Right to Education in Regional or Minority Languages

doi:10.1017/9781009606295.027

19 - Right to Education in Regional or Minority Languages

Invasions, COVID-19 Pandemic, and Other Developments

from Introduction to Part IV

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2025

Vesna Crnić-Grotić

Edited by

Tiina Pajuste

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Tiina Pajuste: Affiliation:
Tallinn University

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Summary

The right to education is a human right recognised by a number of international legal instruments and the civilised world. Agreement about the language used as the medium of instruction, however, is not so easily achieved – should it be available only in the official language or should it also be provided in minority languages? Is there a right or even a duty to learn the official language? There have been recent developments in international law clarifying this issue, and problems were also identified during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is abundant research that the COVID-19 pandemic had more negative effects on ethnic and national minorities than on the majority population, including in the field of education. Facilitation of access to education was ensured mostly in the official language, while students studying in minority languages were left behind.

Keywords

right to education COVID-19 minority languages human rights education

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Type: Chapter
Information: Human Rights in the Digital Domain
Core Questions
, pp. 409 - 423

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009606295.027 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025
Creative Commons: This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/cclicenses/

19 Right to Education in Regional or Minority Languages Invasions, COVID-19 Pandemic, and Other Developments

19.1 Introduction

How can we define linguistic rights and their role in human rights protection? According to the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on minority issues: ‘Linguistic rights can be described as a series of obligations on state authorities to either use certain languages in a number of contexts, or not interfere with the linguistic choices and expressions of private parties.’Footnote ¹ Linguistic rights include the right to use one’s language in private and public and not to be discriminated against for it. In respect to education, it is usually the competence of the state to organise this and set up rules for public but also for private schools. The school curricula prescribe the basic values and goals pursued by education and also the language of instruction. Could it be claimed that states have a duty to provide education in the minority languages used by portions of its population?Footnote ²

The protection of the linguistic rights of minorities, including in education varies. We shall compare this protection at the level of the UN and the Council of Europe and look into some more recent developments in international law including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

19.2 UN: A House Much Divided

Linguistic rights are endorsed in a number of international human rights treaties and standards, especially regarding the prohibition of discrimination, the right to freedom of expression, the right to a private life, the right to education, and the right of linguistic minorities to use their own language with others in their group. These treaties and standards are both universal and regional. The most significant contributor at the universal level is, of course, the UN with its many declarations and opinions. In that respect, the most important is the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities, adopted in 1993.Footnote ³ Even though the General Assembly’s declarations are not legally binding, they still have a certain legal authority. According to Article 1 of the Declaration, ‘States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories.’ Consequently, linguistic identity is recognised to be an integral part of the identity of minorities and must be protected. Nevertheless, in Article 4 that speaks about education, provisions for learning and instruction in the mother tongue (para. 3) ‘are qualified and ambiguous’ when it comes to the teaching of or in the minority language.Footnote ⁴

However, perhaps not so surprisingly, today there is still no binding treaty at the UN level on the rights of minorities nor is there a universally accepted definition of minorities other than the famous Article 27 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).Footnote ⁵ Article 27 refers to the duty of state parties ‘not to deny’ minorities some fundamental (collective and individual) human rights. The monitoring body under this treaty – the Human Rights Committee – provided an interpretation of this article as requiring also positive measures ‘to ensure that the existence and the exercise of this right are protected against their denial or violation. Positive measures of protection are, therefore, required….’Footnote ⁶ Positive measures by state parties may also be necessary to protect the identity of a minority and the rights of its members to enjoy and develop their culture and language.Footnote ⁷ The ICCPR does not deal with the right to education but it left this to the complementary International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, also adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966.Footnote ⁸ This treaty recognises the right of everyone to education. Its Article 13 paragraph 4 reserves ‘the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions’, which may be construed (!) as including the right of minorities to run their own schools and teach (in) their own language, especially when read in conjunction with Article 2.2 (non-discrimination clause).Footnote ⁹ State parties are obliged to establish ‘minimum educational standards’ to which all educational institutions established in accordance with Article 13 (3) and (4) are required to conform. UNESCO – a specialised UN agency for education, science and culture – is more specific about the right to have education in one’s own language. The Convention against Discrimination in Education provides for the ‘rights of members of national minorities’ in Article 5.1.c., including the use or the teaching of their own language.Footnote ¹⁰ This right, nevertheless, depends on some requirements:

(i) That this right is not exercised in a manner which prevents the members of these minorities from understanding the culture and language of the community as a whole and from participating in its activities, or which prejudices national sovereignty; (ii) That the standard of education is not lower than the general standard laid down or approved by the competent authorities; and (iii) That attendance at such schools is optional.Footnote ¹¹

In this context, it is also necessary to look into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted in 1998 and in force in an extraordinary number of 196 states.Footnote ¹² Article 30 of the CRC, following Articles 28 and 29 on education, follows the formulation of Article 27 of the ICCPR so children belonging to a minority ‘shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language’.

Finally, among other relevant UN instruments, we have to mention the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1966 (CERD).Footnote ¹³ This refers to ‘the right to education and training’ as among the rights to be protected against discrimination (Art. 5 (e)v).Footnote ¹⁴

CERD provides for the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and it was used by Ukraine to bring a case against the Russian Federation concerning, among other issues, education in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages on the occupied territory of Crimea.Footnote ¹⁵ Ukraine alleged that the measures taken by the Russian Federation in education since the invasion in 2014 led to a dramatic decline in accessibility and quality of education in these two languages. The Court started from the premise that:

even if Article 5 (e) (v) of CERD does not include a general right to school education in a minority language, the prohibition of racial discrimination under Article 2, paragraph 1 (a), of CERD and the right to education under Article 5 (e) (v), may, under certain circumstances, set limits to changes in the provision of school education in the language of a national or ethnic minority. (para. 354)

The Court then considered that:

Language is often an essential social bond among the members of an ethnic group. Restrictive measures taken by a State party with respect to the use of language may therefore in certain situations manifest a ‘distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on … descent, or national or ethnic origin’ within the meaning of Article 1, paragraph 1, of CERD. (para. 355)

Recognising the right of every state to decide on the primary language of instruction in its public schools, the Court warns against a discriminatory adverse effect of such decisions so ‘as to make it unreasonably difficult for members of a national or ethnic group to ensure that their children, as part of their general right to education, do not suffer from unduly burdensome discontinuities in their primary language of instruction’ (para. 357). Finally, the Court established that there was an 80 per cent decline in the accessibility of education in Ukrainian during the first year after 2014 and a further decline of 50 per cent by the following year.Footnote ¹⁶ The Russian Federation was not able to provide convincing reasons for such a decline, so the Court concluded that it violated the relevant articles of CERD.Footnote ¹⁷

In conclusion, it seems that there has been certain progress at the level of the UN in recognising education for members of linguistic minorities. However, the majority of the analysed instruments either limits its scope to the non-discrimination obligation or imposes certain limitations and requirements on such education.Footnote ¹⁸

19.3 Council of Europe: General Human Rights versus Special Treaties

The protection of national minorities and their languages is among the core activities of the Council of Europe as part of the protection and promotion of human rights. Today, the Council of Europe has forty-six Member States after expelling the Russian Federation in March 2022 owing to its aggression against and invasion of Ukraine.Footnote ¹⁹ All forty-six Member States are bound by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Council’s flagship treaty, and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).Footnote ²⁰ However, the Convention has a somewhat limited scope with regard to minorities’ rights and freedoms.Footnote ²¹

Post-Second World War Europe has been a champion in many aspects of the protection and promotion of human rights. Case in point, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) was already adopted in 1950, only two years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights by the General Assembly of the UN.Footnote ²² Nevertheless, the ECHR and consequently the case law of the ECtHR has limited application in the field of the protection of minority rights and education in minority languages.

The right to education is protected by Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. In 1968, the ECtHR ruled in the Belgian Linguistic case that states have no obligation to ensure education in one’s own language.Footnote ²³ The right to education implied the right to be educated in the national language (in public schools).

This firm position was seemingly challenged in the interstate case between Cyprus and Turkey before the Grand Chamber in 2001.Footnote ²⁴ The case concerned Greek-language education in the occupied part of Cyprus where the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was in power. Primary education was available but if children wanted ‘to pursue a secondary education through the medium of the Greek language’ they were obliged to transfer to schools in the south or to continue education at a Turkish or English-language school in the north. The Court admits that:

In the strict sense, accordingly, there is no denial of the right to education, which is the primary obligation devolving on a Contracting Party under the first sentence of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1. Moreover, this provision does not specify the language in which education must be conducted in order that the right to education be respected (see the above-mentioned Belgian linguistic judgment, pp. 30–31, § 3).Footnote ²⁵

However, and here comes the twist:

the option available to Greek-Cypriot parents to continue their children’s education in the north is unrealistic in view of the fact that the children in question have already received their primary education in a Greek-Cypriot school there. The authorities must no doubt be aware that it is the wish of Greek-Cypriot parents that the schooling of their children be completed through the medium of the Greek language… [T]he failure of the “TRNC” authorities to make continuing provision for it at the secondary-school level must be considered in effect to be a denial of the substance of the right at issue. (para. 278)

Finally, the Court concluded ‘that there has been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 in respect of Greek Cypriots living in Northern Cyprus in so far as no appropriate secondary-school facilities were available to them’ (para. 280).

More recently, the ECtHR adopted two judgments concerning schools in a minority language (Russian) in Latvia. Both cases concerned legislative amendments from 2018 increasing the proportion of subjects to be taught in the state language (Latvian) in public and private schools, so the use of Russian as the language of instruction was consequently being reduced.

The first case, Valiullina and Others v. Latvia,Footnote ²⁶ concerned the use of Latvian in public schools. The Court returned to its conclusions reached in the Belgian Linguistic case that Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 does not include the linguistic preferences of the parents and explained that this judgment, as well as the one in the Cyprus v. Turkey case, and some others, dealt with education in (one of) the national language(s).Footnote ²⁷ Accordingly, ‘the right enshrined by Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 does not include the right to access education in a particular language; it guarantees the right to education in one of the national languages or, in other words, official languages of the country concerned’ (para. 135).

In Džibuti and Others v. Latvia,Footnote ²⁸ the Court examined the complaints by Russian speakers concerning the effect of the same 2018 legislation reform with respect to private schools. Prior to the reform, education in the state language had been mandatory only in public schools, but the authorities claimed that private schools form part of the state education system and should therefore respect the need to have a certain proportion of classes in the national language.Footnote ²⁹ The Court would not accept that Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 covers education in minority languages and concluded that the claim must be rejected as incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention.

In both Latvian cases, the Court also dismissed allegations of discrimination and concluded that there was no violation of Article 14 taken together with Article 2 of Protocol No. 1.Footnote ³⁰ Furthermore, the applicants tried to rely on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM).Footnote ³¹ This convention refers to education in several articles, but the Court ‘emphasized that the principle of instruction in one’s mother tongue, which the applicants referred to, is far from being the rule among the Member States of the Council of Europe’.Footnote ³² Ironically, this conclusion was extended with praise for Latvia for ensuring the protection of minority rights in their Constitution.Footnote ³³

Almost simultaneously, in October 2023, the Advisory Committee (AC) of the FCNM adopted their fourth monitoring report on Latvia. The AC adopted a very stark warning about the second education reform legislation following the one from 2018 adopted in 2022 that:

will result in the phasing out of teaching in minority languages in most public and private preschools, schools and universities by 2025. [T]he termination of teaching in Belarusian and Russian will affect about 20% of all children of schooling age. With plans also underway to discontinue the teaching of Russian as a foreign language, the offer will be reduced to extracurricular courses of language and culture. Should all these measures be implemented as planned, Latvia’s system of minority education will no longer comply with the Framework Convention’s provisions regarding equal access to education, the right to set up private minority educational establishments, and the right to being taught the minority language or for receiving instruction in this language.Footnote ³⁴

With these two judgments, the Court further confirmed that the ECHR has very limited application concerning minority rights and that their protection is better ensured through the treaties especially dedicated to the protection of minorities, namely, the FCNM and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML).Footnote ³⁵ However, these treaties apply only to state parties. So far, the Court has refused to apply some of their principles as customary law or general principles of international law extending their application beyond state parties.Footnote ³⁶

The ECRML has not been invoked in these two cases, since Latvia is not a state party to it. In general, the ECRML is hardly ever discussed by the Court. In one of the more recent cases, the Court simply established that the ECRML expressly recognises that the protection and encouragement of minority languages should not be to the detriment of official languages and the need to learn them.Footnote ³⁷

Nevertheless, the two treaties of the Council of Europe dealing specifically with national minorities (FCNM and ECRML), in force since 1998, have their own peculiarities. The former has thirty-eight state parties,Footnote ³⁸ and the latter only twenty-five. They both have specific monitoring mechanisms that include the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The Framework Convention monitoring body is the AC and the Charter has the Committee of Experts.Footnote ³⁹ The system is based on recommendations by all three bodies. Both special instruments of the Council of Europe dedicated to the protection of national minorities provide for the need and indeed the obligation to offer education in minority languages. The state parties of the Framework Convention ‘undertake to promote equal opportunities for access to education at all levels for persons belonging to national minorities’ (Art. 12.3). The Charter is even more precise as one of its objectives includes ‘the provision of appropriate forms and means for the teaching and study of regional or minority languages at all appropriate levels’ (Art. 7.1.f). In addition, state parties may choose to provide education at all levels or a substantial part in the selected languages. Finally, the last option is to provide for the teaching of the relevant regional or minority languages (Art. 8).Footnote ⁴⁰

19.4 COVID-19 Pandemic and Education

During the COVID-19 pandemic, both monitoring mechanisms issued statements and recommendations to state parties that were also valid for a wider circle of states. The statements identified and focused on specific problems that minorities faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and that the majority population was not. Furthermore, as part of their monitoring processes, both bodies now routinely ask questions about the measures taken during the pandemic that affected the national minorities and the use of their languages.

In addition, a newly established intergovernmental body within the Council of Europe called the Committee on Anti-discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI) specifically carried out an investigation to shed light on this worrying problem.Footnote ⁴¹ It seems that education in minority languages has been most affected.

From the start of the pandemic, the Committee of Experts as the monitoring body included the question of the measures taken during COVID-19. The pandemic had a terrible impact on all aspects of our lives – social, mental, financial, political, educational, and, of course, it affected our health. It was often heard that the virus does not discriminate; that we are all in it together. Nevertheless, research shows that this is not necessarily true and that there are some social groups that were more affected than others.

These social groups may be called vulnerable, and they represent different kinds of minority populations – mostly ethnic, racial, national, or sexual minorities. Evidence shows that these groups suffered the consequences of the pandemic disproportionally to their share in the population. The consequences ranged from a lack of access to sanitary information and vaccines to exposure to hate speech and physical violence. The latter especially affected LGBTQI people but also Asian-looking people at the beginning of the pandemic, as they were perceived as responsible for the virus. Roma and travellers also suffered from hate speech, and a trend known as anti-gypsism was exacerbated during this period.

These trends were confirmed, for example, by the European Network of Equality Bodies (EQUINET) and ombudsmen across Europe. They noted increases in xenophobia and racism against pretty much every minority group. The people responsible for leadership – politicians at different levels – were marked as those who often incited hate speech and discrimination.Footnote ⁴²

The usual targets, at least in Europe, where such trends are concerned are the Roma, a community that were already marginalised and discriminated against even before the start of the pandemic. According to a study by the Council of Europe for the CDADI,Footnote ⁴³ in addition to general measures that affected the general population, Roma were targeted by some measures directly discriminating against them. For example, in Bulgaria and Slovakia there were militarised quarantines imposed on Roma settlements as, allegedly, they were the people who would not respect the sanitary restrictions. In Bulgaria, they were even using drones with thermal sensors to take the temperature of the residents of these settlements and to monitor their movements.

Restrictions on free movement during the pandemic affected the Roma also in a more indirect form. Their way of life and making a living often includes travelling and collecting materials for sale. That was obviously not possible during the lockdowns, but they were not entitled to financial assistance for losing their jobs because, technically, they did not lose their jobs as they did not have jobs to lose. A real Catch-22.

Finally, there is data in many states that minorities, including the Roma, suffered more infections and COVID-19 related illnesses. Namely, belonging to a minority ethnic group was an additional health risk factor. As far as the Roma were concerned, most of them did not have any health insurance and were not entitled to free health services, so many stayed away from hospitals for as long as they could.

Let us think back to those first few weeks of the pandemic. We were receiving hourly and daily information and instructions on how to behave and what measures we had to take to stay safe. How much of it was given in minority languages, in real time? According to research carried out by the Committee of Experts for regional or minority languages, which I am a member of, many states failed to provide early information in regional or minority languages. Put that in the context of the non-available sanitary facilities in Roma settlements, for example, then add the lack of sanitary material such as disinfectants or facial masks together with big families living together in small houses, and the result was quite devastating for these communities. In the early days of the pandemic, in March 2020, the Committee of Experts warned about the need to use regional or minority languages in providing information to the population about the sanitary measures required to prevent the spread of the disease.Footnote ⁴⁴ In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, people were confused and scared and the lack of proper information made it even worse. The Committee of Experts invited states to take language-related issues into account when developing further policies and instructions to address this exceptional medical crisis. In its view, the authorities should not forget that national minorities are an integral part of their societies, and in order for the measures adopted to have full effect, they should be made available and easily accessible to the whole population.

It is very common to say – well, they all speak the official language. However, this is not always true. There are parts of societies in some countries where a minority language is so dominant that many people do not master the official language of the state. This is especially the case with the Roma, whose social isolation also results in poor language skills in the official language.

A positive example in this context comes from Croatia, where the Institute for Public Health published sanitary instructions in Romani on their webpage in April 2020 along with other minority languages.Footnote ⁴⁵ There are, however, at least two problems with this commendable example: (a) How many Roma had access to the internet? (b) Romani is not the only language spoken by Roma in Croatia, as the majority speaks Boyash Romanian, a completely different language. However, the Red Cross organisation in one of the counties where the Roma community in Croatia lives distributed sanitary packages with instructions in Croatian and Boyash.Footnote ⁴⁶

As far as education is concerned, at the start of the pandemic the first measure across the world was the lockdown affecting all aspects of public life, including schools at all levels of education. According to UNESCO data, 1.6 billion learners were affected by school closures in more than 190 countries.Footnote ⁴⁷ Therefore, realising the importance of education, one of the first measures undertaken by public authorities to counter the lockdown and the closing of schools was the shift to online education and/or TV classes.Footnote ⁴⁸ This was a quick fix for an unprecedented situation.Footnote ⁴⁹ However, the Committee of Experts realised the downsides of online education that quickly became a dominant model of education with respect to regional or minority languages. Many states took care of the education in the majority official language only, neglecting sometimes the needs of the speakers of regional or minority languages to also access quality education. The Committee of Experts made a public statement in July 2020 highlighting this potentially discriminatory treatment.Footnote ⁵⁰ In addition, and bearing in mind the insufficient availability of teaching materials in regional or minority languages noticed during several monitoring cycles in many states, the Committee of Experts encouraged public financing of the development of quality open access textbooks in all languages protected under the Charter. Such textbooks, registered under open licences, should be made accessible online for the use of pupils, students, teachers, and the larger public. This was done for the majority languages, so the same standard was necessary also for regional or minority languages.

In view of the AC under the Framework Convention, the suspension of classes in schools and pre-school education during the COVID-19 pandemic has regrettably often resulted in unequal access to education and discrimination of children belonging to national minorities, particularly those who were not proficient enough in the official languages to be provided with appropriate educational content. As a result, children of national minorities were at risk of learning delays and dropping out.Footnote ⁵¹

Although some of these inequalities were justified by the sudden onset of the pandemic and the need to deal with such an unforeseen public health situation, it is still not acceptable to treat members of ethnic or national and linguistic minorities as second-class citizens. Furthermore, it is also clear that some aspects of COVID-19-style education will remain, and it is therefore important to be aware of the needs of the members of national and linguistic minorities.

Let us pause here for another best practice example from Croatia. The Ministry of Education realised the problem of Roma children’s inability to follow classes online or on television. The classes were in Croatian since Croatia did not provide for education in Romani or Boyash. In fact, the school authorities are obliged to give Roma children enhanced teaching of Croatian to improve their language skills so that they can follow classes in Croatian.Footnote ⁵² Living in settlements meant that the vast majority of children had no access to the internet; television sets, if available, were not at the disposal of the children or, even more often, had to be shared by many children in the household. The Ministry of Science and Education provided tablets and vouchers for the internet for all children who could not afford it otherwise in order to be able to follow the online classes. Most of them were Roma. However, some comments suggested that there was no real control or assistance for these families so the vouchers were often misused. Almost 60 per cent of Roma pupils barely participated in online education. Among the reasons given, lack of support by the family and inadequate conditions at home were predominant, but lack of tablets or no access to the internet were high on the list.Footnote ⁵³ It is clear that the consequences will be difficult to remedy since Roma children have a very high drop-out rate from school even at the best of times.Footnote ⁵⁴

In Slovakia, on 28 April 2020, the Ministry of Education issued the first guidelines on the content and organisation of education for primary school pupils during that time and released material by the State Pedagogical Institute entitled ‘Content of education at primary schools during the extraordinary interruption of teaching at schools’ including minority languages: German, Hungarian, Romani, Russian, Ruthenian, and Ukrainian. However, the Committee of Experts noted that, as in other state parties, there were significantly more alternative audiovisual education materials available in the official language from official and unofficial sources.Footnote ⁵⁵

In the UK, the authorities undertook a number of measures considering the needs of regional or minority languages, in particular when it was the remit of regional authorities.Footnote ⁵⁶ The Welsh Government has taken measures in education by ensuring that children and parents/carers received support during school closures and their reopening. The Scottish Government, through Bòrd na Gàidhlig, also provided funding for resources to help students with distance learning in Scottish Gaelic during the closure of schools. Many resources have been produced to help with distance learning. Additionally, the BBC published resources for ‘lockdown learning’ in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh.

In Austria, a study was carried out on the perception of a possible decrease in knowledge of the languages of instruction (Slovene and German) in three minority secondary schools in Carinthia. After the overnight shift to online teaching, one favourable fact was that the majority of pupils were from economically solid backgrounds and were able to follow online lessons. Nevertheless, there seems to be a decline in knowledge of both languages in monolingual speakers owing to a lack of contact with the languages at school.Footnote ⁵⁷

19.5 Conclusions

The right to education in minority languages has been challenged recently in the proceedings of several international courts with not so satisfying results for minority language speakers. The arguments accepted by the courts were limited to non-discrimination. However, wider arguments should have been propagated in favour of the protection and promotion of minority languages in education. While not every language can be catered for in the school system, states should be persuaded that they have more positive obligations to preserve and promote languages spoken by parts of their population.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown just how easy it is to fall into discriminatory patterns in the treatment of minorities and how easy it is to find excuses for this. Instead, the authorities should always keep in mind their responsibility to manage social trends and correct those with negative potential.

Council of Europe treaties specifically dedicated to the protection of minorities and their languages, in particular the ECRML, seem to be better suited to promoting a different approach to education at least for their state parties. It makes sense, therefore, to promote their ratification even more.

In the words of the former UN Special Rapporteur Mr de Varennes:

Minority language education is more of an asset than it is a liability when understood and applied properly. It is not a right which is applicable in every situation where one individual simply demands it. It is rather a result which is consistent with the values of respect for diversity, tolerance and accommodation – rather than rejection – of differences which have become cornerstones of most democratic societies.Footnote ⁵⁸

Footnotes

¹ UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Language Rights of Linguistic Minorities – A Practical Guide for Implementation (Geneva: OHCHR, 2017), p. 5.

² De Varennes claims that at least with respect to private schools ‘there is widespread recognition of this right in legal and political documents, despite some differences in the way it is formulated’. F. de Varennes, The Right to Education and Minority Language (2004), www.researchgate.net/publication/242595391_The_right_to_education_and_minority_language.

³ Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities, GA res. 47/135, annex, 47 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49), 210.

⁴ P. Thornberry and M.A.M. Estébanez, Minority Rights in Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2004), p. 15. The relevant provision reads: ‘States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.’

⁵ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171. De Varennes and Kuzborska observe: ‘Oddly, UN documents, with the exception of the recent 2017 UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues’ Language Rights of Linguistic Minorities: A Practical Guide for Implementation, had never fully explored or explicated this rather fundamental dimension of language rights.’ F. de Varennes and E. Kuzborska, ‘Minority language rights and standards: definitions and applications at the supranational level’, in G. Hogan-Brun and B. O’Rourke (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 21−72, at 40.

⁶ Human Rights Committee, General comment No. 23(50) (art. 27), CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5.

⁷ Footnote Ibid.

⁸ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16 December 1966, 993 UNTS 3.

⁹ However, there is no specific mentioning of the word ‘language’ even in the commentary made by the Committee for ESCR. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General comment No. 13: The right to education (Art. 13). (Report No. E/C.12/1999/10). The opposite claim is made in: Z. Bayat, R, Kircher, and H. Van de Velde, ‘Minority language rights to education in international, regional, and domestic regulations and practices: the case of Frisian in the Netherlands’ (2023) 24 Current Issues in Language Planning 1, 81–101.

¹⁰ UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education, 14 December 1960, 429 UNTS 93.

¹¹ See also comparison in UNESCO, UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960) and Articles 13 and 14 (Right to Education) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Comparative Analysis (Paris: UNESCO, 2006).

¹² UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989, G.A. res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49). Only the US has not ratified this convention. https://indicators.ohchr.org/.

¹³ International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 7 March 1996, 660 UNTS 195.

¹⁴ P. Thornberry, ‘Article 12. Education’, in M. Weller (ed.), The Rights of Minorities in Europe: A Commentary on the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 397–412.

¹⁵ Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation), ICJ Judgment of 31 January 2024, available at: www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/166/166-20240131-jud-01-00-en.pdf.

¹⁶ The claim regarding education in the Crimean Tatar language concerned the quality of such education. The Court concluded that such a claim is not covered by CERD.

¹⁷ The provision of Ukrainian language education was still available, so the ICJ rejected the claims that the Russian Federation violated the Court’s Order of 19 April 2017 requiring the Russian Federation to ensure that education in the Ukrainian language remains ‘available’.

¹⁸ De Varennes and Kuzborska observe: ‘The prevailing consensus would seem to indicate that while currently human rights do not require the funding of private minority schools unless there is a situation which might be discriminatory, authorities must not prevent the establishment of such schools’ (De Varennes and Kuzborska, ‘Minority language rights and standards’, p. 44). Similarly, M. Paz, ‘The failed promise of language rights: a critique of the international language rights regime’ (2013) 54 Harvard International Law Journal 1, 157–218.

¹⁹ Committee of Ministers Resolution CM/Res(2022)2 on the cessation of the membership of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe (Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 16 March 2022 at the 1,428th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies), available at: https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=0900001680a5da51.

²⁰ Complete information available at the Court’s web page, www.echr.coe.int/.

²¹ Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, Selection of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights relevant for the protection of national minorities, www.coe.int/en/web/minorities/judgments-of-the-european-court-of-human-rights.

²² Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948, GA res. 217 A.

²³ Case ‘Relating to certain aspects of the laws on the use of languages in education in Belgium’ v. Belgium, Application no 1474/62 et al., Judgment of 23 July 1968. The case concerned a specific linguistic situation in Belgium where three languages enjoy official status. According to the national legislation, the language of education shall be Dutch in the Dutch-speaking region, French in the French-speaking region, and German in the German-speaking region. However, in some Dutch-speaking districts there were schools open to French speaking children, depending solely on their residence. The Court concluded, with a very small margin of eight to seven judges, that such practice was discriminatory.

²⁴ Cyprus v. Turkey [GC], Application no. 25781/94, Judgment of 10 May 2001.

²⁵ Footnote Ibid., para. 277. Cyprus has two national languages in the government-controlled area – Greek and Turkish.

²⁶ Valiullina and Others v. Latvia, Applications nos. 56928/19, 7306/20 and 11937/20, Judgment of 14 September 2023.

²⁷ E.g., in Catan and Others v. the Republic of Moldova and Russia [GC], Application no. 43370/04, 8252/05 and 18454/06, Judgment of 19 October 2012.

²⁸ Džibuti and Others v. Latvia, Application no. 225/20 and 2 others, Judgment of 16 November 2023. At the time, the number of private schools in Latvia was insignificant and they mainly operated in Latvian (out of fifty-eight private schools active in 2018/2019, only eleven were teaching in Russian and eighteen were teaching only in Latvian). S. Ganty and D. V. Kochenov, ‘Hijacking human rights to enable punishment by association: Valiullina, Džibuti and outlawing minority schooling in Latvia’, 23 November 2023, Strasbourg Observers, https://strasbourgobservers.com/2023/11/23/hijacking-human-rights-to-enable-punishment-by-association-valiullina-dzibuti-and-outlawing-minority-schooling-in-latvia/.

²⁹ The authorities did not dispute the right to start and run a private school, but submitted that such an educational establishment had to comply with the requirements set by domestic law, which, in the present case, also included requirements as to how much the state language should be used in education (paragraph 86). According to the reform, Latvian should be used for 50 per cent in lower grades up to 100 per cent in final grades, with the exception of subjects related to the minority language, culture and identity, and, obviously, foreign languages.

³⁰ Article 14 of the Convention connects allegations of discrimination with other articles of the Convention and relevant protocols. It requires that all of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention must be protected and applied without discrimination. Discrimination occurs when a person is treated less favourably than another person in a similar situation and this treatment cannot be objectively and reasonably justified.

³¹ Latvia is a state party since 2005.

³² The applicants further relied on Article 13 of the FCNM that speaks of the right ‘to set up and to manage their own private educational and training establishments’. However, the Court emphasised that ‘the Framework Convention does not provide for an obligation to finance private schools (see Article 13 § 2 of the Framework Convention)’ and concluded ‘that no positive obligation for the States to subsidise private schools arises from the Convention or its Protocols’ (Džibuti v. Latvia, para. 145).

³³ The concept of ‘constitutional identity’ was already accepted in the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Savickis and Others v. Latvia [GC], Application no. 49270/11, Judgment of 9 June 2022.

³⁴ Advisory Committee on the FCNM, ‘Fourth opinion on Latvia’, 9 October 2023, ACFC/OP/IV(2023)1, https://rm.coe.int/4th-op-latvia-en/1680ae98f6.

³⁵ Council of Europe, National Minorities, ‘The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities’, www.coe.int/en/web/minorities/home.; Council of Europe, ‘European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages’, www.coe.int/en/web/european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/home.

³⁶ In the Chapman case, the Court observed

that there may be said to be an emerging international consensus amongst the Contracting States of the Council of Europe recognising the special needs of minorities and an obligation to protect their security, identity and lifestyle […] However, the Court is not persuaded that the consensus is sufficiently concrete for it to derive any guidance as to the conduct or standards which Contracting States consider desirable in any particular situation. The Framework Convention, for example, sets out general principles and goals but the signatory States were unable to agree on means of implementation. This reinforces the Court’s view that the complexity and sensitivity of the issues involved in policies balancing the interests of the general population, in particular with regard to environmental protection, and the interests of a minority with possibly conflicting requirements renders the Court’s role a strictly supervisory one.

Chapman v. UK [GC], Application no. 27238/95, Judgment of 18 January 2001, para. 94.

³⁷ Ádám and others v. Romania, Applications nos. 81114/17 and 5 others, Judgment of 13 October 2020.

³⁸ The Russian Federation remained a state party after being expelled from the Council of Europe, but denounced it in 2024. The withdrawal took effect on 1 August 2024.

³⁹ For complete information about their results, visit the web pages noted in Footnote footnote 35.

⁴⁰ Description of the ECRML can be found in V. Crnić-Grotić and A Oszmiańska-Pagett, ‘The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: its origins, structure, and process’ (2022), Linguistic Minorities in Europe Online, www.degruyter.com/database/LME/entry/lme.16303552/html.

⁴¹ Council of Europe, Steering Committee on Anti-discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI), ‘National minorities’, www.coe.int/en/web/committee-antidiscrimination-diversity-inclusion/national-minorities.

⁴² EQUINET, ‘Recommendation for a fair and equal Europe: rebuilding our societies after Covid-19’ (2020), https://equineteurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/equinet_rebuilding-recommendation_A4_03-web.pdf.

⁴³ S. C. Marsal, C. Ahlund, and R. Wilson for CDADI, COVID-19: An Analysis of the Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion Dimensions in Council of Europe Member States (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2020).

⁴⁴ Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ‘Communication in RMLs of utmost importance in global medical crises’ (2020), https://go.coe.int/siybY.

⁴⁵ Institute for Public Health, ‘Preporuke za pripadnike romske nacionalne manjine [COVID-19]’ (2020), https://stampar.hr/hr/novosti/preporuke-za-pripadnike-romske-nacionalne-manjine-covid-19.

⁴⁶ Footnote Ibid. The Boyash Romanian language is spoken by 80 per cent of Roma in Croatia according to some data. F. Radonić Mayr, ‘Bajaški i/ili ćhib, pitanje je sad…’ (2021), https://h-alter.org/kultura/tko-je-romski-jezik/.

⁴⁷ The closures also had long-term effects. Some gains already made towards the goals of the 2030 Education Agenda were lost: UNESCO, ‘UNESCO’s education response to COVID-19’ (2023), www.unesco.org/en/covid-19/education-response/initiatives. In particular, girls were affected even more by the consequences: UNESCO, ‘When schools shut: gendered impacts of COVID-19 school closures’ (2021), https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379270.

⁴⁸ Online teaching is a well-known concept, but in this case it was ‘emergency online teaching’. Therefore, there was no time or capacity to fully prepare the technical and human resources for such a sudden switch. UNESCO, ‘Distance learning strategies in response to COVID-19 school closures’ (2020), https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373305.

⁴⁹ Soon, however, concerns were raised about the shortcomings of this approach and the negative effects on the mental health of the children in addition to economic inequalities. Z. Blaskó and S. Schnepf, ‘Educational inequalities in Europe and physical school closures during Covid-19’ (2020), European Commission Joint Research Centre, https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/publication/educational-inequalities-europe-physical-school-closures-during-covid-19_en.

⁵⁰ Council of Europe, European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ‘COMEX statement on RMLs in online education in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic’, 3 July 2020, https://go.coe.int/z7aut.

⁵¹ Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, ‘Statement on the COVID-19 pandemic and national minorities’, 28 May 2020, https://rm.coe.int/acfc-statement-covid-19-and-national-minorities-28-05-2020-final-en/16809e8570.

⁵² Compare the case of Oršuš and Others v. Croatia [GC], Application no. 15766/03, Judgment of 16 March 2010.

⁵³ Reyn Hrvatska, ‘Djeca Romi koja su nastavom na daljinu ostala na obrazovnoj distanci’, 23 April 2020, www.reyn-hrvatska.net/index.php/2020/04/23/djeca-romi-koja-su-nastavom-na-daljinu-ostala-na-obrazovnoj-distanci/.

⁵⁴ UNICEF Moldova, ‘Roma children – inclusion and reintegration of Roma children into the education system’, www.unicef.org/moldova/en/what-we-do/roma-children.

⁵⁵ Evaluation on the recommendations for immediate action from the fifth evaluation report on the Slovak Republic, 22 March 2021, https://hudoc.ecrml.coe.int/?i=SK-5th-ERIA-CM-2021-61E-0.

⁵⁶ Evaluation on the recommendations for immediate action from the fifth evaluation report on the United Kingdom, 22 March 2021, https://hudoc.ecrml.coe.int/?i=UK-5th-ERIA-CM-2021-60E-0.

⁵⁷ S. Zorčič, ‘Dimensions of remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic in minority language schools (the case of Austrian Carinthia)’ (2020) 85 Treatises and Documents, Journal of Ethnic Studies 85, 223–52.

⁵⁸ De Varennes, The Right to Education and Minority Language.

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