Minority Rights Protection Under International Human Rights Law Perspective

The dissertion discusses, in its five chapters, the protection of minority rights from the perspective of the international human rights law.Chapter One is about the basic concepts related to minority rights, namely, the definition of minority, the relationships between the minority groups and minority persons, disadvantaged groups (vulnerable groups) and national minority. It also discusses the concepts of minority rights, the legal source and nature of minority rights,as well as the concept of the protection of minority rights.Chapter Two discusses the history and current situation of minority rights protection. The protection of minority rights traces back to the efforts during 17-18 century when the European countries provided some protection for the religious minorities in the war and armed conflict. After World War I, efforts were made by the League of Nations to protect minority rights. International organizations headed by The United Nations, set up in the wake of World War II, improved the legal system of the international human rights protection in which the minority rights protection is also included. Justifications of minority rights protection serve the purposes of safeguarding world peace and security, respecting human dignity and preserving cultural diversity. Minority rights protection targets the existence and equal status of minorities as its goal.Chapter Three discusses the contents of minority rights. The protection of minority rights covers minority's rights to preserve their own culture, use their own language, profess and practice their own religion, and rights to education and participation in social affairs.Chapter Three focuses on the international human rights mechanisms of the minority rights protection under the United Nations, covering the mechanisms based on the United Nation Charter, human right conventions and other UN specialized mechanisms. Charter-based mechanisms include the UN bodies, its General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, Human Rights Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and its Office, each performing its own function in protecting minority rights. Treaty-based mechanisms refer to treaty-based bodies, to name a few, Human Rights Committee, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Committee on the Rights of the Child, as well as their power to examine state reports, consider inter-state complaints and individual complaints and so on. Other UN specialized institutions engaged in the protection of minority rights include: the UN Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the International Labor Organization (ILO).Chapter Five is about the regional human right mechanisms related to the protection of minority rights. Three regional mechanisms, European, American and African, are worth studying. In Europe, with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom and the European Social Charter aiming to protect human rights in gereral, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages specialize on minority rights protection. The European Commission of Human Rights (cease functioning from 1998), the European Court of Human Rights, the Committee of Ministers and the specialized committee based on the conventions are responsible for the supervision of the performances of the conventions. American human rights mechanisms are based on Charter of the Organization of American States and American Convention on Human Rights, with American Commission on Human Rights and American Court of Human Rights as its major supervising bodies. The African mechanisms work on the Charter of the Organization of African Unity, the Constitutive Act of the African Union, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and its supervising bodies: the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples'Rights (the African Court of Justice and Human Rights).Chapter Six is about the protection of Chinese minorities'rights. It begins with their current situation, discussing the definition and legal protection of Chinese minorities. The chapter analyzes the existing problems, especailly in terms of their legal protection. At last it proposes some legislative measures to better protect Chinese minorities'rights.