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10 Helsinki Monitor 7 (1999)
Januns at Strasbourg: The Council of Europe between East and West

handle is hein.journals/helsnk10 and id is 9 raw text is: Janus at Strasbourg: The Council of Europe between East and West Andrg Liebich In this article I hope to throw some light on contemporary minority issues in Europe, East and West, by looking at the Council of Europe's experience in this domain. Stefan Troebst deals in detail with the Council's most important achievement in the area, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.' It has been described both in the press and by Council of Europe spokespersons as 'the first legally binding international document in the field of minority protection establishing a code of conduct for adhering states'.2 The Framework Convention, opened for signature in February 1995, has by now been ratified by twenty-four states, twice as many as required for it to enter into force. Looking beyond the Framework Convention to the context in which it must operate, I propose to enumerate some of the difficulties and implications of the Council of Europe's involvement in minority issues since 1989. The principal point I should like to make is that by including minority problems in East Central and Eastern Europe within its purview, the Council of Europe has, in fact, radically transformed the minority question throughout Europe as a whole.' Upon its creation in 1949 the Council of Europe was entrusted with fos- tering democratic values and human rights in a continent where these were seen as threatened. One might imagine that as a guardian of fundamental principles the Council would have stood more in the forefront of political developments on the continent. In fact, this was not the case and the Council soon came to occupy a secondary role. True, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Committee of Ministers, the European Commission of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Strasbourg-based bureaucracy of the Council all I Stefan Troebst, 'Words, Words, Words ...? The Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities', in this issue. 2 'Konvention zum Schutz von Minderheiten', Neue Zircher Zeitung, 2 February 1995. 3 Among the recent writings on this subject see, Alain Fenet , 'L'Europe et les minorit6s', in: Le Droit et les minorit~s: analyses et textes, ed. by Alain Fenet with Genevieve Koubi, Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff, Tatjana Ansbach. Brussels: Bruylant, 1995, esp. pp. 131-138. 'The Council of Europe and Minorities', COEMIN report prepared by Patrick Thorberry and Maria Amor Martin Estebanez, September 1994. Florence Benoit-Rohmer and Hilde Hardeman, The Minority Question in Europe: Towards the Creation of a Coherent European Regime, CEPs Paper No. 55. London: Centre for European Policy Studies, 1994. 'The Protection of the Minorities in Europe', report presented by Florence Benoit-Rohmer, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, 31 October 1991. Most relevant here is Jean E. Manas. 'The Council of Europe's Democracy Ideal and the Challenge of Ethno-National Strife', in: Preventing Conflict in the Post Communist World: Mobilizing International and Regional Organizations, ed. by Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes. Washington, D.C.: Brooking Institution, 1996, pp. 99 - 144.

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