New minorities, old instruments? Diversity governance from the perspective of minority rights

Abstract

In international law, minority rights instruments have been traditionally conceived for, and applied to, old minority groups with the exclusion of new minority groups originating from migration. Yet, minority groups, irrespective of their being old or new minorities, can be subsumed under a common definition and have some basic common claims. This allows devising a common but differentiated set of rights and obligations for old and new minority groups alike. This paper argues that the extension of the scope of application of legal instruments of minority protection, such as the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), is conceptually meaningful and beneficial to the integration of new minorities stemming from migration.