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Collective through Minority Rights
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other right has been so widely sought by oppressed peoples worldwide as
the right to self-determination. Yet for numerically smaller groups in
multinational states, the key to running their own communities and
sustaining their rich cultural identities while achieving equal status
with the majority may lie in minority rights [special measures
and rights additional to civil rights, such as the right to
minority- controlled socio-economic and politico-legal institutions, and
support for same through public processes such as taxation rights,
transfer payments, etc.].
This book helps to clarify the issues of affirmative action, minority rights, self- determination and reparations so hotly debated within the American national minority communities today. It will help American national minorities to fully understand their rights, and the systemic solutions providing for minority collective empowerment which have led to social harmony in other states. INCLUDES:
ISBN: 0-932863-19-1, 224 pp., 1995, $14.95 |
"Outstanding
Book on the Subject of Human Rights in the US, 1995" by the
Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights"
Mumia Abu-Jamal
"A serious attempt to deal with the resurgence of nationalism in different parts of the world through the extension of the idea of self-determination, as it has been developed through the United Nations, international law, and the various new Human Rights Covenants. The authors believe that much of this ethnic identity and nationalist aspiration is a legitimate extension of self-determination, and should be given political recognition by various states, not necessarily in terms of secession and independence, but through a new polity of pluralism. While there is a strong resistance intellectually and politically in the United States to these ideas, in many parts of the world there have been major concessions to this perspective.....we should listen seriously to the arguments of this group..."
George W. Shepherd
University of Denver
reviewed in Nationalism & Ethnic Politics Y.N. Kly is Professor Emeritus at the School of Human Justice, University of Regina, Canada, and Chair of the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM), an African-American launched international NGO in consultative status with the United Nations. |
It is widely
recognized that in today's world, most conflict situations involving
violence and leading to states of public emergency are taking place
within rather than between states. Such conflicts are likely to occur
where there are exacerbated inequalities in socio-economic well-being
between ethnic groups, and frequently result from the nondominant
group's perception of itself as victimized by dominant group
discrimination, and denied an equitable participation in national
affairs or portion of the national wealth.
As advancing technology, environmental degradation and competitive globalization impress upon humanity the need for sustainable human-centered development, the way in which majority/minority relations are institutionalized within multi-national states may be key to their societal development as a whole. In this lucid and compelling overview, international legal scholar, Y. N. Kly, examines the urgent international dialogue now taking place on how best to institutionalize the coexistence of dominant and nondominant ethnic groups within the same multinational state. The minority rights dialogue poses the civic (same rights for all/assimilationist) model, championed by largely by powerful majoritarian states such as the U.S., against the international legal minority rights (special rights and measures/pluralist) approach, promoted by major intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and exemplified in state practice worldwide. ISBN: 0-932863-23-X, 224 pp., 1988, $27.95 |
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