European continent is a mosaic of ethnic groups, cultures, languages, and religion. In the European states, national and ethnic minorities are considered to be citizens of those states who have been living on the territory of a state and sharing a common culture, identity, language and religion whereby they have managed to preserve their identity. European minorities cane into being as a consequence of a migration, of a re-drawing of international borders or as a result of long-term presence of a minority population in some area.

The aim of this course is to transfer to law students sociological, politological and legal concepts related to ethnicity and ethnic diversity. At its outset, the course will provide law students with the understanding of principal sociological concepts: the concept of ethnic group, ethnicity, race, cultural diversity, stereotypes, prejudice, social distance, inequality, racism, segregation, models of ethnic coexistence, integration measures, equality data, etc. The course will in addition offer an insight into a current theorizing on citizenship, the right to identity and substantive equality.

The course will introduce to law students an up-to-date account of the relevant international legal standards for protection of the rights of national minorities and the developments in supervisory practice of monitoring bodies. The course will therefore analyse the measures envisaged to protect national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities in European countries, particularly those developed under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe and the European Union, international organizations that have been continuously committed to a peaceful European order. Their efforts have resulted in developing numerous instruments that prescribe rights of national minorities. Apart from the Council of Europe’s legally binding instruments developed to protect and promote rights of national minorities and to protect and preserve regional and minority languages in Europe, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities thematic Recommendations and Guidelines developed to address ethnic tensions and to prevent hostilities over national minority issues will be thoroughly examined.

Apart from being guaranteed by numerous multilateral and bilateral international agreements, the rights of persons belonging to minorities are enshrined in the constitutional systems of majority of the European countries. Some of the European states have managed to devise power-sharing arrangements that made possible peaceful coexistence of various ethnic groups, and this course will comparatively analyse the adequacy of minority accommodation in different political systems.

The course will in addition equip students with understanding of the equal treatment legislation developed within the European Union and the pre-accession conditionality that requires candidate countries the fulfilment of minority protection.

A special focus will be devoted to the importance of equality data collection, i.e. the data collected with regard to age, ethnic or racial origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, religion or belief and multiple grounds, for the effective implementation of minority and antidiscrimination legislation.

In addition to standard teaching methods (lecturing and in-class discussions), peer-to-peer learning will be enabled and encouraged throughout the course lecturing.