in Neuer Perspektive. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Bates, Robert, and Barry Weingast. 1995. “Rationality and Interpretation: The Politics of Transition.” Paper presented at the 1995 meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Benoit-Rohmer, Florence, and Hilde Hardeman. 1994. The Minority Question in Europe: Towards the Creation of a Coherent European Regime. CEPS Paper 55, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels.

Bloed, Arie. (ed.) 1994. The Challenges of Change: The Helsinki Summit of the CSCE and Its Aftermath. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

Bloed, Arie, and P. van Dijk (eds.). 1991. Human Dimension of the Helsinki Process: The Vienna Follow-Up Meeting and Its Aftermath. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

Bloed, Arie, et al. (eds.) 1993. Monitoring Human Rights in Europe: Comparing International Procedures and Mechanisms. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

Boutros-Ghali, Boutros. 1992. An Agenda For Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-Keeping. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to the Statement Adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992. New York: United Nations.

Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, and David Lalman. 1992. War and Reason. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bull, Hedley. 1977. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.

Buzan, Barry. 1993. “From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School.” International Organization 47(3): 327–352.

Carr, Edward Hallett. 1956. The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939. London: MacMillan. Second Edition.

Claude, Inis L. Jr. 1955. National Minorities: An International Problem. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 1992. Beyond Process: The CSCE’s Institutional Development, 1990–1992. Washington, D.C.: Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Conflict Prevention Centre. 1996. Survey of OSCE Long-Term Missions and Other OSCE Field Activities. Vienna: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. 29 March 1996. Report on Croatia’s Request for Membership of the Council of Europe. Doc. 7510 ADOC7510.1403-25/3/96-2-E. Available at http://stars.coe.fr/doc/adoc0296/adoc7510.htm.

Council of Europe. 1985. European Charter of Local Self Government. European Treaty Series n. 122. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Council of Europe. 1992. European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. European Treaty Series n. 148. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Council of Europe. 1995a. The Council of Europe: Achievements and Activities. Strasbourg: Publishing and Documentation Service of the Council of Europe.

Council of Europe. 1995b. Human Rights: A Continuing Challenge for the Council of Europe. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Council of Europe. 1995c. Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. European Treaty Series n. 157. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Cronin, Bruce. 1996. “Minority Rights or Human Rights? The Changing Nature of Sovereignty and Obligation in International Relations.” Paper presented at the MacArthur Consortium Summer Institute, Stanford University, June 1996.

Cuthbertson, Ian M., and Jane Leibowitz (eds.). 1993. Minorities: The New Europe’s Old Issue. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

Damrosch, Lori F. 1993. “Changing Conceptions of Intervention in International Law.” In Emerging Norms of Justified Intervention: A Collection of Essays from a Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, eds. Laura W. Reed and Carl Kaysen. Cambridge, MA: Committee on International Security Studies, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Damrosch, Lori F. 1993. Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press.

DePorte, Anton W. 1986. Europe between the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance. New Haven: Yale University Press. Second Edition.

Donnelly, Jack. 1986. “International Human Rights: A Regime Analysis.” International Organization 40/3 (Fall): 599–642.

Doyle, Michael W. 1986. “Liberalism and World Politics.” American Political Science Review 80/4 (December): 1151–1169.

Finnemore, Martha. 1993. “International Organizations As Teachers of Norms: The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and Science Policy.” International Organization 47(4): 565–597.

Finnemore, Martha. 1996. “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention.” In Peter Katzenstein (ed.), Norms and National Security. In press.

Frye, Timothy E. 1992. “Ethnicity, Sovereignty, and Transitions from Non-Democratic Rule.” Journal of International Affairs 45/2 (Winter): 599–623.

Garrett, Geoffrey. 1995. “The Politics of Legal Integration in the European Union” (response to Burley and Mattli). International Organization 49/1 (Winter): 171–181.

Gilpin, Robert. 1981. War and Change in World Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Goldstein, Judith, and Robert O. Keohane (eds.). 1993. Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Grieco, Joseph M. 1988. “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism.” International Organization 42/3 (Summer): 485–507.

Gruber, Lloyd G. 1994. From Anarchy to Organization: Power Politics and the Institutionalization of International Relations. Ph.D. Dissertation: Department of Political Science, Stanford University.

Hazewinkel, H. J. 1991. “Paris, Copenhagen, and Moscow.” In Bloed, Arie, and P. van Dijk (eds.), Human Dimension of the Helsinki Process: The Vienna Follow-Up Meeting and Its Aftermath. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

Heraclides, Alexis. 1993a. Security and Co-operation in Europe: The Human Dimension, 1972–1991. London and Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass.

Heraclides, Alexis. 1993b. Helsinki-II and Its Aftermath:The Making of the CSCE into An International Organization. London and Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass.

Hoffman, Stanley. 1984. “The Problem of Intervention.” In Hedley Bull (ed.), Intervention in World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Horowitz, Donald L. 1993. “Democracy in Divided Societies.” Journal of Democracy 4(4): 18–38.

Huber, Konrad J. 1994. Averting Inter-Ethnic Conflict: An Analysis of the CSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in Estonia, January–July 1993. Occasional Paper Series, Carter Center Conflict Prevention Program, Emory University.

Hurlburt, Heather. 1995. “Russia, the OSCE and European Security Architecture.” Helsinki Monitor 6/2: 5–20.

International Crisis Group. 1996. Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 22 September 1996. London: ICG.

Keck, Margaret, and Kathryn Sikkink. 1995. “Transnational Issue Networks in International Politics.” Paper presented at the 1995 meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph Nye. 1989. Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition. New York: Harper Collins. Second Edition.

Koch, Koen. 1993. “The International Community and Forms of Intervention in the Field of Minority Rights Protection.” In Ian M. Cuthbertson and Jane Leibowitz (eds.), Minorities: The New Europe’s Old Issue. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

Krasner, Stephen D. 1983. “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables.” In idem (ed.), International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Krasner, Stephen D. 1995a. “Sovereignty and Intervention.” In Gene M. Lyons and Michael Mastanduno (eds.), Beyond Westphalia? State Sovereignty and International Intervention. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Krasner, Stephen D. 1995b. “Compromising Westphalia.” International Security 20/3 (Winter) 115–152.

Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Laitin, David, and James Fearon. 1995. “Explaining Inter-Ethnic Cooperation.” Paper presented at the 1995 meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Lake, David, and Donald Rothchild. 1996. Ethnic Fears And Global Engagement: The International Spread And Management Of Global Conflict. Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.

Lebow, Richard, and Thomas Risse-Kappen. 1995. International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press.

Lieber, Robert J. 1993. “Existential Realism after the Cold War.” Washington Quarterly 16/1 (Winter): 155–169.

Macartney, Carlile Aylmer. 1934. National States and National Minorities. London: Oxford University Press.

Maier, Charles S. 1992. “Unsafe Haven: Why Minorities Treaties Fail.” New Republic 207 (12 October): 20–22.

Maresca, John J. 1987. J. To Helsinki—The Conference On Security And Cooperation In Europe, 1973–1975. Durham: Duke University Press.

Maresca, John J. 1994. The End of the Cold War Is Also Over. Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University.

Marshall, Monty G. 1993. “States at Risk: Ethnopolitics in the Multinational States of Eastern Europe.” In Ted Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press.

Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. “The False Promise of International Institutions.” International Security 19/3 (Winter): 5–50.

Moravscik, Andrew. 1994. “Lessons from the European Human Rights Regime.” In Inter-American Dialogue, Advancing Democracy and Human Rights in the Americas: What Role for the OAS? Washington: Inter-American Dialogue, pp. 35–58.

Pearson, Raymond. 1992. “The Geopolitics of People Power: The Pursuit of the Nation-State in East Central Europe.” Journal of International Affairs 45 (2): 499–518.

Peck, Connie. January 1996. Conflict Prevention and Regional Institutions [tentative title]. Report for the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Carnegie Corporation of New York. Manuscript.

Putnam, Robert D., Peter B. Evans, and Harold K. Jacobson (eds.). 1993. Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1994. “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War.” International Organization 48:185–214.

Schumann, Klaus. 1994. “The Role of the Council of Europe.” In Hugh Miall (ed.), Minority Rights in Europe: The Scope for a Transnational Regime. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press.

Sigler, Jay A. 1983. Minority Rights: A Comparative Perspective. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Slaughter, Anne-Marie, and Walter Mattli. 1993. “Europe before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration.” International Organization 47/1 (Winter): 41–76.

Stein, Arthur A. 1983. “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World.” In Stephen D. Krasner (ed.). International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 115–140.

Thomas, Daniel. 1994. International Norms, Social Mobilization in Eastern Europe, and Policy Change in the United States. Manuscript.

Thomas, George, John Meyer, Francisco Ramirez, and John Boli (eds.). 1987. Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Thomson, Janice. 1995. “State Sovereignty In International Relations: Bridging The Gap Between Theory and Empirical Research.” International Studies Quarterly 39/2 (June): 213–233.

Thornberry, Patrick. 1991. International Law and the Rights of Minorities. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games: Rational Choice in Comparative Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

United Nations Secretariat. 1950. Study of the Legal Validity of the Undertakings Concerning Minorities. UN Doc E/CN.4/367 (cited in Thornberry [1991: 53]).

Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Relations. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Waltz, Kenneth N. 1993. “The Emerging Structure of International Politics.” International Security 18/2 (Fall): 44–80.

Waltz, Kenneth N. 1995. “Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory.” In Charles W. Kegley (ed.), Controversies in International Relations Theory: Realism and the Neoliberal Challenge. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Weiler, Joseph H. 1991. “The Transformation of Europe.” Yale Law Journal 100/8 (June): 2403–2483.

Weingast, Barry. N.d. Constructing Trust: The Political and Economic Roots of Ethnic and Regional Conflict. Manuscript, Stanford University.

Young, Oran R. 1983. “Regime Dynamics: The Rise and Fall of International Regimes.” In Krasner, Stephen D. (ed.). International Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 93–113.

Zaagman, Rob (ed.). 30 June 1995. The Role of the High Commissioner on National Minorities in OSCE Conflict Prevention: A Report Prepared by the Office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. The Hague, Netherlands: Office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Zaagman, Rob. 1994. “The CSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities: An Analysis of the Mandate and the Institutional Context.” In Arie Bloed (ed.), The Challenges of Change: The Helsinki Summit of the CSCE and Its Aftermath. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

Zaagman, Rob, and Hannie Zaal. 1994. “The CSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities: Prehistory and Negotiations.” In Arie Bloed (ed.), The Challenges of Change: The Helsinki Summit of the CSCE and Its Aftermath. Dordrecht and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff and Kluwer.

 

---

Notes

*: This work was written while the author was a fellow of the MacArthur Consortium on International Peace and Cooperation at the Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University. An earlier version of this work was presented in May 1996 as part of the CISAC Research Seminar series. For their valuable comments and advice, the author would like to thank, without implicating, Aaron Belkin, Lynn Eden, Melanie Greenberg, David Holloway, Stephen Krasner, Michael McFaul, Philippe Schmitter, and Silvia Tieber. Back.

Note 1: On the early history of international treaty provisions for the rights of minorities, see, inter alia, Claude (1955) and Macartney (1934). Thornberry (1991) provides the best overview of post-1945 status of minority rights at the regional and international level, including the rights of indigenous peoples. Back.

Note 2: At both the 1990 Copenhagen and 1992 Helsinki meetings, minority rights were the most hotly contested of all “human dimension” issues. Many Western European representatives sought strong standards for long-standing “national minorities,” while representatives from most Eastern European states and Turkey only wanted recognition for migrant worker communities. The 1990 negotiations are discussed in Hazewinkel (1991), Heraclides (1993a), and Bloed (1991); Heraclides (1993b) details the 1992 negotiations. Back.

Note 3: Prior to the December 1994 Budapest summit, the OSCE was known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The earlier name reflected the CSCE’s status as a process, a series of political meetings and political documents, rather than a formal international organization or treaty. OSCE states-parties are still referred to as “participating states” rather than “member states.” Back.

Note 4: “The participating States on whose territory national minorities exist will respect the right of persons belonging to such minorities to equality before the law, will afford them the full opportunity for the actual enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms and will, in this manner, protect their legitimate interests in this sphere” (Principle VII, “Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”). Back.

Note 5: In the Helsinki Final Act, states commit to respect “each other’s right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems as well as its right to determine its laws and regulations” (Article I). Back.

Note 6: Simply agreeing to the principles of human rights was significant for the Soviet bloc. Daniel Thomas (1994) has argued that for communist regimes, signing human-rights commitments spawned nascent civil societies which raised the costs of continued repression. Back.

Note 7: The OSCE continues to address traditional interstate disputes through multilateral negotiations, arbitration, and confidence-building measures. As the only pan-European security organization, it also retains the process goals of building expectations of cooperation and consensus among European states, and (more recently) giving Russian leaders a visible role in discussions of European security. Back.

Note 8: The internal-conflict mandate is set forth in the July 1992 Helsinki-II summit document, which inter alia established the High Commissioner on National Minorities. Back.

Note 9: The HCNM position, precipitated by the Yugoslav War, was proposed by the Netherlands and given decisive backing by Bush and Yeltsin after several states had attempted to derail the initiative. Dutch ex-foreign minister Max van der Stoel was appointed HCNM in December 1992 and reappointed in 1995. See Heraclides (1993b) and Zaagman and Zaal (1994) on the negotiations leading to the creation of the HCNM post. Back.

Note 10: The HCNM mandate prohibits communications with “any person or organization which practises or publicly condones terrorism or violence” (Annex II of the 1992 Helsinki document, Article 25). Back.

Note 11: Through June 1995, the High Commissioner had conducted official investigations and produced recommendations concerning Albania (with regard to the Greeks in southern Albania); Estonia (Russian-speakers); the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and its Albanian population; Hungary (Slovak minority); Kazakstan; Kyrgyzstan; Latvia (Russian-speakers); Lithuania (the HCNM terminated involvement in that country); Moldova (various issues); Romania (in particular concerning the Hungarian minority); Slovakia (Hungarian minority); and Ukraine (in particular Crimea). See Zaagman (1995) for a country-by-country summary. Back.

Note 12: The “Moscow mechanism,” established in a 1991 CSCE Human Dimension meeting, provides for missions of experts or rapporteurs (from a roster nominated by participating states and maintained by the ODIHR) to examine and report on domestic conflict situations and serious violations of Human Dimension commitments, and possibly to facilitate solutions. These missions may be established on the invitation of the target state, by the Senior Council, at the request of another participating state (supported by at least five other states), or in “emergency” cases of a “particularly serious threat” of human-rights violations. See Bloed (1993: 40–45). Back.

Note 13: From 1991 to 1995, missions were established in Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (where violent conflict had not broken out), and in Kosovo/Sandjak/Vojvodina, Georgia, Tajikistan, Moldova, Sarajevo, and Chechnya (“Assistance Mission”). As of early 1996, all ten were still operating except for the mission to Kosovo, which left at the insistence of the Serbian government. These are typically small operations and are logistically supported by the Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) in Vienna. See CPC (1996) and Peck (1996). The OSCE engagement in Bosnia, as specified in the Dayton accords and supporting documents, is complex and ongoing. OSCE rapporteur delegations (typically representing the Chairman-in-Office) have visited at least twenty states including virtually every civil conflict in the Balkans, Caucasus, and Central Asia. In addition, from 1993 to 1995, sanctions-assistance missions operated in each of the states bordering Serbia-Montenegro. Back.

Note 14: “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status” (European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Article 14). Back.

Note 15: The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, elected from member state parliaments, meets four times yearly to issue recommendations for action which have often presaged and pressured later action by the Committee of Ministers. The Parliamentary Assembly also elects the Secretary General and the judges of the European Court of Human Rights, and has recently voted to confirm new member states. Back.

Note 16: Evidence of the weakness of the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities is its ratification by Romanian and Slovak governments (whereas only two other states had ratified as of January 1996), notable for their frequent conflicts with large minority populations and their hostility to international monitoring efforts. Back.

Note 17: The Framework Convention’s principles lack legal or political force because they are qualified by such clauses as “where appropriate” and “in the framework of their legal system.” For instance, “The Parties undertake to recognize that every person belonging to a national minority has the right to use freely and without interference his or her minority language, in private and in public, orally and in writing” (Article 10, paragraph 1, emphasis mine). Back.

Note 18: See Parliamentary Assembly Recommendations 1134 (1990), 1177 (1992), 1201 (1993), and subsequent. Back.

Note 19: Since 1989, nearly all the former communist states in Eastern Europe have applied for membership in the Council of Europe. Most have been accepted, as follows: 1990, Hungary; 1991, Czechoslovakia, Poland; 1992, Bulgaria; 1993, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Romania; 1995, Latvia, Moldova, Albania, Ukraine, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”; 1996, Russia, Croatia. Back.

Note 20: The Parliamentary Assembly has been sharply critical of the Russian constitution, legal system, and political practices, and in February 1995 suspended consideration of Russian application for membership in reaction to Russian military operations in Chechnya. The Assembly relented later that year. See resolutions 1055 and 1065 (1995). Back.

Note 21: On 15 March 1996, Croatian president Franjo Tudjman and Parliamentary president Vlatko Pavletic gave 21 written commitments to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Political Affairs Committee, including provisions for the protection, return, and compensation of Serb residents, full implementation of the Dayton accords, full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the right of individual petition to the European Commission of Human Rights and the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. See COEPA (29 March 1996). Back.

Note 22: Other monitoring mechanisms exist within the Council of Europe. As in other treaty organizations, member states report at regular intervals concerning their implementation of Convention obligations; these reports are examined by Committees of Experts appointed by the Council. Since the end of 1994, a member government, the Secretariat, or the Parliamentary Assembly can also initiate an investigation of human-rights practices of member states. Action remains the prerogative of the Committee of Ministers. The Council of Europe Human Rights Library and Information Center collects human rights documentation by NGOs and other parties. Back.

Note 23: The Council of Europe legal system will be altered through the entry into force of Protocol 11 to the 1950 Convention, consolidating the European Commission of Human Rights and Court of Human Rights into a single court with the capacity to screen and hear petitions. Back.

Note 24: The rather abbreviated timetable for Stability Pact negotiations was dictated by France’s tenure as lead state of the European Union in early 1995 and by the Balladur election campaign. Back.

Note 25: It had also been intended for Hungary and Romania to initial a bilateral minority-rights treaty at the March 1995 conference, but negotiations broke down over the question of regional autonomy (whereas Hungarian negotiators sought reference to Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1201, the Romanian government would only agree to cite the more modest Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities). Back.

Note 26: Economic assistance from the EU and member states to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states totaled ECU 33.8 billion in 1990–94, 45 percent of the total aid to the states in this period. ECU 5.3 billion was committed under the EU’s PHARE program for the period 1990–1995. By contrast, less than half this amount (ECU 2.268 million) went to the Newly Independent States of the USSR (the Baltic states are not considered by the EU in this category) under the Tacis program for 1991–95, including ECU 790 million to Russia (European Commission 1996). Back.

Note 27: See the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 21 November 1995, Article 7 and Annex 6 (“Human Rights”) Articles 1 and 2. Back.

Note 28: There are important differences among normativist analyses, in particular on the nature of agency and the possibility of adducing evidence to support theory. For radical social constructivists, actors are completely endogenous to their intersubjective environment, an environment with independent ontological status; more actor-oriented approaches see individuals and organizations as independent and purposive but whose agency is subject to outside influences. There exists an overlapping split among those with positivist research agendas and those who argue for the essential indeterminacy or unknowability of the social realm (Dessler 1996). Back.

Note 29: The normativist study of world politics has its proximate origins in the International Society literature or English School, following on work by Hedley Bull and Martin Wight. It conceives of the international state system as a social institution bounded in history and shaped by the expectations of its “practitioners.” See, inter alia, Buzan (1993), Watson (1992), and Bull (1977). Back.

Note 30: On different liberal approaches to the domestic origins of foreign policy behavior, see for instance Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman (1992) and Doyle (1986). Back.

Note 31: This argument originated in neo-functionalist integration theory. For analogous arguments concerning the European Court of Justice, see Weiler (1991) and Slaughter and Mattli (1993); for a critical analysis, see Garrett (1995). Back.

Note 32: Realism is not a singular theory of world politics—its leading formulations vary on important dimensions—but rather a power-political, state-centered analytical approach. For authoritative statements of the realist approach, see Waltz (1979), Gilpin (1981), and Grieco (1988). See Waltz (1995 and 1979: chapter 1) on the need for assumptions and simplifications. Back.

Note 33: On the end of the Cold War and international relations theory, see, inter alia, Wohlforth (1994) and the essays in Lebow and Risse-Kappen (1995). Back.

Note 34: The Western response to the Bosnia conflict from 1991 to 1995, hampered by struggles among Western states in recognizing and dealing with successor republics and unwillingness to engage in prolonged military campaigns, illustrates the constraints of inter-alliance conflict and limited engagement. Back.

Note 35: Russian policy-makers have had a relatively free hand to intervene militarily in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia since 1991, since no set of states at present can effectively challenge Russian behavior in these regions and few risk antagonizing Moscow. However, Western states have denied the Russian government the support of regional institutions (except the quasi-regional CIS) in these “peacekeeping” missions. Back.

Note 36: We discuss here the costs of integration with the West. More precisely, leaders in these new states must choose between integration with the West, reintegration with Russia, and going it alone. Reintegration has been preferred in very weak Belarus, and all of the new states in the Caucasus and Central Asia have been forced to accommodate Moscow. See, inter alia, Maresca (1994). Back.

Note 37: Unlike the German-Polish rapprochement on minority issues, Germany and the Czech Republic have since 1989 not entered a bilateral basic agreement, in large part due to continued animosity over the historic treatment of Germans in Czech areas and the legacy of the second world war. Back.