Freedom of Language as a Partly Territorial Right of Everyone and the Issue of Minority Language Rights

In: Foreign Policy Review, Band 14, Heft 2, S. 28-46

Abstract

International law recognizes language rights within international human rights law and the study shows that while codifying human rights within the UN and the Council of Europe, legislators have made two serious mistakes that affect language rights. The competent bodies of implementation have corrected, to some extent the first mistake, but they have not recognized the second one or if they have recognized it, they have not interpreted it appropriately. Then the study concludes that what is most lacking from international law regarding language rights is the explicit recognition of freedom of language and a satisfactory definition of minority language rights. However, since minority language rights cannot be properly defined in the absence of the definition of freedom of language, the study seeks to define this freedom and according to the definition found, freedom of language is a partly territorial human right.