This insightful and timely book analyzes the role of cultural autonomy in advancing minority rights protection on the national and global level. It assesses the historical and legal limits of the right to self-determination and autonomy and draws on Marxist internationalism, liberal nationalism and EU integrationist studies to examine the relationship between cultural autonomy and globalization. As such, emphasis is placed on the sociological and historical value of cultural autonomy, with the aim of working beyond formalistic and utilitarian approaches to cultural autonomy. The volume will appeal primarily to upper-level undergraduate and graduate level students of political science and international law interested in rethinking the role of cultural autonomy in an age of globalization.

The unique cultures of minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide – spanning a wide variety of customs and practices – are under threat. This year’s edition of State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples highlights the impact of land dispossession, forced assimilation and other forms of discrimination on the most fundamental aspects of their identity, including language, art, traditional knowledge and spirituality. But while the effects of this attrition can be devastating, minority and indigenous cultures have also been critical in strengthening communities and providing activists with a platform to fight for their rights. As this volume illustrates, ensuring that the cultural freedoms of minorities and indigenous peoples are protected is essential if their other rights are also to be respected.

The WROCLAW COMMENTARIES address legal questions as well as political consequences related to freedom of, and access to, the arts and (old/new) media; questions of religious and language rights; the protection of minorities and other vulnerable groups; safeguarding cultural diversity and heritage; and further pertinent issues. Specialists from all over Europe and the world summarise and comment on core messages of legal instruments, the essence of case-law as well as prevailing and important dissenting opinions in the literature, with the aim of providing a user-friendly tool for the daily needs of decision or law-makers at different juridical, administrative and political levels as well as others working in the field of culture and human rights.

There are approximately ten million Roma in Europe, making them the continent’s largest non-territorial minority. Despite this fact, the Roma continue to experience routine discrimination and marginalization in European countries. As a result they are seldom engaged in national political activism and are frequently at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. The severity of exclusion experienced by the Roma in societies which have long paid heed to the notion of individual, universal human rights - combined with their geographical dispersal and heterogeneous nature - makes the study of the Roma highly informative. This book examines the theoretical debate concerning the most appropriate way of protecting the fundamental human rights of the Roma, which also illuminates ways in which the rights of minority groups can be protected more generally. As a result, this work will be a valuable resource for social scientists and practitioners in the field of human rights.

For centuries autonomy has been a public policy tool used to provide stability and cohesion to multicultural societies. Examining case studies on non-territorial autonomy arrangements in comparison with territorial autonomy examples, this volume seeks to inform both design and decision making on managing diversity.

Non-territorial autonomy (NTA) is a statecraft tool aimed at respecting the rights of ethnic and cultural minority groups. This volume examines the non-territorial institutional and public administration functions of NTA, providing policy-makers and ethno-cultural groups the tools to promote social cohesion while respecting diversity.

This volume describes and analyzes alternative and emerging models of non-territorial autonomy (NTA), particularly in relation to decentralization. The authors push the NTA debate in new directions by offering a re-conceptualization based on ethno-cultural bottom-up decentralized action that redefines autonomy into its true sense of autonomous action. Through description, critical analysis, and evaluation of several case studies, this book assesses the potential for new paradigms within decentralized systems. The authors explore two approaches to political decentralization which add to the theoretical debate on NTA – network governance, which focuses on new dynamics in policy processes, and normative pluralism, which focuses on accommodating the distinctness of the groups through the subsidiarity principle with regard to their own affairs. The book explores the potential ramifications of ethno-cultural NTA institutions acting within the wider framework of state institutions and assesses the functions of these institutions as another dimension of decentralization and thus another ‘layer’ of democracy. With contemporary examples from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South Africa, as well as theoretical aspects of the conceptualization of autonomy, this book offers a truly global perspective. It will be of great interest to policy-makers in countries experiencing adverse developments due to the pressure on public management, as well as advanced students and scholars questioning the ability of the Westphalian system to address cultural diversity.

The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Territorial Autonomies affords a comprehensive, pioneering and interdisciplinary survey of this emerging field. Moving beyond traditionally narrower engagements with the subject, it combines approaches to comparative law and comparative politics to provide an authoritative guide to the principal theoretical and empirical topics in the area. Bringing together a team of cutting-edge scholars from different disciplines and continents, the volume illuminates the latest thinking and scholarship on comparative territorial autonomies. This Handbook is an authoritative, essential reference text for students, academics and researchers in its field. It will also be of key interest to those in the fields of comparative politics, comparative law, local/regional government, federalism, decentralisation and nationalism, as well as practitioners in think tanks, NGOs and international governmental organisations.

A definitive global survey of the interaction of ethnicity, nationalism and politics, this handbook blends rigorous theoretically grounded analysis with empirically rich illustrations to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the contemporary debates on one of the most pervasive international security challenges today. Fully updated for the second edition, the book includes a new section which offers detailed analyses of contemporary cases of conflict such as in Ukraine, Kosovo, the African Great Lakes region and in the Kurdish areas across the Middle East, thus providing accessible examples that bridge the gap between theory and practice. The contributors offer a 360-degree perspective on ethnic conflict: from the theoretical foundations of nationalism and ethnicity to the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict, and to the various strategies adopted in response to it. Without privileging any specific explanation of why ethnic conflict happens at a particular place and time or why attempts at preventing or settling it might fail or succeed, The Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict enables readers to gain a better insight into such defining moments in post-Cold War international history as the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and their respective consequences, the genocide in Rwanda, and the relative success of conflict settlement efforts in Northern Ireland. By contributing to understanding the varied and multiple causes of ethnic conflicts and to learning from the successes and failures of their prevention and settlement, the Handbook makes a powerful case that ethnic conflicts are neither unavoidable nor unresolvable, but rather that they require careful analysis and thoughtful and measured responses.

"The present guide offers information related to norms and mechanisms developed to protect the rights of persons belonging to national, ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities. It includes detailed information about procedures and forums in which minority issues may be raised to minorities and by also covering selected specialized agencies and regional mechanisms, the present Guide complements information contained in Working with the United Nations Human Rights Programme: A Handbook for Civil Society"--Introduction.