“The protection of the individual cultural identity, which is the implementation on the wider value of the group cultural diversity, must be an objective of juridical politics for the future”, according to the book Minorities protection in International Law Derecho Internacional by Professor Amelia Díaz Pérez de Madrid, of the department of Public International Law and International Relations of the University of Granada. According to the author, it is particularly difficult to reach an agreement in this ambit, and that is why part of the efforts on minorities’ protection could be directed to look the way in which unspecific human rights protection instruments answer minority needs.
In this ambit, Professor Díaz says that “both in the universal and in the European plane, human rights protection is a consolidated and amply developed normative sector. This instrument already exists and has an unquestionable potential, as the jurisprudence of the European Court for Human Rights has revealed”.
Balance of interests
On the other hand, the International law for minorities protection establishes behaviour guidelines for the states to organize the relation between public power and its social and collective components. According to the author, “international rules for minorities’ protection can not predetermine a result: they only provide formulas to manage cultural diversity, in such a way that every state, by agreement with its particular circumstances, must succeed in achieving the balance between the general, the collective and the particular interest”.
“Despite this, −says Professor Díaz− we can emphatically state the validity of a basic standard, applicable to minorities, of non harming or preventing their existence, although we are fighting against worse difficulties to deduce that it has become a parameter for the legitimacy of the exercise of national competences”.
The book, with 370 pages, also includes a detailed analysis of the international juridical development in this field.
Reference
Professor Amelia Díaz Pérez de Madrid.
Dpt. of Public International Law and International Relations
Phone number. 958 246 266 / 958 243 459 (Department) E-mail. amdiaz@ugr.es
