fact_sheets:international_legislation
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International legislation protecting minority languages
Global legislation:
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007)
- 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.
UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003)
- 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.
ICO Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (1989)
- 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.
European legislation:
European Charter for Regional and Minority languages (1992)
- State parties who have ratified the Charter are expected to uphold its policies.
- Legally binding: yes.
- Offers protection for “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.
- View the text of the Charter here.
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).
See here for an overview of which language is protected by which part.
fact_sheets/international_legislation.1466689142.txt.gz · Last modified: 2016/06/23 15:39 by johanneke