Essays of Faculty of Law University of Pécs Yearbook of 2011

(...) The recognition of language rights is a sensitive and confusing issue which appears in various forms at different levels. This paper analyses three issues as illustrations. The first is the shift away from the minority protection system of the League of Nations to the Human Rights protection system of the United Nations. It is widely held that the underlying philosophies of these systems were quite different. The author challenges this view and claims that the more or less common philosophy of the two systems was likely to be applied more consistently in the recognition of language rights in the League’s minority protection system than in the Human Rights system of the UN. The second issue which the paper analyses is a kind of moral inequality or double standard which repeats itself between states, from the League’s system through that of the UN to the Copenhagen Criteria for Accession to the European Union. The third issue to be investigated is the relationship between official languages and language rights at national and European Union levels. In connection with this, the paper points out, inter alia, that language rights are recognised not only explicitly but also implicitly. The author demonstrates that all of the three major issues raise philosophical questions. He concludes, therefore, that political philosophy should play a more important role in the debates on language rights than it has played so far. The League of Nations and the United Nations The minority protection régime of the League of Nations seems to be sinking into oblivion. This can be attributed, to a certain degree, to the prevailing view of the relationship between the minority protection régime of the League of Nations and the human rights protection régime of the United Nations. Accordingly, the two systems were based on two different philosophies. A study which was prepared by the United Nations in 1950 on the legal validity of the undertakings concerning minorities under the League’s system expressed this view as follows: the whole minority protection system...