• All members of the United Nations are expected to comply with its policies.
• Legally binding: no.
• Offers protection for: “indigenous peoples”.
• View the Declaration here.

• State parties who have ratified the Convention are expected to uphold its policies.
• Legally binding: yes.
• Offers protection for: “indigenous peoples”.
• View the Convention here.

• State parties who have ratified the Convention are expected to uphold its policies.
• Legally binding: no.
• Offers protection for “indigenous peoples”.
• View the Convention here.

• The Charter was drafted by the Council of Europe in 1992. It entered into force in 1998. Members of the Council of Europe can sign up for the Charter, and thus commit themselves to its principles¹⁾.

“regional or minority languages” defined as languages traditionally used within a given territory of a state by nationals of that state who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the state’s population; they are different from the official language(s) of that state, and they include neither dialects of the official language(s) of the state nor the languages of migrants.

The provisions in the Charter are divided into two parts:

• a set of general provisions applying to all regional or minority languages (Part II)
• a set of additional provisions, to which a member state can subscribe a language (Part III).

To see which provisions apply to which langue, click here.